# A Guide to Pronouncing Easy Words for Those Who Can't **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [July 16, 2004, 3:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-guide-to-pronouncing-easy-words-for-those-who-cant/255430 "2004-07-16T15:37:41Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2004, 2:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-guide-to-pronouncing-easy-words-for-those-who-cant/255430/81 "2004-07-18T14:12:40Z")
> [@Misnomer](#): > > When you have a toothache, you do not use your ‘dennal’ insurance to go see the ‘dennist.’ There is a ‘t’ in both of those words. I saw a news documentary about the training of Indians to handle customer service calls for software manufacturers. The teacher, an Indian woman, was teaching them to differentiate between British and American English. She could switch back and forth between accents with incredible authenticity. One of the exercises that I remember she used was having them recite, “Put a quarter in the meter.” They alternated between British and American: Puttta-quawtttah-inthah-meetttah and Puduh-querder-inthuh-meeder ---
**Author:** ![MizQuirk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/94ad74/32.png) [@MizQuirk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MizQuirk)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2004, 2:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-guide-to-pronouncing-easy-words-for-those-who-cant/255430/82 "2004-07-18T14:59:41Z")
Instead of “similar,” I’ve heard people say “sim-you-ler.” Why would they do that? ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2004, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-guide-to-pronouncing-easy-words-for-those-who-cant/255430/83 "2004-07-18T15:06:13Z")
I first heard that back in the 1980s. I think it’s just a conflation with the word “simular” — an adjective that means simulated or fake. ---
**Author:** ![harmless](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/2acd7d/32.png) [@harmless](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/harmless)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2004, 4:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-guide-to-pronouncing-easy-words-for-those-who-cant/255430/84 "2004-07-18T16:23:03Z")
> [@Misnomer](#): > > **harmless** : I pronounce ‘roof’ as ‘ruf,’ but I have no idea why. The rest of my family says it the normal way. I also tend to pronounce ‘tourist’ as ‘turist,’ again for no apparent reason. Oh, that’s not why she’s a twit. 😉 There are many, many, _many_ reasons for that. Apparently I can’t say potatoes. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Ms\_Boods](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5e9695/32.png) [@Ms\_Boods](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ms_Boods)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2004, 4:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-guide-to-pronouncing-easy-words-for-those-who-cant/255430/85 "2004-07-18T16:28:19Z")
> [@harmless](#): > > It’s WASHcloth! Not _WARSHcloth_! > > You twit. Hmmm…I would probably say ‘warshcloth’ (more likely warshrag, as that’s my dad’s word for a face flannel), but then again, I am a twit, so I qualify. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![harmless](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/2acd7d/32.png) [@harmless](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/harmless)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2004, 4:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-guide-to-pronouncing-easy-words-for-those-who-cant/255430/86 "2004-07-18T16:39:34Z")
Psssst! No, no! Look up above you. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![lee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lee/32/7455_2.png) [@lee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lee)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2004, 4:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-guide-to-pronouncing-easy-words-for-those-who-cant/255430/87 "2004-07-18T16:40:03Z")
> [@BiblioCat](#): > > I meant to address this one, too. You’d hate it here in Baltimore, **Colophon**. Or, rather, Bawl’mer. There are so many mis-pronounced words around here (that are just Baltimorisms), you’d be tearing your hair out within five minutes. > > That wet stuff that comes out of the tap? **Woo-der**. > The place where the tap is? The **zink**. > What you do in the zink? **Warsh** the dishes. > Where kids sit in school? A **dest**. > The thing that sticks up out of your roof? A **chimmbley**. > That veggie that’s good mashed? **Buh-tatah**. > That stuff in your car that needs to be changed every 3,000 miles? **Awl**. > What you cut the grass with? A **paramour** (power mower). > Where you go for vacation? **Downey ay-shun** (Down to the ocean). Almost correct, but it is not Awl, it is earl rhymes with pearl. Stain? (Stain= Do you understand) ---
**Author:** ![lee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lee/32/7455_2.png) [@lee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lee)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2004, 4:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-guide-to-pronouncing-easy-words-for-those-who-cant/255430/88 "2004-07-18T16:46:27Z")
> [@BiblioCat](#): > > I meant to address this one, too. You’d hate it here in Baltimore, **Colophon**. Or, rather, Bawl’mer. There are so many mis-pronounced words around here (that are just Baltimorisms), you’d be tearing your hair out within five minutes. > > That wet stuff that comes out of the tap? **Woo-der**. > The place where the tap is? The **zink**. > What you do in the zink? **Warsh** the dishes. > Where kids sit in school? A **dest**. > The thing that sticks up out of your roof? A **chimmbley**. > That veggie that’s good mashed? **Buh-tatah**. > That stuff in your car that needs to be changed every 3,000 miles? **Awl**. > What you cut the grass with? A **paramour** (power mower). > Where you go for vacation? **Downey ay-shun** (Down to the ocean). Almost correct, but it is not Awl, it is earl rhymes with pearl. Stain? (Stain= Do you understand) ---
**Author:** ![Ms\_Boods](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5e9695/32.png) [@Ms\_Boods](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ms_Boods)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2004, 4:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-guide-to-pronouncing-easy-words-for-those-who-cant/255430/89 "2004-07-18T16:56:26Z")
> [@harmless](#): > > Psssst! No, no! > Look up above you. 😉 ::looks up:: ‘Wot… the curtains?’ No worries! 🙂 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Capt.Ridley\_s\_Shooting\_Party](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/cc9497/32.png) [@Capt.Ridley\_s\_Shooting\_Party](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Capt.Ridley_s_Shooting_Party)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2004, 7:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-guide-to-pronouncing-easy-words-for-those-who-cant/255430/90 "2004-07-18T19:26:56Z")
> [@](#): > > FYI, we Brits don’t say “awnt” or “ant”, we say “ahnt”. Nope, it’s pronounced “ant” around here (Wigan, Bolton etc.). Saying otherwise may get you labelled posh, or maybe even worse: southern 😛 ---
**Author:** ![Nutty\_Bunny](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/d07c76/32.png) [@Nutty\_Bunny](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nutty_Bunny)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2004, 2:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-guide-to-pronouncing-easy-words-for-those-who-cant/255430/91 "2004-07-19T14:30:19Z")
> [@Dead Badger](#): > > [Jewellery](http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=jewellery), on the other hand… It’s funny you said that. I was going to post a question about this. I’ve been working for a gift distributor in the US for almost a year. We purchase most of our products from an Australian company and in the emails we get from them, our contact spells it “jewellery”. Of course, having never seen that spelling before, I thought she was consistently misspelling the word “jewelry”. Well, this morning, we received an email from a British _jewellery_ company, wanting to sell to us. I didn’t realize there were two spellings. Question not asked, question answered anyway. 😃 Don’t you love when ignorance is fought and won? Anyway, **Go You Big Red Fire Engine** , It’s my understanding that “onion” is pronounced _un-yun_, not _ung-yun_. [Onion](http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=onion) ---
**Author:** ![Go\_You\_Big\_Red\_Fire\_Engine](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/eada6e/32.png) [@Go\_You\_Big\_Red\_Fire\_Engine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Go_You_Big_Red_Fire_Engine)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2004, 2:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-guide-to-pronouncing-easy-words-for-those-who-cant/255430/92 "2004-07-19T14:37:42Z")
> [@Nutty Bunny](#): > > Anyway, **Go You Big Red Fire Engine** , It’s my understanding that “onion” is pronounced _un-yun_, not _ung-yun_. [Onion](http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=onion) I thought that maybe he was pronouncing it some strange way, like instead of ung-yun, perhaps, oh-ne-on 😛 I just realised I unintentionally put a g in there. Now I feel dumb. Sometimes I say it properly, I guess it depends on how I’m talking about it. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2004, 12:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-guide-to-pronouncing-easy-words-for-those-who-cant/255430/93 "2004-07-20T00:16:47Z")
“Nuclear” has two legit ways to say it- you can add a “y” after the N. ---
**Author:** ![Chefguy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chefguy/32/138_2.png) [@Chefguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chefguy)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2004, 12:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-guide-to-pronouncing-easy-words-for-those-who-cant/255430/94 "2004-07-20T00:20:39Z")
> [@AerynSun](#): > > I now live in North Carolina, and I jump up and down and yell whenever some idiot furniture store runs a TV ad for lovely “bedroom **suits**.” I guess that’s where you retire after a busy night of serving “horse doovers” and “quickie” to your dinner guests. You may want to revisit your indignation. It can be pronounced[either way.](http://education.yahoo.com/reference/dictionary/entries/17/s0871700.html) ---
**Author:** ![yBeayf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/e274bd/32.png) [@yBeayf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yBeayf)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2004, 1:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-guide-to-pronouncing-easy-words-for-those-who-cant/255430/95 "2004-07-20T01:29:20Z")
Enough! I’m sick of seeing perfectly good dialects hounded into oblivion! Most of these supposed mispronunciations have their roots in various, now-mostly-extinct English dialects. I am currently working my way through _Albion’s Seed: Four British Folkways in America_ (by David Hackett Fischer, excellent book, btw), and am right at the portion where the author goes into some depth on the south English origins of the Southern accent. The author states that the southern English counties are the origin of such variants as “‘sebem’ for seven, ‘chimbly’ for chimney… ‘ax’ for ask… ‘perserve’ for preserve… ‘acrost’ for across, [and] ‘mistis’ for mistress.” Furthermore, “virtually all peculiarities of grammar, syntax, vocabulary and pronunciation… typical of Virginia [and later, the south in general] were recorded in… Sussex, Surrey, Hampshire, Dorset, Wiltshire, Somerset, Oxford, Gloucester, Warwick or Worcester.” Also illustrative of this point is a 19th-century transcription of the Song of Solomon in the Sussex dialect: > [@](#): > > Let him kiss me wud de kisses of his mouth; for yer love is better dan wine > Cause of de smell of yer good intments, yer naum is lik intment tiped out; derefore de maidens love ye… > Look not upan me, cause I be black, cause de sun has shouun upan me; my mother’s childun was mad wud me… > Jest a little while ahter I passed by em, I foun him dat my soul loves. Once again, this isn’t an ill-formed patois, but how people spoke in that area. Remember, Virginia was settled by English noblemen, and this is how they spoke. Languages evolve, and the southern US dialects are merely an archaic form of English that appears uneducated or ignorant because of English’s hidebound orthography. I make many of the so-called pronuncation mistakes described in this thread (I grew up speaking East Texas dialect, wi strong Ozark influnces due ter estenned famly (hah!)); I’m perfectly aware that they are non-standard English, but nowadays I use them solely to piss people like the OP off. Hadn’t hurt me none inna bidness worl, neither. 😛 ---
**Author:** ![GrizzRich](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/7ba0ec/32.png) [@GrizzRich](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GrizzRich)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2004, 12:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-guide-to-pronouncing-easy-words-for-those-who-cant/255430/96 "2004-07-20T12:49:42Z")
> [@BiblioCat](#): > > I meant to address this one, too. You’d hate it here in Baltimore, **Colophon**. Or, rather, Bawl’mer. There are so many mis-pronounced words around here (that are just Baltimorisms), you’d be tearing your hair out within five minutes. > > That wet stuff that comes out of the tap? **Woo-der**. > The place where the tap is? The **zink**. > What you do in the zink? **Warsh** the dishes. > Where kids sit in school? A **dest**. > The thing that sticks up out of your roof? A **chimmbley**. > That veggie that’s good mashed? **Buh-tatah**. > That stuff in your car that needs to be changed every 3,000 miles? **Awl**. > What you cut the grass with? A **paramour** (power mower). > Where you go for vacation? **Downey ay-shun** (Down to the ocean). Hey dere, hon! I din’t know dere was anyone elts here dat spake Ballmereze! You from Dundalk? I hear theytalkrealfastdowninDundalk. How 'bout dem Oreos? Been downey Camden Yards? Didjew go to Johnny Unitas High Skew downey Johnny Unitas Boowevard? Ahl be back in a lilwhal, I gotta go hame and anzer the phane. * * * Grizzly He learnt Ballmereze when he livt near Warshingdin DC. ---
**Author:** ![BiblioCat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ed8c4c/32.png) [@BiblioCat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BiblioCat)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2004, 1:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-guide-to-pronouncing-easy-words-for-those-who-cant/255430/97 "2004-07-20T13:13:20Z")
> [@GrizzRich](#): > > Hey dere, hon! > I din’t know dere was anyone elts here dat spake Ballmereze! > You from Dundalk? I hear theytalkrealfastdowninDundalk. > How 'bout dem Oreos? Been downey Camden Yards? > Didjew go to Johnny Unitas High Skew downey Johnny Unitas Boowevard? > Ahl be back in a lilwhal, I gotta go hame and anzer the phane. 😃 No, sorry, hon, I grew up in Towson, so I learned to speak good. 😉 No Balwmerese for me. ---
**Author:** ![Gotterfunken](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/58956e/32.png) [@Gotterfunken](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gotterfunken)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2004, 5:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-guide-to-pronouncing-easy-words-for-those-who-cant/255430/98 "2004-07-20T17:38:48Z")
For the love of God, it’s “eSpresso,” not “eXpresso.” It amuses me that many of my fellow library employees say “liberry.” Also, I find myself waging a hopeless battle against improper “spelling pronunciations.” One that bugs me is the “t” in “often”–it should **not** be pronounced. Likewise with the “l” in words like “salmon” and “almond.” However, I realize I’m in a dwindling minority on these pronunciations (particularly with “often”). ---
**Author:** ![dwc1970](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a183cd/32.png) [@dwc1970](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dwc1970)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2004, 8:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-guide-to-pronouncing-easy-words-for-those-who-cant/255430/99 "2004-07-20T20:00:31Z")
We’ve gotten this far into the thread with nary a mention of the word _tomato_. I say it “tuh-MAY-toe” and I will staunchly defend this pronunciation, which fortunately is the more accepted of the two. Whenever someone says “tuh-MAW-toe”, it strikes such a dissonant chord and evokes a sound in my mind like hitting two adjacent white piano keys together. I refuse to even recognize this as an alternate pronunciation, I hate it so much. The others mentioned in this thread I am less fervent about but they still annoy me, nonetheless. An uncle of mine who hails from the great state of Washington has always pronounced it “Worshington.” If he weren’t such a nice guy I’d ask him where the hell he’s picking up the “r” sound. ---
**Author:** ![Go\_You\_Big\_Red\_Fire\_Engine](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/eada6e/32.png) [@Go\_You\_Big\_Red\_Fire\_Engine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Go_You_Big_Red_Fire_Engine)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2004, 12:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-guide-to-pronouncing-easy-words-for-those-who-cant/255430/100 "2004-07-21T00:10:38Z")
> [@dwc1970](#): > > We’ve gotten this far into the thread with nary a mention of the word _tomato_. I say it “tuh-MAY-toe” and I will staunchly defend this pronunciation, which fortunately is the more accepted of the two. Whenever someone says “tuh-MAW-toe”, it strikes such a dissonant chord and evokes a sound in my mind like hitting two adjacent white piano keys together. I refuse to even recognize this as an alternate pronunciation, I hate it so much. I guess you’ve never heard the saying, “You say tom-ar-to, I say to-mate-o?” 😕 Maybe people only say it in Aus… but I do remember it being in a Simpsons Episode I think. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-guide-to-pronouncing-easy-words-for-those-who-cant/255430.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-guide-to-pronouncing-easy-words-for-those-who-cant/255430.md?page=6)