Vendome, as usual that was hilarious!

In my family we still have "hangleburrs" instead of hamburgers, as that is how my sister and I used to say it when we were small. I also still call my sister Jenser sometimes, because I couldn't say Jennifer when she was born (I was not yet 2 years old) and it just stuck.

I think, though, that I had more trouble mis-spelling words that had been mispronounced to me, rather than the other way around. For instance, I clearly remember getting "both" wrong on a spelling test once when I was in 1st grade. (The words were read aloud by a teacher and you had a list onto which you wrote them as she read.) The teacher's assistant who had given the test (a student from the university), calmly tried to explain, all the while pronouncing it "bolth," that there was no "l" in "both". I was very confused and had to ask my mother about it after school. (Don't even get me started on "limon" for "lemon" or "git" for "get" or "squarsh", "warsh" and "sawl". My daughter says "sawl" instead of "saw" and I don't even know where she heard it, and it drives me a little crazy.)

I will confess right now, the most embarrassing mispronunciation I've made in the last several years was saying "try-cot" for "tricot" in a yarn store, in front of my mother and the shop owners and god and everyone. My only defense is that it's another language, one that I don't speak, and I'd never heard it said out loud, only seen it on kagillions of yarn labels, stitch dictionaries and knitting patterns. My face matched the lovely ruby-colored mohair next to which I was standing.

I can't begin to tell you about the mispronunciation I heard of the grape Marachal Foch. It is pronounced with soft "ch" in both words. A friend asked me to pass the "**" and I could simply not understand that she was asking for the wine. The pronunciation she used could not be used in these forums.

Thank you Tabbytom

I often wondered about the pronounciation of schedule.

Gosh, there are so many ...

The most inexcusable (even for Australians is the adding of a "K" sound on words ending with a silent "NG". For example:

anyTHINK for anything
someTHINK for something
nothINK for nothing

I'd rather listen to someone run their fingernails down a blackboard. Hideous.

And I'd be really interested to hear your thoughts on why people do this? The correct pronunciation is actually easier to say, so I'm baffled.

And thanks, this a really fun thread!

Fortunately for me, my sis doesn't mind it. If she did I probably wouldn't call her that except to tick her off. She still calls me Melsie, too, which is how her baby self pronounced Melissa. Most often, though, we're Mel and Jen. We're exceptionally close siblings, best friends, really, and we're so close in age that it's always been like that. And it helps that we're old enough now (I mean, solidly out of adolescence and young adulthood) to really take joy in our childhood together.

Well my gran always said 'ospital' for 'hospital'. But then she came from England and they talk funny there.

My nephew called my daughter 'Tellerie' instead of 'Terri-Lee' when he was young. He turned his 'l's' and 'r's' around in most words.

My daughter could not say 'renovated' and used to say 'revenorated'. That has stuck and we still say it now.

My youngest daughter can't stand it when people say 'Afriker' (adding a long R on the end) instead of 'Africa'. Drives her crazy.

My middle one used 'coca-tella ' for coke- a- cola ..it still is a term of endearment in our house .

A good friend of the family could not say 'material' when she was little so it came out as 'ta-merial' which we still say to this day. Another one was mis-read as 'devasted' for 'devastated'.

With my slight speach problem I have tremendous diffculty with Shoulder (the part of the body) and Soldier (as in the army). Luckily I don't often have to say both words in the same sentence

Hi all, this is my first post so hope that I fully understood the subject.
Two words that came to mind when reading this were

1. ambliance for ambulance
2. pacifically for specifically

The second example is the most annoying and most often used. Mind you, I am at the age now where most things annoy me!
Look forward to contributing to future threads.

In my heart, People are not Perfect and make mistakes.

My dad (european born-from Greece) still does not know how to distinguish, what where and were mean

Unfortunately I've found both pronunciations in the dictionary but my greatest pet peeve is hearing the word ORNERY pronounced ON-ree. I can't stand it! I can't stand it! I can't stand it!

Welcome Beerboy!
We also do not put the car in anything but a 'Parcark' in our family! Funny how these keep coming to me. (all because of the "Eggy Put shuns".)
I would imagine the Australian use of 'k ' on the end of ing word stems from the original cockney.(which lots of convicts were). We have distinctive regional pronounciations in UK too, such as people from Bristol calling the city "Brissole", and others too numerous to mention. No it is the written word mispronounced that I am referring to.

Quote:

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my greatest pet peeve is hearing the word ORNERY pronounced ON-ree.

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"Ornery" is an American contraction of "ordinary". My mother-in-law uses this expression frequently and it really grates on me. I hate hearing "ordinary" slurred out as "ornery".

I think 'ornery' means bad tempered and mean. I agree it is an American word and would (if I ever used it) say 'or-ner- ee'. I don't know if this is correct.

From http://www.takeourword.com/TOW184/page2.html

I heard that ornery was the invention of a screen writer for a cowboy movie. I find it hard to believe that one reference made it into popular slang. Is there more to this story?

Good for you to doubt that explanation, Bill. Ornery has a much more ordinary etymology: it is a dialectical variant of ordinary! The sense was "commonplace, of poor quality, coarse, unpleasant, low, mean, cantankerous", and the "cantankerous" meaning seems to have outlasted the others. It first turned up in print in 1816.

Well I didnt know that Mother Goose! I learn something new every day , I must say!

These cause me to grimace:

duck tape

"for all intensive purposes"

irregardless

miniture

nucular

I knew 'nucular' would turn up eventually! When it was mentioned before and I said it was a mistake on behalf of Mr Bush, I was told it was to do with his accent and not having misread the word. Oh Yeah?

How about congraDulations?

The same person who defended Mr Bush also said it was a pun on 'Congratulations on Graduating.' (Oh yeah?)

Mischeevious, for mischievous, and catethral, for cathedral. Both of those always bring back my dad, to me.

Surprised we haven't had pasgetti yet, favourite food of many boys and girls.

When my sister was in junior high, her Art class did a unit on architectural terms. Our first hint that the teacher wasn't really an expert came when she came home talking about the building's faKade.

Probably my worst public mispronunciation came while I was trying to be oh-so-sophisticated and panned some movie for being baynal (banal). Though, the other day, I was listening to a book on tape, and that's how the reader pronounced it....

Nuclear is difficult to pronounce correctly...my chemistry teacher taught us the right way. He thinks it's extremely important.

I don't like it when you're reading annoucements or something similiar and don't know how to pronounce a person's last name. Our secretary at my school continually slaughters the names of my classmates on the PA. It would be funny if they weren't so awful.