Ah, I see.
And the newscasters keep USING that “hone in” phrase. There are days I wish I had a Nerf brick to throw at the screen, I tells ya.
Oh you mean at dark o’clock?
I’d call those legitimate variations of pronunciation–the pieces are in the right place, it’s pretty clear the speaker actually knows what they’re saying–whereas Mint Julep’s example is a garbling.
Siam Sam is correct about “vicious cycle.” That’s a corruption of a long-standing term (for which the Algonquin Round Table group was named, in pun). This was covered here not too long ago.
I guess I’m easy on dialectical pronunciation, hard on usage and syntax.
“All intensive purposes” would carry a much narrower meaning than “all intents and purposes,” which would include non-intensive purposes, right? Yet the former, corrupted phrase is used as if it were the original.
We had this argument recently. I suppose you could call something that keeps happening a vicious cycle, but the term of use for my entire life has been “a vicious circle.” Changing it to “cycle” is the result of people hunting around for the term and deciding “cycle” must fit better, or false etymology.
The “hone in on” issue is particularly a pet peeve of mine. I’ve written to the Washington Post about it, along with complaining about their use of a “hoard” (treasure trove) of termites instead of a “horde” (large unruly mob).
But my wife got into a huge, unending argument with an acquaintance in a volunteer organization who INSISTED that “hone in on” was correct, this guy eventually resorting to constructions like “because I am narrowing down the choices, it’s like I am sharpening.” But he’s borderline dyslexic and makes other word choice errors, and he never made any serious attempt at a metaphorical explanation until she called him on it and showed him dictionary definitions. It’s a stupid argument to make unless you also say “honing pigeons”, “hone refinancing,” or “hone run,” none of which he does…he was just flat-out wrong but absolutely would not admit it, eventually escalating the argument to the point my wife left the organization rather than let him keep baiting her.
That’s pretty clever, if used deliberately by someone who’s not a morning person. 
I’m not going to mix words, I’ll just ask straight out – If money were no option, what would you do with your life?
Mrs. Hollister frequently refers to people who have a PhD as having a “doctorine”. She makes so many idiotic screw-ups like that, and I’ve corrected every one. She repeats these in spite of my corrections and I’ve just given up. Other people look at her like the moron that she is.
“Hone in” makes perfect sense to me. From this web page…
"**hone in **1. To move or advance toward a target or goal: The missile honed in on the military installation. 2. To direct one’s attention; focus. The lawyer honed in on the gist of the plaintiff’s testimony… . . . [Hone in, alteration of home in.]
(The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language. Houghton Mifflin, 2006)
But that’s just plain wrong. Maybe they’re describing some level of popular usage they arbitrarily accept as “now it has changed,” but that usage began wrong and IMHO remains wrong.
It’s also stupid.
You’ll note even those silly descriptivists admit it’s an “alteration of home in.” A missile (as used by the military) homes in, it goes home, it seeks a goal. No sharpening is involved except as retroactive justification by someone caught saying it wrong.
It’s always been “homed in” in the past, and that makes sense, and still has utility. “Honed in” is only used by those who don’t think about the origin of the term and only defended by those who are caught making the mistake.
Yeah, hone in is fine.
A perfectly rational course of action of you don’t have kids. But if you do, for gods sake, start correcting her again, or she’ll infect them.
–Cliffy
It bothers me when people say “peaked”, as in “My interest was peaked” instead of “piqued”
Perhaps he had to get up early to destroy the One Ring?
People here keep citing The Lord of the Rings, but it’s worth pointing out that “Crack Of Doom” has its origin in Eschatology. Long before Tolkien co-opted the term (as a physical location) , it meant the beginning of the End of the World. Salem’s Ex might have been trying to be funny, equating the “Crack of Dawn” , when he had to get up, with the “Crack of Doom” signalling the End of All Things, which is undoubtedly how it felt. (When Gabriel’s trumpet blows, I’m definitely hitting the Snooze button, myself). If so, he’s more correct than the Tolkien-commenters here.
That’s o’dark thirty in the military.
Also, “home in on” just sounds wrong so it must not be right, right? 
How can you tell which they are saying, since they’re pronounced the same?
mmm
My friend is pregnant, and I found out she can’t pronounce “ovulation” to save her life. It’s always oval-ayshun. Neither me nor her doctor can change her mind.
I make sure the kids are aware of the proper pronunciation. She is a lost cause, however.
She had a hearing problem that was surgically corrected when she was 8. She’s now 42 and still blames the hearing problem for her mispronunciation and poor spelling. I’ve told her she’s full of shit, because by that reasoning a deaf person wouldn’t be able to spell anything.
People who can’t pronounce “squirrel” can surely find ways to insert many extra consonants, vowels and syllables that the spelling never meant to include.
The best I have heard had to have been spelled “srquilerel” or worse.
And I have shared before how a buddy I used to play chess with would respond to a tricky move or a trap of mine by saying “that’s not cultured” when I’m pretty sure he meant to say “that’s not kosher.”
Another guy who mangled more words and expressions than y’all have time to be bothered with must have encountered the word “subtle” only in print, since he said it “sub tull.” I always had to stifle a cough when he would drop that into conversaion.
Sounds like he’s mixing up a translation of the Russian Nyekulturny insult (“Uncultured!”) with “Not Kosher!”. Unless he’s commenting that he thinks no classy person would make a move like the one you did.
Well, there’s a Russian term, nekulturny, an insult which means “uncultured” or “bad mannered.” And the Russians love chess.
Maybe he picked it up from something he read or saw about Russian chess?
edit: heh.