English Words You've Heard Mangled

[Imperioratorex Caprae]

Anonymity. I can read the word, but I cannot say it. In my head it sounds right but speaking it comes out very horrible. Something along the lines of anonominity. I know theres only one "n" and am otherwise perfectly able to pronounce every other word that wanders out my mouth. I even can speak languages other than English with near perfect pronunciation but that damn word gets mangled by my mouth...
It might be a latent form of the stutter I used to have as a kid and worked VERY hard on to break.

 

[drh1975]

As a native New Englander (born in Connecticut, living in Vermont), I hear a lot of mangled words. Some people around here throw an extra r in a word where it doesn't belong, like "arnt" (aunt), "grarge" (garage), and farther instead of father. And then there's "hamburg" instead of hamburger. But the one word that really gets me must be a Vermont thing: "dooryard" instead of driveway. Don't ask. Just don't.

 

[omega 616]

Oh, I thought of another one!

Iraq, do Americans think this place is made by apple? "I-rack"? I notice they run as well, by which I mean they say "I-ran", where to?

One way you've got an Apple product, the other you've got an electronic rock, or a cyborg named Ron (phonetically, they're ee-rok and ee-ron). I think the Apple products make for a funnier skit [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rw2nkoGLhrE].

...but I still pronounce 'em the boring, correct way.

No, we the English pronounce it e-rack and 'e-ran.

Always made me laugh a little though when you hear a soldier say "I've just got back from eye rack (I-rack)", is that like a new shop for glasses?

 

[samuraiweasel]

Ha, ask anyone not from England to pronounce Leicester. I dare you.

alright, let me see if my wee american brain can handle this...

i'm gonna guess the c is silent? so that would make the i also not matter...

less-ter?

Yeah right in one but im just amazed at the way people pronounce things here ( i moved here from india but have an american accent thanks to school)

 

[Tomster595]

My friend referred to "turrets" as "Tourettes" for the longest time. It was extremely annoying.

 

[R4ptur3]

I used to pronounce scimitar as Shmiter haha.

Also I know it's been said but the way Americans say aluminium. Why, america, WHY!

 

[kypsilon]

People who say tager instead of tiger. Drives me up the bloody wall.

I often wonder if they were to meet Tiger Woods in real life if they'd pronounce his name correctly.

 

[gmaverick019_v1legacy]

I used to pronounce scimitar as Shmiter haha.

Also I know it's been said but the way Americans say aluminium. Why, america, WHY!

because it literally is SPELLED that way here, and in other countries also, it keeps consistent with "alumina" (it's source word) for the oxides, such as lanthanum.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humphry_Davy

he even listed it as "aluminum" in his book, which marks back all the way to 1812.

i'm not trying to say "aluminum is right, aluminium is wrong", i'm just saying that its properly accepted that both were right.

 

[eggy32]

You know the word "Chimera"?

For years I thought it was pronounced "Chai-murr-ah" (no, I don't know how I got that either). Then one day while playing WoW with 3 friends, one corrected me and claimed it was pronounced "Chee-mu-rah". Then another one cut into the conversation and told us it was "Shim-mur-ah". Finally the last friend stated that it was "Chee-Meir-ah". Then we spent the next half an hour arguing about it.

I still don't know how you pronounce it properly. :/

I believe it's pronounced "Kai-mer-ah." Kai being pronounced like Kai from digimon.

OT: What really gets me is when people pronounced "skeletal" as "skel-ee-tle" as if there was a double e and the "tal" is pronounced like the end of "beetle." What's even more perplexing is that people who pronounce it this way never pronounce "skeleton" with the double e sound.

Also, I live in Northern Ireland, which is often pronounced as "Norn Iron," iron is also pronounced "eye-ern." These don't annoy me so much though, since I grew up here.

 

[Sandjube]

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.

That seems to happen a downright ridiculous amount, to be honest. I don't see where all these people are getting a fucking n from, but it pisses me off. So yeah that's my answer too.

 

[Headsprouter]

OH, DON'T GET ME STARTED ON WORDS.

Yes a lot...I won't talk about it...

I won't...

...I won't..

BUT I MUST.

How the hell do you pronounce "niche"? I heard "nitch" a few times, I say "neesh", one guy even said "nick".
-facepalm-

Oh, perseverance.

Per-Sever-Ance. From the verb "persevere". I pronounce it Per-sever-ance, sever, like the cutting word, not "severe" like the serious word. But there's no "e" and apparently the latter is correct.
>=( friggin language.

 

[Alexi089]

I wonder how long it'll be before this thread descends into a row over colonialism and US invasions between the UK and US escapists... anywhoo, of the Americanised words: Aluminium being pronounced without a second 'i', 'Worcester' being pronounced as it's spelt rather than 'Woster' (America, you know we like to be contrary!) and 'Birming Ham' (Birming'am) are always funny to hear.

Actually, here's a song about Birmingham to show anyone who cares how to pronounce it like a stereotypical Brummie (0:18:


Edit: one that does grate on me is "waahder". NO! "Water!"

A minor welsh one that I have great fun arguing with my father about is 'tooth'. Most Welsh people say "toth". I like to pester him over the 2nd 'o' and ask him if he'd like to sit at a table or in a "both" every once in a while when we go out to eat.

I forgot the best: "Koara Blair" (no spite intended to East Asian readers. Your languages are a nightmare for me to learn too)

 

[Basement Cat]

How the hell do you pronounce "niche"? I heard "nitch" a few times, I say "neesh", one guy even said "nick".
-facepalm-

Depends on where you're from. It's "nitch" for the most part in the South. It's "neesh" to many others. I use both.

OT: A Chinese Teaching Assistant in college physics would pronounce English words by emphasizing individual words in compound words.

Example: She always pronounced "thermometer" as "thermo-meeter instead of "ther-mah-meh-ter". It was cute.

 

[searron]

The thing that gets me is when people insist on using the original languages pronunciation for loan words. One the word jumps the barrier and is commonly understood, then the original language should no bearing on it's pronunciation.

 

[bananafishtoday]

I know it's the *~*~British*~*~ pronunciation and all, but "ad-VERT-iz-mint" rather than "AD-ver-tize-mint" really annoys me for some reason (I mean, y'all even shorten it as "AD-vert!") I used to make fun of my mother for saying "LIE-berry" and "rih-DIH-cull-us" too when I was a kid.

I'm gonna say that a lot of the complaints over clearly regional/dialectal pronunciations are silly. Americans are a lot worse on this than Brits tend to be... being a pretty young country, we haven't had much time for linguistic drift, so a lot of Americans have illusions that our prestige dialect is the One True American Way, and all others aren't "different," but "wrong."

(At least that's what I tell myself when I lapse while drunk/excited/angry. "Yo I texih you tree times, why y'ain't 'it me back?")

 

[elvor0]

Eddie Izzard is pretty much the qualified man for this:


On a slightly less "racist" note, I have never not heard my Nan pronounce Skeleton, Skel-ing-ton, how does that work!?

 

[The Artificially Prolonged]

I had a maths teacher in school who was from Scotland and he had a major problem saying the word "six". He would always pronounce it "sex". So we'd get him asking us questions like what is sex-hundred and twenty sex multiplied by sexty sex? XD

 

[ClockworkPenguin]

I recently got pulled into a major argument with my flatmates over the pronunciation of 'moor-hen'.

See, one of them maintains the 'moor' should be pronounced as 'more' to rhyme with 'pour' or possibly even 'paw'.

The other one says it as 'moo'r, emphasising the 'oo'.

The argument becomes difficult to resolve, because they also pronounce all the example words differently as well.

So Flatmate 1. is saying 'dore' 'flore', 'pore' etc. and flatmate 2. is saying 'dooor', 'flooor', 'pooor'.

I'm unable to decide, because it turns out I use different pronunciations for different words, with no real logic behind the switch. (for the record 'dore', 'flore', 'pooor')

 

[TheRightToArmBears]

I also remember a person working in GameStop pronouncing Deus Ex as " Jew sex" but that's not English.

I actually used to do that until relatively recently, as I'd only ever seen it written down. It was only after I realised what Deus Ex means that I knew I was pronouncing it wrong.


There was one time that I still haven't lived down to this day, despite being seven at the time, when I asked my mum 'What's a prol-oo-goo?'

I meant prologue.

 

[Dragoon]

Here in Stoke the words 'Specific' and 'Pacific' mean the same thing, along with 'Genuinely' and 'Generally'.

Also there's this word 'nesh' that really pisses me off.

Yeah I know what you mean, I used to live in Stoke. My dad often calls me a nesh carrot, took me a while to get what it meant. Also this is a slight nitpick but it irritates me when people pronounce book as boo-k, it just sounds silly to me, something I had a problem with in Stoke.

And don't even get me started on the word Scone, I don't get how it can be pronounced scon, it's cone with a bloody s in front of it, how hard is that to get?