Ever since I moved to the USA, I have been annoyed with people who don’t pronounce certain words correctly. Here is my running list. Feel free to add. Here’s some more: http://www.alphadictionary.com/articles/mispronounced_words.html
“I would like a shot of X-Presso, please.” — It’s actually Espresso. See, no X.
“Mommy, would you pwease make me a pweenutbutter Sammich?” — This is not even close to Sandwich. And I don’t care if it’s some Southern slang, I could not find it in the Oxford dictionary.
“I’m playing Badmitten because tennis balls scare me.” — Dang that mitten is a bad one. Umm, no. Its Badminton.
“I need to Axe you a question.” — Ask!!! If I had an axe for every time someone confuses a word made of 3 whole letters…
“In Canadia, people live in igloos.” — There is no ‘i’ in Canada. Ask me how I am pretty darn sure about this fact.
“It’s none of your damn bidness, man!” — Business. We aren’t bidding here.
“Dubya is a dumb ass.” — ‘W’ is actually pronounced ‘double U’. Shocking, I know.
I will admit something…I didn’t know that Klu Klux Klan is actually Ku Klux Klan. I’ll be sure to evangelize that one around.
Filed under: annoyed, life, annoyed, grammar, mispronunce, speech, spelling
Tara Tiger Brown 
The “ask”/”axe” one is the one that drives me most crazy.
“Can I axe you something?” Umm… no. But you can ask me something.
They don’t get it but I feel better in saying it. LOL
What about the trendy/lazy use of the work “ask” instead of “request”. I hate it when people say “We made one ask” instead of “We made one request.” BAH!
‘dubya’ is a nickname that the Bush Family gave to George W Bush (as opposed to his father, George HW Bush).
Don’t forget Eye-raq and Eye-ran…..
I sez “Sannich” instead of “Sammich” cuz that’s how I roll.
Hilarious!
My favorite one here is ‘ascent’ for ‘accent’ (akcent)
Chaitanya
http://www.p2w2.com/blog
Ku Klux was originally pronounced “Q” Klux, like the letter. From the Greek for “circle.” Learn something new every day.
I’ve debating to myself whether GNER trains spell it Expresso as a bad pun on trains or it is actually a spelling error.
Let me just add the common Anglifications of the Japanese words “karaoke” and “harakiri.” They’re pronounced like they’re spelled. No need to swap out the vowels for completely random ones. There are no “i”s in “karaoke.”
I also find amusing people who make a point of ostentatiously ignoring the standard English pronunciation of “Copenhagen,” instead calling it “co-pen-hah-gen.” Using the German rather than the Danish pronunciation tends to undermine the “sophisticated world traveler” image.
Ironically, pronouncing “ask” as “axe” was standard long before most of our “correct” pronunciations, dating back to the Middle Ages. (See Chaucer.) It isn’t “wrong” so much as archaic.
To be fair, as much as I, too, like to get annoyed by misspellings and pronunciations, there technically isn’t any such thing as a “wrong” spelling or pronunciation, there are only “non-standard” ones. Most of us don’t use the “RP” (received pronunciation). Class and race issues come into play in determining what is “standard.” “Won’t” and “ain’t” were both considered vulgar and unacceptable “non-words;” despite the fact that “ain’t” has been in common use far longer, “won’t” became standard due to its use by the upper classes. It’s not a coincidence that the oft-derided “axe” is primarily an African-American pronunciation. As for many of the words listed above, I wouldn’t be surprised if many became standard pronunciations- they follow the practice of ignoring letters in the middle of words and shifting consonants. (If you don’t believe me, just ask any nite, er, knight.)
I am baffled by “Canadia” though- never heard that one. Is that pronounced “can-ai-dia” or is it “can-ah-dia”? That’s strange… I guess it must be Americans who get used to removing the “n” from the name of the citizenry to get the name of their country. I guess we should expect to hear “Iran” turned into “eye-rania” soon.
How about Sarah Palin and “Nuc-ler”
and you got to love the “Flordin” view of the beach!
I have a whole lot of hate for “Could care less”, should be “Couldn’t care less”.
Also Americans use “insure” rather than “ensure” vs “insure”. “Ensure” means I want something to happen, “Insure” means I don’t but at least have a contingency plan. They are very different things and you cannot use the same word to describe both.
Technically, “Dubya” IS slang for “dumb-ass.”
Axe me how I know.
I don’t know which part if the USA you’ve selected to call home, but I’m guessing that you’re not in the Souff since you didn’t mention my two favorites: Eye-talians and Poe-leece.
There’s a road in Atlanta commonly pronounced “Pawnce de Lee-on,” and Houston Georgia is pronounced House-ton by the locals.
Lake Allatoona mysteriously loses the second “a” and becomes Lake Al-tuna.
Fun post!
Thanks for the food for thought!
~Lee
I also like people who entitle their stories rather than title them.
~Lee
How about “happified”? I hate it when people use that bastardized whatever it is. It must be a dumb American thing. (Note that I placed the question mark outside the quotation mark so as to not offend your Euro sensibilities.
I’m from LA but I live in London now.
You should hear English people try to order some food in a Mexican restuarant.
‘can I have some FAH-GEE-TUHS and a TACK-OH please’
God, it’s annoying.
Sometimes people from South East England tend to say PACIFIC…rather than SPECIFIC.
But then I’m sure my pronunciation has irked more than a few Brits as well. Lets take the word BASIL for example. I say BAY-ZLE. Apparently, according to English people you are supposed to say BA-(as in bath)-ZLE.
My husband, who is 44 years old and isn’t stupid, still insists on saying SKETTI or PA-SKETTI when referring to spaghetti.
That too, is very annoying.
Oh gawd…I just thought of another especially irksome one…when people say ‘TWO TWINS’ when referring to twins.
I recently had a phone interview with someone who consistently said “Ex cetra.” That was not the sole reason we did not continue the process, but it certainly didn’t help!
One of my favorites is “birfday” for “birthday.” Believe it or not, I had a principal when I was teaching that would announce Martin L. King’s “birfday” on the intercom every year! Ugh! I think my alltime favorite annoyance is people who say someone has “prostrate” cancer. I want to correct them SO bad, but can’t bring myself to do it. For the record, it’s PROSTATE cancer… I always picture this disease where they’re gonna have to lie prostrate on the ground for the rest of their lives… Sad!