When my son was a toddler, he coined the word “disastrophe,” which we’ve all used ever since to describe something awful. My dad has a lot of strange expressions, including “No thanks, I don’t care for some, I just had any.” and “The H is silent, as in Windmill.” My husband refers to Dairy Queen and Sizzler as Dairy Queer and Sniveler, and I have been known to ask a waiter or two for a breakfast quickie. My uncle was once saying grace at a family reunion, when he unwittingly asked for blessings on our “fappy family.” We’ve all made good use of that one for many years.
A great story…chuckilatious and shit…but was the guy in his early 80’s, or did this incident occur in the early 1980’s? I’m so confused…
Your story reminds me of a habit I have of adding “~al” to words; for example, the “armpittal area” or the “groinal region.”
My sisters and I do a lot of intentional mispellings in writing. For example, instead of “one,” we’ll type “juan” - as in, “I prefer the steamed juans over the fried juans.” Very hot becomes “HAHT,” very angry becomes “hangry.” And other assorted oddities.
Stellars for Steelers. How can you not?
Something odd about a Dutchman making fun of the yunzers, but yunz guys are asking for it…
“Mental pause” for menopause.
My wife and I say “lumptious” instead of “luscious” for a joke.
I think I have a lot of these, but I hardly notice myself doing it anymore.
Vegg-ET-able for vegetable
Q-pon instead of COO-pon. (If Q-pon is wrong, I don’t wanna be right.)
The cats are my AMinals.
Then there are lots of mispronunciations by the kids which have worked their way into our vocabularies, “nake” for snake, “Testitos” for Tostitos or testicles, whichever we happen to be talking about. Kidspeak is a very large category.
Sometimes I take off all my clothes and then I am nudiferous.
I’ll probably think of more.
I like to say I’m going to the “Groceria for some Ve-jot-ables.”
It’s from the AbFab episode where they go to France. Funny.
OOH! I remember that episode; the one little boy kept saying it “crau-ton” (emphasis on first syllable), though, and that’s how I always say it ever since. My husband seems to have gotten used to it.
It is my understanding that Porshe (Porsh) is the correct way to say it in English. Porshe (Porsha) if you are speaking German. In fact, American Porshe commercials pronounce it Porche.
A lot of people say that it’s ‘proper’ to call it a porsha, but then don’t use the ‘proper’ name for other foreign cars (such as Folks Vagon, Opel, etc).
d’oh!
I meant:
American Porshe ads pronounce them “porsh”.
In my house, Tostitos are “toasty toes.” On a grocery list, wrapped slices of cheese-like substance and small bottles of orange juice are called “cheezingles and juicingles.” When they were having bad years, (and they sure had some) the Indianapolis Colts were the “Clots” or the “Dolts.” A smallish Ford SUV is an “Exploder.” This came from a Doper named 5speed or something. He was a transmission mechanic who thanked Og every day for the Exploder.
Hey, I do that too! I started doing it several years ago when the Nebraska Cornhuskers were playing in the Fiesta Bowl. Coach Tom Osborne was at a press conference talking about the game and, mocking the commercialized atmosphere of the event, made sure to always say “the TosTEEtos Fiesta Bowl.” When I first read his comments in a newspaper article, though, I misread his pronunciation. I asked a friend of mine, “Why the Hell does Osborne keep calling it the Toasty Toes Fiesta Bowl?” Eventually I realized my error, but the name stuck.
I use these frequently. Also, when I need to think somthing over, I say “Let me ponder that for a spell.”
Small Mexican dogs are chi-hoo-ah-hoo-ahs, of course.
Roast beef is always tastier when you call it roast beast, a la the Grinch, although I’m not quite sure that counts as a mispronounciation.
(When I was an American working in Italy) a coworker and I once overheard a native Italian speaker making fun of our Italian. This person did not actually know us – believe me, if he did, he would have more than enough material because our Italian was pathetic – it was the kind of thing where he was saying “oh, I heard the Americans are coming to this meeting, I know we’re going to have to listen to them mangle our language” and then went on to speak with a goofy Texas-type accent. NATURALLY, we were then forced to put on as obnoxious an American accent as possible, and there were certain choice words that sounded especially funny (to us, hey, we were jetlagged) and so we kept those mispronounciations. I would caution anyone against doing this sort of thing on purpose when first learning a language, because it becomes very difficult to remember to pronounce those words correctly when you are in important business situations, as we came to find out.
A former co-worker of mine, when referring to a street named Sepulveda (Se-PUL-ve-da) Boulebard would deliberately call it SEP-pull-VEEda Boulevard. No matter how many times my brother-in-law hears it pronounced correctly, when he speaks of El Pollo (poy-yo) Loco he calls it polo loco. My sister has long since given up correctiong him. I don’t say anything either, but it jars me every time.
Thanks for pointing that out, Spectre. “Fook-see-ah”, or “fooks-ee-ah”. But could it also be pronounced “fook-she-ah”, or “fooks-he-ah”? I’d like to know for sure before I start pronouncing it the “proper” way. 
Reminds me of the word “quixotic” which, according to the dictionary, should be pronounced “qwik-zah-tik”. What? The word comes from the novel Don Quixote, in which “Quixote” is pronounced “key-ho-tee” (or “key-ho-tay”). So, “quixotic” should be pronounced “key-ho-tik” or “key-ha-tik”. And that’s how I intend to pronounce it from now on.
And then there’s the word “pronunciation”. Stupid. It comes from the word “pronounce”. Where’d the second “o” go? I’m considering spelling that word from now on the way it should be spelled - “pronounciation”. And pronouncing it the same way. 
Anyhoo…
Not so much mispronunciation as perceived mispronunciation.
I say kilometer. (emphasis on first sylable rather than the second)
I say protein. (that is, I pronounce it “protey-in” rather than “pro-teen”)
While GrizzWife knows they’re both acceptable pronunciations, she still rolls her eyes every time I do it because she claims I’m just trying to be different.
:eek: I stand corrected, but, not totally believing you, I think I will have to call up some American dealerships and listen to how the receptionist answers the phone. You’re probably right, though; at least you can spell the word correctly.