English Words You've Heard Mangled

[Basement Cat]

For years my mother, who grew up in the U.S. South, would pronounce "washer" with an 'R' as in "Put the clothes in the warsher." I've nagged her on it so consistently that she almost never does that any more.

A friend from high school was a master of mispronouncing words. "Rogue"--referring in this case to Rogue from the X-Men--he pronounced as "rog-wah".[footnote]This was before the movie came out, BTW.[/footnote] He also pronounced "scythe" like "sky-th".

What words have you mangled or heard others mangle over the years?

 

[Eclipse Dragon]

To this day the word "h'ordeuvres" makes my brain hurt.

 

[Euryalus]

Well seeing as how you took my conversation as inspiration, I may as well participate. XD

Several people I know in Michigan (West Michigan area at least) pronounce the word Picture as Pitcher. They leave out the c and it annoys me for some dumb reason.

I myself have a habit of saying "fer" (fur) instead of for when its in the middle of my sentence. Only in the middle though. I'll say "What's it FOR" but then say stuff like "It's FER work."

Other than that my pronunciation is fairly okay. I won't say its perfect, but its good enough that no one ever comments on it... my grammar and spelling on the other hand XD

 

[Euryalus]

When I was little, I pronounced "herb" with a non silent "h".
To this day the word "h'ordeuvres" makes my brain hurt.

My dad still calls them "Whore-De-Vores" as a joke.

Dat french spelling just doesn't translate well to English does it? XD

[sub][sub][sub] At least its not Welsh or Gaelic. That shit may as well be written in Hieroglyphs![/sub][/sub][/sub]

 

[eatenbyagrue]

A friend of mine who works as a kindergarten teacher once had a kid read "opaque" as "o-paq-yu" (with the Filipino accent, it sounds like "oh fuck you"). She says she had to stifle laughter, then excuse herself.

Kids really do say the darndest things.

 

[IndomitableSam]

Foyer.

Americans, it's foy-eh (basically, I won't get into french intonations)... not foi-er. It's french. Foy-eh. Every time someone says foi-er, I get angry. Say it with me: Foy-eh. Or maybe Foih-eh would be more appropriate.

 

[an annoyed writer]

Oh, these are fun. One I've heard a few times is where some people pronounce "Turret" as "Turrent". I swear, the next time I see that I'm going to behead the person who fucking says or writes that. Fucking seriously.

 

[SckizoBoy]

Dat french spelling just doesn't translate well to English does it? XD

See, my issue comes when French words are part of the English vocabulary or in names and the pronunciation has been completely been hashed up.

Take the name 'Beauchamp'... I pronounce it Francais-like... -_- (as in "bo-sha'nh" or however its romanised), but if an English person has that name, it's pronounced 'Beecham'... uh... WTF?!

Oh, and Brits trying to swear in another language... funniest thing ever... ¬_¬

 

[Apollo45]

Ever had a foreign professor teaching math/engineering/physics/chemistry? There are a lot of mispronounced words. One of my favorites is perpendicular, pronounced per-pin-di-klar every time the professor (who was Arabic) says it. I had a Chinese TA running the physics lab who was barely understandable when he was speaking normally, much less trying to pronounce things like pendulum, centripetal, and hypothesis. I'm not sure I can write out a pronunciation that would do him justice, really, but he had an extremely heavy Chinese accent, so just imagine all the R's as L's and the L's as R's, having the words split in to very distinct syllables, and you've got part of it.

It's obviously not their fault that they have heavy accents, but it's pretty hilarious (and annoying as hell) all the same.

 

[Basement Cat]

Dat french spelling just doesn't translate well to English does it? XD

Despite years of French in high school (I've forgotten nearly all of it) I still mentally pronounce "Rendezvous" as "Ren-dezz-vuss" instead of "Ron-day-vuu" because that's how I manage to remember how to properly spell it. I pronounce it correctly, though.

Foyer.

Americans, it's foy-eh (basically, I won't get into french intonations)... not foi-er. It's french. Foy-eh. Every time someone says foi-er, I get angry. Say it with me: Foy-eh. Or maybe Foih-eh would be more appropriate.

Yep, I'm guilty of pronouncing it "foy-er". Always have. It's one of the multitude of non-English words that were adopted and 'anglicized'.

 

[Aris Khandr]

While we're on French words, "voila". Gods dammit, stop pronouncing this "wallah". That one is a major pet peeve of mine.

"Culinary" pronounced "cullen-ary" also bothers me, even though it has been used that way so often that it is accepted as an alternate pronunciation now. Should be "kyu-lin-ary". Another French word.

I imagine that if I were to sit down and really think about it, most of my complaints would be words of French origin.

 

[BlackStar42]

When I was little, I used to pronounce water as wor-er. One of my Maths teachers used to pronounce calculator as col-culator for some strange reason. Oh, and I once saw two Germans on the train arguing over how you're supposed to pronounce Slough -I heard everything ranging from Sloff to Slurr, as in Edinbrugh- when they heard it on the tannoy thingy, neither of them could quite believe it (It's pronounced Slow, as in "Ow!" for those who don't know).

 

[sextus the crazy]

I imagine that if I were to sit down and really think about it, most of my complaints would be words of French origin.

So really, the French are the problem with their unpronounceable language.

OT: My government professor has a thick Argentinian accent so he pronounces things differently. My favorite is how he adds a syllable to sovereignty so that it becomes sov-er-reign-i-ty. It's beautiful.

 

[Mr Fixit]

Well I live the the U.S. South so I know all about "warshing" things, it annoys me too. A cousin of mine would pronounce "bra" as "brawl"... it makes my brain hurt. Another word from the south, Tahr, as in those things on cars called "Tires", of course every other word that comes out of the mouths of people around here has an extra "ah" sound to it.

 

[Aris Khandr]

I imagine that if I were to sit down and really think about it, most of my complaints would be words of French origin.

So really, the French are the problem with their unpronounceable language.

I find French to be quite pronounceable. It's not as though we're borrowing words from a Khoisan language or something.

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

Foyer.

Americans, it's foy-eh (basically, I won't get into french intonations)... not foi-er. It's french. Foy-eh. Every time someone says foi-er, I get angry. Say it with me: Foy-eh. Or maybe Foih-eh would be more appropriate.

We pronounce it wrong on purpose because we don't like the French.

 

[Devetta]

I think the only thing that bugs me is how Americans say aluminium.

 

[Euryalus]

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Yeah but Foy-eh and aluminium sound stupid

 

[IndomitableSam]

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Yeah but Foy-eh and aluminium sound stupid

If you can speak English, you can speak French. Both are from the same root language, anyway. Spanish, Italian, and a couple dozen other languages. All similar. I don't know more than a word or two of Spanish or Italian, but I can guess at how they're supposed to be pronounced. I also haven't taken French since about the 8th grade, but I can still pronounce some words properly.

How does foy-er sound better than foih-eh? It sounds like someone from Boston saying "Fire". It's a french word for entry room. If you can't say it properly, call it an entrance room. Or something.

 

[Aariana]

Oh God, I had a teacher in high school who was horrible with the English language. She would always say potato as po-day-do, and wash as warsh. She also had a horrible time pronouncing the names of Mexican foods, which was a bit scary, considering she was our cooking teacher (if you're gonna teach it, you should know how to say it, at least). Tortilla was always pronounced with the Ls, and taco was like the "tac" in "tacky" (sorry, not sure how I would spell that out phonetically )