Any words that you simply CANNOT speak.
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basically this, up until second grade i pronounced "genre" as "jen-urr" as i had never heard the word pronounced out loud, and my teacher heard me say it and was like "uh...what..? what the heck are you trying to say?" so i wrote it on the board and she goes "pfftt, that?" and continues to pronounce it. otherwise i have basically always said things as they go, i was a boss at spelling back in the day so it comes naturally for the most part.StBishop said:
I was with you with the "morals" thing. Because beside from any religious or philisophical things, You will have to hold a gun to my head before I say "the Beatles s**k." I refuse to complete that satement in any way, size, shape, or form.JokerCrowe said:I thought you meant words your morals prohibit you from saying....
Anyway, I don't think there's a word I can't say. I mean there might be but I haven't run into it yet. But the name of that Welsh village in the UK is a bit of a challenge.
Anyway. Pretty much all of the words that people have posted that are more than 20 letters sums it up for me.
I once knew someone who couldn't say "philosopher". Alway came out something like "philofofer". I have a few of my own, but none of them are in english. Except perhaps a few absurdly long scientific which I would never need to say in conversation anyway.
I have a friend who pronounces Tomahawk as Tommy-hawk, doesnt matter how many times he is corrected. You wouldn't think it would be annoying untill you play a few games of Black Ops with him...
The flapped intervocalic t and d are systematic dialectal phonological changes. It isn't a "lack of enunciation" and pronouncing them as stops isn't "proper enunciation". These are sociological myths. If you were pronouncing them "fully", you would actually be mispronouncing the words given your dialect.shrekfan246 said:
And the Deus Ex thing is just normal syllabification. Moving the s to the onset of the second syllable is a natural tendency in every human language.
Our horrible language education (by which I mean roughly everyone's - I don't know of anywhere that they do a good job) continues to convince people that they're wrong with absolutely no linguistic justification.
Yes, that's the issue. In a lot of regions (different for each one of course), the two vowels in the words have merged into one, typically both in production and perception. I say "cot" and "caught" the same way, and if you used the word "cot" in a sentence and it wasn't clear from the context, I would have no idea whether you mean "cot" or "caught", even though you actually do pronounce them differently. The fact that you find them so easy is what's so fun about them - to you these are unbelievably simple. To me, distinguishing "cot" and "caught" in someone without the merger takes intense concentration and usually substantial practice.EverythingIncredible said:
I don't have either of the other two mergers though and it's very possible that you're from somewhere without any of the three - though there are quite a few more mergers and splits.
I often struggle with Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn.
And Lagrangian, I have a nasty habit of pronouncing all the gs as gs rather than the french pronunciation on the second one. Although I have come to prefer it that way. Also Euler, I say it how it's spelt.
And Lagrangian, I have a nasty habit of pronouncing all the gs as gs rather than the french pronunciation on the second one. Although I have come to prefer it that way. Also Euler, I say it how it's spelt.
I can't recall any words that I've never managed to get my tongue around but my manager seems to have an inability to pronounce the letter 'H' at the begging of a word. She can't even spell these words correctly.
Example:
Mr Hedge becomes Mr Edge.
Or
"Our depot as one." instead of "..has one."
In case anyone is wondering the woman is Nottingham born and bread. I've never noticed this trait in anyone else from these parts. I know some slang drops this letter but this seems like she actually can't make the letter sound rather than just lazy linguistics.
Also, coming from Scotland my home land and nationality are brought up on occassion. According to her, even after numerous corrections, I am a "Scotch" person and I come from Scochland. She's quite capable of saying the name 'Scott' however.
I'm baffled.
Example:
Mr Hedge becomes Mr Edge.
Or
"Our depot as one." instead of "..has one."
In case anyone is wondering the woman is Nottingham born and bread. I've never noticed this trait in anyone else from these parts. I know some slang drops this letter but this seems like she actually can't make the letter sound rather than just lazy linguistics.
Also, coming from Scotland my home land and nationality are brought up on occassion. According to her, even after numerous corrections, I am a "Scotch" person and I come from Scochland. She's quite capable of saying the name 'Scott' however.
I'm baffled.
Thats a verbal formula, not technically an actual word.The Virgo said:
Anyways OT, there aren't any words that I really can't say ever, but there are a few that are the most common for me to get tripped up on. 'Shetland sheepdog', I have two of these but sometimes when people ask what kinds of dogs they are I stumble on the words. 'Personification' is another I get tripped on more often than most words but still I usually don't have trouble with it unless I'm having "one of those days".
I've noticed that I've recently began pronouncing 'hour' as 'uurr' since moving to Dundee.
On a related note, my mum can't say the word 'burglar' without getting tongue tied.
On a related note, my mum can't say the word 'burglar' without getting tongue tied.
Assuming you're being serious, then I feel the need to explicitly state that apart from the actual pronunciation of words in my dialect, I was mostly being facetious. I don't believe there is such a thing as "proper" pronunciation, because there are far too many different dialects and accents. Even in America alone. If I went down to Louisiana, I could guarantee that it would only take about an hour, maybe two, of talking to locals before I would run into a word being used a way I had never heard before.Jaime_Wolf said:
However, I never really pass up the opportunity to learn something new, in this case the "systematic dialectal phonological change" part, so I thank you for that.