# Pronounciations that grate: Is it because I'm old? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [June 19, 2012, 2:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronounciations-that-grate-is-it-because-im-old/625645 "2012-06-19T14:32:58Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Biggirl](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/biggirl/32/3294_2.png) [@Biggirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biggirl)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2012, 4:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronounciations-that-grate-is-it-because-im-old/625645/21 "2012-06-19T16:05:08Z")
> [@hogarth](#): > > Indeed I can! In fact, it was not so very long ago that I read an internet message board post where “veterans” sounded like “'vechrins” and “irreplaceable” sounded like “irreplaceaboo”. It “sounded” like no such thing. Unless you have one of those text reader thingees. Then it probably sounded rather robotic. Perhaps I was not clear. These pronounciations grated in my hearing. I know about accents. I’ve read things written in dialect, including Dickens. I watch TV shows where people speak with thick accents and use regionalisms in character. And you know what? Those people sound funny to me, just a I sound funny to other people not from The Bronx. And ‘irreplaceaboo’ is not acceptable in any context. ---
**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:** [June 19, 2012, 4:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronounciations-that-grate-is-it-because-im-old/625645/22 "2012-06-19T16:23:34Z")
I’ll note that singing often results in modified pronunciation. Classical singers are even trained on how to change their pronunciations in order to have the best effect. With regard to “Irreplaceable,” to me it sounds like she’s saying “IrreplaceaBOW” to rhyme with “what didja think I was puttin’ you out FOW.” ---
**Author:** ![needscoffee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/needscoffee/32/1076_2.png) [@needscoffee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/needscoffee)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2012, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronounciations-that-grate-is-it-because-im-old/625645/23 "2012-06-19T16:41:44Z")
> [@Biggirl](#): > > Perhaps I was not clear. These \*\*pronounciations \*\*grated in my hearing. (Bolding mine) Spelling nitpick: pron **u** nciation The mispronunciations that bug me are from actors. Apparently they’re guessing at how to pronounce written words and nobody is correcting them. Examples: All throughout the movie Space Cowboys, the diphthong in “Project Daedalus” was mispronounced with a long A instead of a short e. In Breaking Bad last season, Colin Hanks repeatedly mispronounced “omega”, with a short e instead of a long A sound in the middle syllable, though his character was supposed to be well educated. ---
**Author:** ![Svejk\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ea666f/32.png) [@Svejk\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Svejk_1)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2012, 5:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronounciations-that-grate-is-it-because-im-old/625645/24 "2012-06-19T17:04:06Z")
> [@needscoffee](#): > > (Bolding mine) Spelling nitpick: pron **u** nciation Thank you! Now _that_ was grating. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2012, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronounciations-that-grate-is-it-because-im-old/625645/25 "2012-06-19T17:05:42Z")
> [@needscoffee](#): > > In Breaking Bad last season, Colin Hanks repeatedly mispronounced “omega”, with a short e instead of a long A sound in the middle syllable, though his character was supposed to be well educated. I think you mean Deexter. ---
**Author:** ![needscoffee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/needscoffee/32/1076_2.png) [@needscoffee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/needscoffee)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2012, 5:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronounciations-that-grate-is-it-because-im-old/625645/26 "2012-06-19T17:08:30Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > I think you mean Deexter. Right! Thanks! ---
**Author:** ![Biggirl](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/biggirl/32/3294_2.png) [@Biggirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biggirl)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2012, 5:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronounciations-that-grate-is-it-because-im-old/625645/27 "2012-06-19T17:13:55Z")
> [@needscoffee](#): > > (Bolding mine) Spelling nitpick: pron **u** nciation It was underlined in red and everything. I’m a nincompoop. ---
**Author:** ![KneadToKnow](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kneadtoknow/32/3999_2.png) [@KneadToKnow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KneadToKnow)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2012, 6:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronounciations-that-grate-is-it-because-im-old/625645/28 "2012-06-19T18:10:10Z")
\< Turanga Leela \> Let me axe you a question. \< /Turanga Leela \> ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2012, 6:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronounciations-that-grate-is-it-because-im-old/625645/29 "2012-06-19T18:39:22Z")
Two I particularly hate are “calvary” when someone means “cavalry” (the first is where Jesus was crucified, the second is Custer’s branch of the Army), and “short- (or long-) lived,” with a **short** , not **long** , “i.” You are short- or long- **lived** if your **life** is short or long, not your “liv” (if you even have one, which I doubt you do). I also loathe hearing “further” when the speaker clearly means “farther.” Apparently they don’t bother teaching the difference between the two even in journalism school nowadays. And “loathe,” BTW, is not interchangeable with “loth.” The first is a verb (“I loathe you!”), the second is an adjective (“I am loth to close.” —_A. Lincoln_). They’re not spelled the same, and they’re not pronounced the same. ---
**Author:** ![fumster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e9c0ed/32.png) [@fumster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fumster)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2012, 6:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronounciations-that-grate-is-it-because-im-old/625645/30 "2012-06-19T18:59:13Z")
“off-ten” grates on me as does “acrosst” as in “he lives acrosst the road” ---
**Author:** ![Deegeea](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e9bcb4/32.png) [@Deegeea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Deegeea)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2012, 7:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronounciations-that-grate-is-it-because-im-old/625645/31 "2012-06-19T19:25:42Z")
You are short or long lived if you have lived a short or long time. I’d say “live” the verb past tense is more accurately pronounced with the short i. So that pronunciation doesn’t seem very off. Saying -ble like boo is odder, but yes, singing pronunciation is often mangled a bit to make it fit the music and tempo. Singers put the accent on the VREE syllable in “everything” sometimes, which no one would do in spoken English. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2012, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronounciations-that-grate-is-it-because-im-old/625645/32 "2012-06-19T19:30:08Z")
> [@terentii](#): > > And “loathe,” BTW, is not interchangeable with “loth.” The first is a verb (“I loathe you!”), the second is an adjective (“I am loth to close.” —_A. Lincoln_). They’re not spelled the same, and they’re not pronounced the same. And there is also the now more common spelling of “loath.” Loth is given as an alternate spelling in dictionaries, to be sure, but this is a spectacularly bad example to use for “correctness” in language. [N-grams](http://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=loth%2Cloath&year_start=1800&year_end=2000&corpus=0&smoothing=3) shows that loth has been waning in usage for a century. Language is change. ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2012, 7:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronounciations-that-grate-is-it-because-im-old/625645/33 "2012-06-19T19:32:43Z")
> [@Deegeea](#): > > You are short or long lived if you have lived a short or long time. I’d say “live” the verb past tense is more accurately pronounced with the short i. No, something is long-lived (with a long “i”) if its life is long, just like someone would be “knifed” (with a long “i”) and not “kniffed” (with a short “i”) if he/she had a knife stuck in them. “Lived” is in this case an adjective (a past passive participle, actually), not a verb. ---
**Author:** ![PJMom](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/2acd7d/32.png) [@PJMom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PJMom)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2012, 7:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronounciations-that-grate-is-it-because-im-old/625645/34 "2012-06-19T19:35:42Z")
> [@](#): > > Two I particularly hate are “calvary” when someone means “cavalry” (the first is where Jesus was crucified, the second is Custer’s branch of the Army) That drives me nuts too! Another mispronunciation annoyance for me is in the Natasha Bedingfield song “Unwritten”; she pronounces “lips” as “lisp,” e. g." No one else, no one else; Can speak the words on your lisp…" ---
**Author:** ![hogarth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hogarth/32/1773_2.png) [@hogarth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hogarth)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2012, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronounciations-that-grate-is-it-because-im-old/625645/35 "2012-06-19T19:36:24Z")
> [@Deegeea](#): > > Saying -ble like boo is odder, but yes, singing pronunciation is often mangled a bit to make it fit the music and tempo. Singers put the accent on the VREE syllable in “everything” sometimes, which no one would do in spoken English. There have been a number of threads on “most annoying pronunciation in song lyrics”. My personal (least) favourite is Tom Cochrane in the song White Hot pronouncing “Somalian” as if it rhymed with “summer lion”. ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2012, 7:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronounciations-that-grate-is-it-because-im-old/625645/36 "2012-06-19T19:40:05Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > And there is also the now more common spelling of “loath.” Loth is given as an alternate spelling in dictionaries, to be sure, but this is a spectacularly bad example to use for “correctness” in language. [N-grams](http://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=loth%2Cloath&year_start=1800&year_end=2000&corpus=0&smoothing=3) shows that loth has been waning in usage for a century. > > Language is change. Quite true. But if you change the spelling, you change the pronunciation. That a word is commonly misused is often offered as justification for mangling the language. Granted, the word is not widely used nowadays (I suspect it was considered literary even by the 1860s). But Lincoln did not say “I am loath (rhymes with “oath”) to close,” but “I am loth (rhymes with “sloth”) to close.” As for “correctness,” I happen to work as both a translator and editor, and I used to teach English as a foreign language. So you bet I know my native tongue backward and forward. ---
**Author:** ![Tapiotar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/3be4f8/32.png) [@Tapiotar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tapiotar)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2012, 7:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronounciations-that-grate-is-it-because-im-old/625645/37 "2012-06-19T19:40:45Z")
Age might have something to do with it bothering you more now. I’ve noticed I have to pay more attention to make sure I’m hearing correctly now. If your hearing has changed enough so that you have to listen more closely, but not enough to make you think you have a hearing problem, you’ll notice the alternate/mispronunciations more, and they will be more annoying. ---
**Author:** ![lost4life](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/c4cdca/32.png) [@lost4life](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lost4life)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2012, 7:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronounciations-that-grate-is-it-because-im-old/625645/38 "2012-06-19T19:50:17Z")
> [@KneadToKnow](#): > > \< Turanga Leela \> > Let me axe you a question. > \< /Turanga Leela \> \ Is it about the robit? \ ---
**Author:** ![EllisDee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ellisdee/32/4531_2.png) [@EllisDee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EllisDee)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2012, 8:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronounciations-that-grate-is-it-because-im-old/625645/39 "2012-06-19T20:55:11Z")
> [@terentii](#): > > No, something is long-lived (with a long “i”) if its life is long, just like someone would be “knifed” (with a long “i”) and not “kniffed” (with a short “i”) if he/she had a knife stuck in them. This particular point is gibberish. It’s not “kniffed” because “knif” isn’t a word. You live a life. You don’t knif a knife. If it is supposed to be a long i, one would assume it should be long-lifed, not long-lived. I will continue using the short i version because I find none of your arguments compelling. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2012, 10:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronounciations-that-grate-is-it-because-im-old/625645/40 "2012-06-19T22:00:05Z")
> [@terentii](#): > > Quite true. But if you change the spelling, you change the pronunciation. Not historically accurate. The spelling often changes to follow the pronunciation. > [@](#): > > That a word is commonly misused is often offered as justification for mangling the language. Only by prescriptivists. And nobody pays attention to them. > [@](#): > > Granted, the word is not widely used nowadays (I suspect it was considered literary even by the 1860s). But Lincoln did not say “I am loath (rhymes with “oath”) to close,” but “I am loth (rhymes with “sloth”) to close.” How do you know that? Wouldn’t he have used the long “o” to make the assonance with “close” stronger? And even if true, if rhymes with oath is the preferred pronunciation today - which it is - what difference could it possibly make? > [@](#): > > As for “correctness,” I happen to work as both a translator and editor, and I used to teach English as a foreign language. So you bet I know my native tongue backward and forward. And I’ve been a professional writer, editor, and critic for 40 years. But I didn’t know anything about usage until I studied it as a separate subject. That study convinced me that being a prescriptivist was insupportable by facts or history. There is certainly good English, which I always define here as the English used by professional communicators. But that even professional communicators never agree on anything unanimously has been indisputable since the American Heritage Dictionary’s first word usage panel back in 1966. You are certainly free to hold yourself to standards of what you consider good English in your work, as I feel that I do in mine. But virtually every discrepancy between those two visions is arbitrary and personal and has nothing to do with “correctness.” That’s a myth. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronounciations-that-grate-is-it-because-im-old/625645.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronounciations-that-grate-is-it-because-im-old/625645.md?page=3)