Not me, baby. Sann Hosay. See? I DESPISE common midwestern dialect, and though our (Iowan) accent isn’t nearly as thick as Minnesota or the Dakotas, hearing it makes me cringe. However, I can mimic it really well… I have a whole stash of accents (it’s a small thing, but none of my friends can do it!)
A couple more:
Menastrate (menstruate…men-stru-ate)
Rilly (really…ree-lee)
Lightening (lightning…lyt-ning)
Any word beginning with “wh” (which, where, when) DO NOT pronounce the “h”. They should be pronounced “witch”, “ware”, and “wen”.
BTW: I say data (first “a” sounds like alligator)… dayta just sounds WRONG.
Most of these are very common errors made by the marginally educated.
My personal peeve, even though both pronunciations are accepted, is
karaBE-en for Caribbean (ka-RIB-e-en).
The usage error that STILL, zillions of times later, is like nails on a chalkboard to me:
“continue ON” AAAAAAEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE …I’m hearing newscasters say it, and when that happens, it’s all over. (Although why it should be is beyond me, since newscasters are notoriously illiterate. But when the big national guys and gals start doing it, we’re doomed)
And of course, the relentless modified “unique”. (For those who can count yourselves among the uninformed, it is never proper or even logical to modify the word “unique”. A thing cannot be “very” unique or a “little” unique, or any other gradation of unique, because to be unique is to be a singular thing unlike any other, and you cannot properly say that a thing is “very” singular, unlike any other. It either is or is not. So STOP IT.)
By the way, for those of you who may have missed it, search the archives of Cecil’s columns for this topic…I think if you load the page and look for the word “grammar” it comes up. Some pretentious illiterate imbecile wrote Cecil about some grammar usage that was not, if I recall, even improper, and in attempting to sound knowledgeable ende dup making a total ass of herself because her own usage was such a hopeless mess. And of course Cecil sliced and diced her. It is SWEET. I would have loved to have seen the remarkable shade of red that came to her face as she read it.
I’m British, used to program computers and I say it ‘dayta’…
Actually you American chaps (no, we don’t really talk like that!) have a tremendous influence, mainly thru (through) TV and films.
What does ‘diss’ mean? (US talk show)
Most of your spelling changes seem quite logical to me:
centre to center
colour to color
I agree it’s vital to preserve meanings:
(imply/infer; uninterested/disinterested)
Finally in the centre of London, there’s a tourist attraction spelt Leicester Square (Midlands city of same name too). For some archaic reason we say ‘Lester’. Why shouldn’t it be ‘Lie - sess - ter’ as you say it?
After growing up in California I moved to the East Coast. They said I talked funny. Later I moved to the South. They said I talked funny. Finally, I returned to California…and they said I talked funny. You all talk funny.
However, we were a ‘ketch-up’ family. One day my brother starting saying ‘cats-up’ just to irritate everybody. We beat him up. Indian rubs, royal stretches, charlie horses…it’s ketch-up, damnit.
I hate it when you pronounce a word correctly (“forte” as “fort”, in my case) and people get this superior little look on their face 'cause they think you’re wrong.
My biggest pet peeve is “could of” “should of”, etc. You just know they’re saying “could of” instead of “could’ve”. Oh, and I think everybody knows by now that “wherefore” means “why”. So why do we still have Juliet saying “wherefore art thou” and making gestures like she’s looking around for him?!
Now, now, people: let’s not jump too hastily to conclusions here:
Main Entry: 1forte
Pronunciation: 'fOrt, 'fort; 2 is often 'for-"tA or for-'tA or 'for-tE
Function: noun
Etymology: French fort, from fort, adjective, strong
Date: circa 1648
1 : the part of a sword or foil blade that is between the middle and the hilt and that is the strongest part of the blade
2 : one’s strong point
usage In forte we have a word derived from French that in its “strong point” sense has no entirely satisfactory pronunciation.
Usage writers have denigrated 'for-"tA\ and 'for-tE\ because they reflect the influence of the Italian-derived 2forte. Their
recommended pronunciation 'fort, however, does not exactly reflect French either: the French would write the word le fort
and would rhyme it with English for. So you can take your choice, knowing that someone somewhere will dislike whichever variant you choose. All are standard, however. In British English 'fo-"tA\ and 'fot\ predominate; 'for-"tA\ and \for-'tA\ are probably the most frequent pronunciations in American English. http://www.m-w.com
Collins English Dictionary also gives both pronunciations as acceptable.
yes, a diss is a put-down, but no one uses that term anymore. It’s a relic from the ancient days of the 80s and early 90s.
sample conversation:
“Yo mama so fat, she rolled over a dollar and made four quarters.”
(onlooker): “Oh, he dissed you!”
Nowadays, we say things like
“Oh, you got words?”
meaning: You’re insulting me? In other words, are you sure you want to be insulting me?
“you got jokes?”
meaning: pretty much same thing
“Why you frontin?”
meaning: why are you pretending to be tough (putting on a front). you know you’re just a punk and I’ll beat you.
if we want to say the word as a noun (insult), in an observational way (as opposed to a confrontational retort to the person who made the insult), we say:
“He bitched him”
to go further: “he bitched your candy ass”
meaning: he made you his bitch; treated you as a chauvinist would treat a bitch.
“He played you.” (this one is getting less common)
meaning: He used you to make a joke; he sported with you for the purpose of making you look like an idiot.
Here in Pittsburgh, we pronounce lots of things funny. Of course, the only one I can think of right now is “arn” for “iron”. Sounds tend to run together in Pittsburghese.
As for malapropisms, the one that always gets me is “It’s a mute point.” No, it speaks volumes, actually.
The other one is “it’s” for “its”. Extra apostrophes in general make me nuts; my HS English teachers taught me well on that score.
The problem with “forte” is that in music it is always pronounced for-tay - thus causing some confusion.
Other words that give American speakers a tough time:
banal: I learned it BANE-ul but I most often hear buh-NAHL. My little MS dictionary said their Usage Panel couldn’t agree on the “correct” pronunciation and several members said they avoid using the word in conversation.
interest: I say IN-trist, but I think IN-ter-est has become the norm. I blame Arte Johnson.
harass: I’ve always said ha-RASS - HARE-us is a kind of tweed.
I think Interest is like Different. It is in-ter-est but people say in-trest. Like they say Diff-rent. When they mean dif-fer-rent.
Most people also say Poem as Pome, not the two syllable Po-Em like it should be.
I have read that a lot of our words like Knight, Gnome were actually at one time pronounced with the K and the G. But over the time it changed but the spelling didn’t. I don’t know if it is true. But it would explain Colonel.
Sorry Chris, i mean “my uncles will always pronounce San Jose as Sahn Jo-see” LOL. I really cant get to upset over mispronounciations. A lot listed i do, but everyone here does it so I am not alone. What does Irk me, is people who live in this area, where you can hear Spanish all over still mispronouncing words. It’s not that hard to say it right. One funny thing is one of the newest news anchors here couldnt pronounce “Pajaro” (PA-ha-ro). For weeks she stumbled. Another of the new anchors says his name like “Sand-Oval” When it’s “Sandoval” (Sahn-dough-vahl). We always make jokes every time we see him doing a newscast.
I had a professor in university that habitually said “taunt” for “taut.” I actually told him one day in class that the word he was using meant “nyaah nyahh nyah nyahh nyahh!” rather than “without slack.” He used the right word for one day before relapsing into ignorance.
Orient, disorient, orientation. I like these words. Someone please tell me why people insist on saying “I’ll come early so I can orientate myself.” Orientate is not a word!! Whaddaya say when you get confused, that you were disorientated?! Getting yourself oriented does not mean to display asian characteristics (no disrespect intended).
Gary Shandling made a good point once…
“Is it ‘Porsche’ or ‘Por-sche’? Anyway, I was driving my ‘Toyot’…”
