# People who insist on mispronouncing words **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [June 23, 2014, 6:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-who-insist-on-mispronouncing-words/691471 "2014-06-23T18:41:21Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 11
**Author:** ![Pai325](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/c68b51/32.png) [@Pai325](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pai325)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2014, 3:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-who-insist-on-mispronouncing-words/691471/201 "2014-07-03T15:17:08Z")
> [@Zeldar](#): > > Pitch in colonel, too, but that’s already been mentioned, right? > > And does anybody, in everyday speech, say the “-day” in the names of the days? Around here, except for overly pedantic types and “News” people, it’s just “-dy.” I always say “day”, too. ---
**Author:** ![AppallingGael](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b9bd4f/32.png) [@AppallingGael](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AppallingGael)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2014, 3:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-who-insist-on-mispronouncing-words/691471/202 "2014-07-03T15:43:33Z")
> [@Learjeff](#): > > “bring it here” > “take it there” > > and > > “bring it when you come” > “take it when you go” So in sports, you should “bring it” to home games and “take it” to road games. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2014, 3:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-who-insist-on-mispronouncing-words/691471/203 "2014-07-03T15:52:11Z")
> [@GameHat](#): > > 😃 > > I’m fully aware of “Hoosier”, though to me it still means means someone who attended Indiana University. Though I get that other natives of the state take that name. > > I won’t excuse “Wess-consin”. Sorry. 😃 I doubt they would excuse “INE-diana” or “in-DYE-ana”. We’re all midwest here 😉 [Not really](http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/govbeat/wp/2013/11/08/which-of-the-11-american-nations-do-you-live-in/). Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota have more in common with the New England states than with the Midwest. I personally find that people around here (northern Arkansas) say something that sounds more like Wuss-CON-sun (all real words.) ---
**Author:** ![Zeldar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/b77776/32.png) [@Zeldar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeldar)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2014, 4:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-who-insist-on-mispronouncing-words/691471/204 "2014-07-03T16:00:58Z")
> [@BigT](#): > > \<\< clipped \>\> > I personally find that people around here (northern Arkansas) say something that sounds more like Wuss-CON-sun (all real words.) The people from Wisconsin whom I have heard pronouncing their state’s name invariably pronounce it as “Wuh-SCAN-sn” with a pronounced whine. ---
**Author:** ![Learjeff](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/94ad74/32.png) [@Learjeff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Learjeff)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2014, 9:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-who-insist-on-mispronouncing-words/691471/205 "2014-07-03T21:27:54Z")
> [@Inner\_Stickler](#): > > The concept that you are looking for is known as deixis which is a term describing references that cannot be understood by a listener without knowing extralinguistic context such as who is speaking, who they are addressing, where they are located and so on. > > For me, there are synonymous usages of bring and take that I find completely unobjectionable. Neither “Can you bring me there?” nor “Can you take me there?” feel wrong to me, but I would never say “Bring these plates away.” Thanks for the term! And yeah, there are exceptions even to my simple rules. Later that very day I found myself texting to a fellow keyboard player: “Going to jam, bringing keyboards” so he’d know he didn’t have to bring (take?) his. > [@AppallingGael](#): > > So in sports, you should “bring it” to home games and “take it” to road games. lol ---
**Author:** ![Nuveena](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/a587f6/32.png) [@Nuveena](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nuveena)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2014, 10:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-who-insist-on-mispronouncing-words/691471/206 "2014-07-03T22:01:20Z")
> [@california\_jobcase](#): > > cummerbund Wait. What? \ Mind blown. ---
**Author:** ![thelurkinghorror](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7c8e57/32.png) [@thelurkinghorror](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thelurkinghorror)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2014, 11:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-who-insist-on-mispronouncing-words/691471/207 "2014-07-03T23:36:22Z")
You just don’t want to get **victuals** all over your cummerbund. For what it’s worth, M-W gives cumberbund as a secondary pronunciation. And I see Firefox underlines neither. ---
**Author:** ![RivkahChaya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rivkahchaya/32/8919_2.png) [@RivkahChaya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RivkahChaya)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2014, 12:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-who-insist-on-mispronouncing-words/691471/208 "2014-07-04T00:03:14Z")
What about the way Americans say “barbiturate”? Is that one consonant just silent, like the T in “often”? Also, “ophthalmologist.” And “turmeric.” Do they just have silent letters, or does most of the country mispronounce them? ---
**Author:** ![Marlonius](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/838e76/32.png) [@Marlonius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marlonius)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2014, 2:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-who-insist-on-mispronouncing-words/691471/209 "2014-07-04T02:35:55Z")
I thought Canadians were bad in general with the letter T, but it’s sounding from this thread like Americans are even worse. I, and everyone I know definitely pronounce the “t” in “often”. We all say “…day” too. However, most Canadians pronounce t in the middle of words a the letter “d”. Water, butter, later, brutal…all said with a “d” sound. We don’t tend to drop things altogether, just replace them. “Often” seems to be an exception though, and I hear the “t” sound there. Most people I know say “groceries” as “grosheries”, and “asphalt” as “ashphalt”. I don’t know why. I don’t do it and my wife is trying with some success to stop. A peeve I remembered today: the news people on CBC pronounce “news” almost as a 2 syllable word…it sort of sounds like “knee-use”, which aggravates the hell out of me. ---
**Author:** ![Marlonius](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/838e76/32.png) [@Marlonius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marlonius)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2014, 2:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-who-insist-on-mispronouncing-words/691471/210 "2014-07-04T02:38:41Z")
> [@RivkahChaya](#): > > This reminds me of what always bugged me about that half full/half empty question, and that stupid “An optimist says half full,” yadda yadda. > > While I like the answer that the glass is half full of liquid and half full of air, what always bugged me since I first heard the dumb thing when I was 10 or so, was that you can’t know the answer without knowing whether someone was in the process of filling it up or pouring it out (or drinking from it). Pouring it out? half empty. Filling it up? half full. I agree 100%. It’s the engineer in me I guess. Optimist says half full, pessimist says half empty, and process engineer says the glass has 100% surge capacity. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2014, 2:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-who-insist-on-mispronouncing-words/691471/211 "2014-07-04T02:59:14Z")
> [@RivkahChaya](#): > > What about the way Americans say “barbiturate”? Is that one consonant just silent, like the T in “often”? > > Also, “ophthalmologist.” And “turmeric.” Do they just have silent letters, or does most of the country mispronounce them? /r/ often gets dropped when it is near another /r/. And /fθ/ (phth) is a difficult combination to say, and I don’t believe anyone around here ever says it, so it becomes /pθ/ (pth). The /l/ (L) has the same problem as the /r/–too many together are hard to say. /ur/, when followed by a vowel, seems to be hard to say as well. And, yes, all of those are standard pronunciations. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2014, 3:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-who-insist-on-mispronouncing-words/691471/212 "2014-07-04T03:10:47Z")
> [@RivkahChaya](#): > > What about the way Americans say “barbiturate”? Is that one consonant just silent, like the T in “often”? Wow. I never knew that word had an “r” in it. Not sure how I missed that my whole life. ---
**Author:** ![saje](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saje/32/3631_2.png) [@saje](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/saje)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2014, 3:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-who-insist-on-mispronouncing-words/691471/213 "2014-07-04T03:11:27Z")
Lets not forget the whole tohMAto - tohMAYto debacle. In my mind it’s tohMAto, though I mostly say it the other way since I now live in SC and I’m tired of the weird looks I get. FWIW, I grew up in southern CT. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2014, 3:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-who-insist-on-mispronouncing-words/691471/214 "2014-07-04T03:13:44Z")
> [@RivkahChaya](#): > > What about the way Americans say “barbiturate”? Is that one consonant just silent, like the T in “often”? > > Also, “ophthalmologist.” And “turmeric.” Do they just have silent letters, or does most of the country mispronounce them? I don’t know what you mean by “mispronounce.” The standard American pronunciations of those words have no silent letters. In other words, if you are asking whether the “R” in “turmeric” is pronounced, the answer is yes. ---
**Author:** ![vontsira](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/51bf81/32.png) [@vontsira](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vontsira)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2014, 3:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-who-insist-on-mispronouncing-words/691471/215 "2014-07-04T15:28:32Z")
[Cummerbund.] > [@Nuveena](#): > > Wait. What? \ Mind blown. > [@thelurkinghorror](#): > > You just don’t want to get **victuals** all over your cummerbund. > > For what it’s worth, M-W gives cumberbund as a secondary pronunciation. And I see Firefox underlines neither. It is indeed a wonderful word. Edward Lear wrote a mock-tragic-horror poem with that title, full of deliberately misused words from India; about the beautiful heroine’s falling victim to the dread people-eating monster the Cummerbund. First verse: “She sate upon her Dobie To watch the evening star, And all the Punkahs as they passed Cried ‘My ! How fair you are !’ Around her bower, with quivering leaves, The tall Kamsamahs grew; And Kitmutgars in wild festoons Hung down from Tchokis blue.” ---
**Author:** ![EmilyG](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/emilyg/32/364_2.png) [@EmilyG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EmilyG)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2014, 3:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-who-insist-on-mispronouncing-words/691471/216 "2014-07-04T15:45:37Z")
> [@Marlonius](#): > > …A peeve I remembered today: the news people on CBC pronounce “news” almost as a 2 syllable word…it sort of sounds like “knee-use”, which aggravates the hell out of me. I listen to CBC Radio all the time, and I’ve noticed it too! ---
**Author:** ![staili](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c57346/32.png) [@staili](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/staili)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2014, 5:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-who-insist-on-mispronouncing-words/691471/217 "2014-07-04T17:10:22Z")
Having never heard the word pronounced my entire life until recently, I always thought the capital of Australia was pronounced can-BEH-ruh. Then I met someone from Australia, who said he was from “the capital, CAN-bra.” To which, I thought to myself, “But, that’s not the capital, the capital is. . .(long pause). . . oh.” By the way, is it “CAN-bra” or “CAN-buh-ruh”? It sounded more like he pronounced it as 2 syllables rather than 3, but Merriam-Webster online gives a 3-syllable version. Going back to “hyperbole,” Natasha Bedingfield had a #1 hit in the UK and Top 20 in the US with “These Words,” in which there is a spoken section where she says there is “no hyper-bowl to hide behind.” Considering how many hands (and ears) a major-label release must go through before making it to the public, I’m surprised that it wasn’t fixed. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2014, 5:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-who-insist-on-mispronouncing-words/691471/218 "2014-07-04T17:29:47Z")
> [@vontsira](#): > > "She sate upon her Dobie > > To watch the evening star, > > And all the Punkahs as they passed > > Cried ‘My ! How fair you are !’ > > Around her bower, with quivering leaves, > > The tall Kamsamahs grew; > > And Kitmutgars in wild festoons > > Hung down from Tchokis blue." It’s really only funny if you know what the words actually mean. Dhobi = laundryman Pankha = fan (the kind that keeps you cool) Khansamah = cook Khitmutgar = waiter Chowki = prison ---
**Author:** ![RivkahChaya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rivkahchaya/32/8919_2.png) [@RivkahChaya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RivkahChaya)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2014, 6:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-who-insist-on-mispronouncing-words/691471/219 "2014-07-04T18:03:26Z")
> [@staili](#): > > Having never heard the word pronounced my entire life until recently, I always thought the capital of Australia was pronounced can-BEH-ruh. Then I met someone from Australia, who said he was from “the capital, CAN-bra.” To which, I thought to myself, “But, that’s not the capital, the capital is. . .(long pause). . . oh.” That reminds me of one of my favorite Jeopardy moments. The answer was “This is how you pronounce the capital of Kentucky.” The first contestant rang in and said “What is ‘Loo-ee-vill’?” Alex said “No.” The second contestant rang in, and tried to go a little more slack-jawed, and said "What is “Loo-a-vull’?” Alex said “No,” looking slightly disgusted. The last contested rang in, and tried to sound not just slack-jawed, but drunk, and maybe a little, umm, “special.” She said something like “What is ‘Laahhh-uhh-vlll’?” Alex could barely contain his disdain when he informed them the correct question was “What is ‘Frankfort’?” > [@](#): > > Going back to “hyperbole,” Natasha Bedingfield had a #1 hit in the UK and Top 20 in the US with “These Words,” in which there is a spoken section where she says there is “no hyper-bowl to hide behind.” Considering how many hands (and ears) a major-label release must go through before making it to the public, I’m surprised that it wasn’t fixed. Maybe she was looking for something to hide behind literally, like, I don’t know, a human-sized bowl? You never know what might be backstage from some leftover set. I’m sure a lot of producers don’t even listen, considering the garbage lyrics that have been part of popular music since I don’t know when. If producers made it their business to say “‘Song she brang me?’ that’s not even correct grammar.” Or “Why don’t you change that to ‘I’m proud to be in America, where at least I know I’m free,’ because ‘where’ is functioning as a pronoun of place, and needs an antecedent, which ends up being ‘I,’ since ‘American’ is an adjective, not a noun,” probably a lot of hits would never get made. They just record it, market it, and think about the “pompatus” of love. All the way to the bank. Just between you and I. :smack: ---
**Author:** ![vontsira](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/51bf81/32.png) [@vontsira](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vontsira)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2014, 6:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-who-insist-on-mispronouncing-words/691471/220 "2014-07-04T18:18:08Z")
> [@Acsenray](#): > > It’s really only funny if you know what the words actually mean. > > Dhobi = laundryman > Pankha = fan (the kind that keeps you cool) > Khansamah = cook > Khitmutgar = waiter > Chowki = prison Thanks ! “Chowki” is the one which had always puzzled me, till now – had no idea what it meant. Hence, no doubt, the British slang expression “chokey” = prison: the word from India, plus the figure-of-speech bonus, of imprisonment feeling like a choking experience. Britain and India, in their long love-hate relationship, have always enjoyed taking the piss (in the main, affectionately) out of each other. I’ve always liked the mostly-nonsense British nineteenth-century pseudo-Indian jingle: starting off from the name of Sir Jamsetjee Jejeebahoy, a well-known (Parsee, I believe) Indian philanthropist of that era. “Jamsetjee ma Jejeebahoy, Jabbery dhobi poori [fried bread snack] Ikey sikey pikey crikey, Chillungowallabadoorie”. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-who-insist-on-mispronouncing-words/691471.md?page=10) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-who-insist-on-mispronouncing-words/691471.md?page=12)