I knew a girl back in Texas who would always say “wumbleteed” for “tumbleweed,” but she did that on purpose, so I don’t know if that counts.
And she also did “flutterby” for “butterfly” now that I think about it, which I thought appropriate. Again on purpose though. Mmmm, have not thought of her for a while.
While on travel, a coworker of mine dragged me through a leather outfitter’s store looking at everything, especially the hundreds of boots, with intent to buy. But, he walks out not buying anything. Then, we go to lunch, and this city slicker asks for the “bee-bee-cue” special, as if he had no clue how to pronounce “barbeque”!?!?! WTF? City slickers are alive and well!
I work in auto repair and hear cadillac converter for catalytic converter quite often.
From the movie “Ensign Pulver”: BYEW-tocks for “Buttocks”.
My dad (who knew better) never pronounced the word any other way. Neither do I.
I hate it when people treat “h” like a vowel. “An hormone”, “an helper”, and “an historical”, for example. I know it’s typically regarded as correct, but it immediately makes the offender out to be someone trying to appear more intelligent than he/she actually is (at least to me).
What? Where is it ‘typically regarded as correct?’ “An helper” is flat out wrong.
I worked with a woman who always referred to Vienna sausages as Vagina sausages…
It was pretty funny because she brought them to work several days a week and we always waited for her to announce her lunch menu.
LOL
I think if it’s like a soft H or something, you’re supposed to treat it as a vowel and use an. I don’t actually know, because I think it sounds silly and I don’t do it, but my understand is that it’s correct to do so.
If you mean a silent h, then yea. “An hourglass”, for example. But what other words beginning with h are correctly preceded with an “an” other than the ones with the silent “h”?
The common one is historic](A Definition & Meaning - Merriam-Webster[2). See the usage discussion toward the bottom. Drives prescriptivists crazy.
At summer camp in elementary school one year, we were all into a game that we called Wampire Tag. It was supposed to be vampire tag, but one of our friends was a recent immigrant and native German speaker who was like the poster child for Germans who mix up V and W in English. He couldn’t get it no matter how many times we corrected him, so we all just started saying wampire as well (also “wacuum cleaner”). To this day I think of the game as being called that.
Actually that was the only one I could think of myself. I can’t think of any more.
A friend of mine tells the tale of her trip to Paris, when a fellow tourist asked her, “Can you tell us how to get to the Champ de Sleazy?”
“This program has been brought to you by [XYZ] corporation, leaders in spoke recognition… Speech retchognition… Speech recognition software.”
(Heard on local PBS station.)
Perhaps he had seen signs advertising “BBQ.” It’s not uncommon and I’ve heard people refer to it by saying the letters.
I believe that’s a British practice. IIRC, it does not apply if the accent of a word falls n the first syllable. For instance, “a history” but “an historian.” (Brits, feel free to correct me on this if I’m wrong.)
I knew an assistant principal who kept talking about pneumonic (mnemonic) devices.
A guy I knew used to to like “JAAL-AH-pin-o” peppers (with heavy emphasis on 1st and 2nd syllables).
I heard it pronounce like that so much I have to think about it before I pronounce it.