For me it was blueman. “Get in the blueman car!”
(Do you know that Los Alamos and Los Angeles are both plural in Spanish?)
In Japan, “Nachos” is used as both the singular and plural. Same goes for “Tacos.” If you want one taco, you say, basically, “One tacos, please.”
However, in Japanese, everything is treated as a mass noun in a sense, so it’s more like you’re saying “I’d like one unit of tacos, please.”
Still, it feels like using “tacos” as the term for a single unit.
-FrL-
According to a certain relative who shall remain nameless, NASA has the same pronunciation as that city in the Bahamas–Nassau. Also, Toyota makes a car called the Pry-us (even though one of his favorite radio hosts has one, has talked about it at length and has never called it such.) There’s a water filtration system called Bry-ee-ta and a ky-osk is where you can post notes about local happenings and such. And, in case you were wondering, the word statistics has three sets of “st’s” in it.
He actually asked (an extreme rarity) whether a neighbor’s cat was named Huge-o or Hugo, despite the fact my sister and I had just been calling him by the latter just minutes before and besides, Huge-o is such a common name, especially for a 7-pound feline. Also, he finally realized that our area’s phone company of the last ten or fifteen years, despite its spelling, is not pronounced Q-West but Quest. Keep in mind that the Seattle Mariners, whom he watches often, have been playing ball at Qwest Field for quite some time.
There are dozens of other verbal quirks he has but I tend to block most of them for fear my brain will explode. I guess it’s just age and his refusal to get a hearing aid but sometimes I think he’s just trying to yank our chains, even though that just seems out of character for him. He the nicest guy ever and I love him but there are times these last few years when I wish I’d had a bit more of his patience when it comes to letting things like that just pass.
Wanted to add, I’ve never said anything about to him. I just get frustrated inside, is all.
Call it a pree-us around here and you’ll be taken for even more of a pillock than you already are for having one where it will be of little to no benefit.
Reminds me of three more that send me into convulsions: A-rabs and Eye-talians who live in Dee-troit.
The infinitive is “to drown.” Please note the absence of a terminal “D” sound. The past tense is “drowned.” Please note that the past tense is a single syllable pronounced drownd.
It is not, under any circumstances, to be pronounced DROWN-did. Never, ever, ever.
My mother (and her mother, too) always pronounces “hamburger” partially: “hamburg.” There’s a freaking “er” at the end of it, mom!
The exBF drops the “h” off any word that begins with it. “Look, your tiny hands make my c**k look so 'uge!”
But those are basically regionalisms and they don’t make me seethe. What actually makes me seethe is when people say one thing, but that’s not really what they mean. “I feel like” usually precedes a statement of fact or opinion, not an emotion. “I feel like the sky is blue.” Sets my teeth on edge. Misusage bugs me more than mispronounciations. But there are two that get me every time.
I used to live in Boca Raton. That’s Boca Rah-TONE. Not Boca Rah-TAWN. Fills me with Grr.
But my all-time, hands down favorite mispronounciation is my stepmother does not know how to pronounce “envelope.” Now, I’ll accept “AWN-velope,” or “EN-velope.” No. She says, “AWN-vuh-loaf.”
WTF is an awnvaloaf? You put your letters in 'em and mail 'em. Gah!
THANK-you.
I’ve heard about them in fillums.
I’ve never heard that in my entire life - an Americanism perhaps?
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, the one that grates on me so much I actually stop and correct people is schedule. It’s pronounced shed-ule, not sked-ew-all. It’s only two syllables and there’s no K in it.
Fortunately in my place of work where most people have dealt with the legalislative process they know how to say schedule (as in schedule 2 of the Education and Inspections Act 2006 - which, incidentally, regards proposals for establishment or discontinuance of schools in England, geeky fact).
So how do you pronounce “school”?
The same way I pronounce schooner - with a K in it. Just because it shares the same spelling as another word pronounced with a K doesn’t mean it has to as well. Are you saying that you and your should be said the same way as well because they share a similar grouping of letters?
Anyway, my annoyance is when British people pronounce it with a K as that’s not the way it’s supposed to be said. I’m less bothered when the yanks say it because it’s a recognised American variation of pronounciation.
I saw Elliot use it in a 2004 or 2005 episode of Scrubs. I need to double check which season, though.
New Yorkisms in particular. Probably because this is the only place I’ve ever been where many highly educated people still speak the accent of the old neighborhood. I’m sorry, but it just sticks in my craw to hear somebody say they’re on the board of a “museem” or a VP for “yuman” resources.
More to the point: how do you pronounce “schism” or “schizoid,” which are derived from the same Greek root as “schedule” (skhizein, to split or divide)?
"I’ve got an “ideal” rather than “idea.”
Grrrr…
In the novel E.T., the D+D players pronounced it “Shitzoid”. [/pointless trivia.]
[QUOTE=Vox Imperatoris]
As in “centimeters,” right? Why would you say that? Shudder . . .[\QUOTE]
'Cause they live close to France and the French started it all?
It must be but I hear it a lot, especially in the past few years.
Many moons ago, I had a therapist who spent a great deal of time teaching me the difference between thinking and feeling. This went toward learning how to do boundary work.
Anyway, every time I hear it, I hear my therapist’s voice, “Is that an emotion? Or is that a thought?”
I feel like it’s probably a thought. 