Pronunciations I have learned...

You can often find my grandmother “warshing” dishes at the “zink”

I’ve been told my pronunciations of ‘umbrella’ and ‘Thanksgiving’ (stress on the first syllable instead of the second) are quite unusual. I got them from my mother (from western PA) but maybe she’s just unusual too.

My wife and I have a private pronunciation joke/tic: ‘foilage’ for ‘foliage’. I just know I’m going to slip up and say it wrong in some important public forum.

[QUOTE=Leaffan]
A friend of mine has a funny story from buying shoes in Buffalo a few years back. The clerk asked him if he wanted the “backs?”

The backs?

Yes, the backs. Right there. There! The backs! Do you want the backs? In front of you! Right there! THE BACKS!
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Ohhhhhh, the box! :smack:
[/QUOTE]

Reminds me of the time a customer kept asking me if we “do kappies”. I must’ve made her repeat herself about 3 times before another customer translated that she was asking about photocopying. :smack:

[QUOTE=Leaffan]
A friend of mine has a funny story from buying shoes in Buffalo a few years back. The clerk asked him if he wanted the “backs?”

The backs?

Yes, the backs. Right there. There! The backs! Do you want the backs? In front of you! Right there! THE BACKS!
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Ohhhhhh, the box! :smack:
[/QUOTE]

One summer at Boy Scout camp, I had a Scottish counselor with a very thick brogue. When I went to do my swimming test, he asked me if I had my “tool”.

“My what?”
“Your tool.”
“Huh?”
“Your tool,” he said, and mimed drying himself off.

I finally got it.

I just came into this thread to take care of bidness.

Oh and the killdeer was always a “killdee” in my neck of Appalachia. I’ve never known why the ‘r’ gets dropped.

(My north Georgia parents always used “chester drawers,” too.)

[QUOTE=spoke-]
I just came into this thread to take care of bidness.
[/QUOTE]
That’s a good’n.

[QUOTE=Liberal]
That’s a good’n.
[/QUOTE]

Well, I heared it once(t) or twice(t) growin’ up.

[QUOTE=Joey P]
In Wisconsin “Drinking fountain” is pronounced “Bubbler”
[/QUOTE]

That’s only you weirdoes in Milwaukee and northern Wisconsin. Residents here in the southwest say drinking or water fountain like civilized people.

It’s “pop”, too, not “soda.”

[QUOTE=WhyNot]
Hmm…thirdwarning, forty miles north or south? (Or west?) Maybe it’s an Irishism kept active on the south side and suburbs by the South Side Irish. I grew up in the south suburbs, and it was/is ubiquitous.
[/QUOTE]

Straight south. Farther than suburbs, though. Out in the boonies, so maybe it doesn’t go that far. I don’t know where this young man grew up, but I know he’s a city boy.

The one I really noticed when I started getting acquainted with them city people (or south side people, maybe) was that they said “go by” when they meant “go to”. As in, “I went by Joe’s yesterday.” I always pictured them waving as they passed the house.

[QUOTE=wolfman]
It was sadly recently that I learned a movie about someone was a “Bio-pic” rather than a “Bi-op-ic”
[/QUOTE]

I have an otherwise very clever former co-worker who refers to one of the big online travel sites by it’s Irish name. You know, Travel O’City.

And, no, she ain’t kidding.

You mean “learnt,” of course.

The other day, I got stopped by the POlice. They wanted to make sure I have INsurance.

[QUOTE=fachverwirrt]
I will however, never stop chuckling at the pronunciation of Japan, MO.
[/QUOTE]
Nor will I over the pronunciations of:

Miami, OK (my-am-uh)
Orion, IL (or-ee-un)
Milan, IL (my-lin)

Jimmy Carter used to say, in addition to noo-kyoo-ler, Eye-rack.

[QUOTE=interface2x]
Nor will I over the pronunciations of:

Miami, OK (my-am-uh)
Orion, IL (or-ee-un)
Milan, IL (my-lin)
[/QUOTE]

There’s a “my-lin” in New Hampshire, too. Just north of “BER-lin”.

Isn’t Cairo, IL pronounced “cay-ro”?

I want to slap the shit out of my girlfriend’s mom every time I hear her say “brefix” instead of “breakfast”.

In Philadelphia it’s “brekfixt.”

Are the things you cut out of the paper to save a quarter on cat food coopons or quepons?

[QUOTE=picunurse]
Are the things you cut out of the paper to save a quarter on cat food coopons or quepons?
[/QUOTE]

[Ron White]
COO-pns
[/Ron White]

And Nava would probably have a fit if she heard how Torontonians pronounce Roncesvalles, which is a major street in west-central Toronto (in an area noted for a high Polish population), as well as being a Navarrese battlefield: “RON-suss-VAILZ”. :slight_smile: