There are a couple not mentioned in the previous pages that might be regional to the upper Midwest, namely re-luh-tor and ath-uh-leet. People that use those are almost guaranteed also to use nuke-yu-ler.
The medical “sontimeter” thing never bothers me when I’m transcribing. There are worse things they can do when they’re dictating. For instance, I transcribe for one physician assistant and one physician who refer consistently to the fair-nix. Just look at the word, wouldja!? Phar-Y-N-X. How the hell is that NOT pronounced fair-inks?
I think va-jay-jay has been around a while, but Oprah’s use of it has been disseminated through Joel McHale and The Soup, which has a segment called “Oprah’s Va Jay Jay.”
Broo-SHET-uh for Broo-SKET-uh (bruschetta) irks me mildly, but I think that’s about as annoyed as I ever get about pronunciations. Personally, I love most of the dialectical variety. I really don’t understand why people get so up in arms over pronunciations like “nucular” or “axe,” or complain about expressions like “I could care less,” as if English idioms are somehow consistently logical.
“Jew-ery” – I hear this almost everytime I go to Wal-Mart. Some screech-voiced moron decides to deep-throat the intercom phone while yelling “Someone in Jewery pick up line 1.”
Some of the words that most annoy me are definately a regional thing. The first really isn’t defensible, but annoyances don’t have to be defensible, get over it.
The British pronounciation of aluminum as aluminium. The fact that this is an accepted spelling and pronounciation is why it can’t be defended. Still annoys the crap out of me.
To further add insult is their habit of adding an R to the ends of words that have nothing resembling that letter anywhere in them. That I’ll never travel to that side of the ocean is as much for their own protection as mine.
And the head of security where I work. Compooter. He opened a call with the service desk several months ago because the flip-flop on his compooter wasn’t working.
Ha! I came in here to post that one. And get this: my own otherwise intelligent SO, who used to work at NASA pronounces it this way. We live near a NASA installation, we have tons of friends who work there and just generally have a lot of opportunity to pronounce the word, and he says “Nassau” every. bleeping. time.
It’s height. With a simple “T” at the end, as in “right”. It is NOT heighth. Length is a word. Width is a word. Heighth is an announcement of ignorance. I’m amazed how many people make this mistake. Especially people who you think would know better.
Forgot this earlier: pronouncing Porsche as Porsh. It is properly *Porshuh *. A German friend explained this by saying, “In German, if there’s a letter, you say it.” I don’t know how true that is, but I do know Porsche is pronounced Porshuh and if you don’t like it, I could care less.
I know that it’s the dominant pronunciation, but I hate hearing “February” pronounced as feb-u-ar-y. I refuse to bow to convention in this case! Yeah, I’m probably in the wrong, but I jut like the sound of feb-ru-ar-y much better, for some bizarre and arbitrary reason.
Nope, you got that one wrong. It is pronounced porch. This makes perfect sense if you think about it.
The 924,928, and 944 were front engined cars, so they are a front porch.
The 911 of course is a back porch.
But now what am I going to do about my poor bleeding ears?
ETA: BTW, can anyone name some countries that are currently under the control of juntas, particularly juntas that don’t object to being referred to with the term?
Come to think of it, I do object to the anglicization of words that are “borrowed” into the English language, and I don’t really consider that the passage of three or four centuries legitimizes the action.
I’m perfectly content to allow the English language to continue including “junta” in its lexicons; but don’t fuck with the pronunciation of words that are taken from still-living languages (at least). The other languages may want them back someday, and the words should be in a recognizable condition.
And I thought the British were supposed to be all about classy, correct behavior.
One of my co-workers says “expresso”. It’s like fingernails on the blackboard of my soul. I’ve told her how much it bugs me, so she goes out of her way to say “expresso” just to me.
