Fetus, you can roll your eyes until they’re back behind your ears, but if someone mispronounces a word to the point where they’re saying a different word, that’s more than just failing to enunciate. I don’t think anyone who is dropping the initial ‘s’ off of specifically is doing it because of verbal laziness; they’re doing it because they really do think the word begins with a ‘p’.
[QUOTE=fetus]
:rolleyes: Again: Do you generally pronounce every single consonant in “asked”, “instinct”, “Arctic”, and “old-fashioned”? If so, are you a robot?
[/QUOTE]
Well, yeah, actually, as does pretty much everyone I know. And I live in Texas, where if there’s a lazier way to say it, y’all know we’ll do it.
[QUOTE=OneCentStamp]
It took at least five minutes of back-and-forth along these lines before I realized she was trying to say weirdos. :smack: 
[/QUOTE]
Was it a pronunciation problem, or was she getting the words confused? I remember my father-in-law was telling my parents some story about when he was a “young kid” back in Cuba. My parents were quite astounded to hear of his apparently troubled past, because it sounded to us non-Spanish speakers like “when I was a junkie…” Luckily, my husband was there to jump in and translate the accent!
[QUOTE=Gary T]
“He really likes country music…the circle jerk that he is.”
Remove the word “circle.” Maybe even replace it with “silly.”
I saw it as her good-naturedly calling him a jerk (presumably because she doesn’t care for country music), and mistakenly thinking that “circle jerk” was just an embellishment on that.
[/QUOTE]
Could it not just have been a speedbump of the tongue? Meaning to say “silly jerk” but getting tangled in the “urk” sound?
Like, perfectly sober, I’ve gotten a smidgeon tongue-tied I meant to say “government grant” and it came out pretty much as “grovert grant”.
Although, in context, “silly jerk” seems, well, silly. “Jerk” just doesn’t seem as friendly or approrpiate, if you’re making a good nautred remark. It honestly does sound like she thinks “circle jerk” means “country hick”.
[QUOTE=AudreyK]
I wish people would be more careful with their homonyms. The one that bothers me the most is “discreet” versus “discrete.” If you intend to keep something on the down low, you want to be discreet about it, not discrete. For ages I’ve been wanting to make a shirt with a cartoon of a guy hiding in a darkened closet, with a caption that says “discreet mathematics.”
I also wish people would stop writing that their curiosity or interest has been “peaked”, unless they really do mean it’s going nowhere but down from there.
[/QUOTE]
Er, I hate to do this, and I can’t believe I am the first one to mention it – but I don’t think that means what you think that means.. They’re not referring to “peaked”, but instead are referring to “piqued”.
Sorry 'bout that.
[QUOTE=Sarahfeena]
Was it a pronunciation problem, or was she getting the words confused? I remember my father-in-law was telling my parents some story about when he was a “young kid” back in Cuba. My parents were quite astounded to hear of his apparently troubled past, because it sounded to us non-Spanish speakers like “when I was a junkie…” Luckily, my husband was there to jump in and translate the accent!
[/QUOTE]
It was pronunciation, like your FIL. I know it wasn’t exactly germane to the thread, but it was really funny at the time. 
[QUOTE=FourPaws]
Er, I hate to do this, and I can’t believe I am the first one to mention it – but I don’t think that means what you think that means.. They’re not referring to “peaked”, but instead are referring to “piqued”.
Sorry 'bout that.
[/QUOTE]
I think AudreyK is talking about written mistakes with homonyms. It’s different than the other examples in this thread about definition mistakes and verbal mispronounciations.
[QUOTE=Eureka]
Discussion among a bunch of college friends.
A: So, what church do you belong to at home?
B: Reform Baptist
A: What makes them different from just Baptist?
B: You know what Reform means?
A: Yes, . . .
B: That’s it.
A: But what’s different about it?
It took two or three reiterations of the core of this discussion before the Reform Baptist guy finally grasped that to his audience, “reform” means something akin to “change”, where in his head it meant something special about the Holy Spirit or something.
[/QUOTE]
We pass a church every morning: Calvary Free Methodist Church. The sign says:
Calvary Free
Methodist Church
I can’t stop myself. Nearly every day I have to announce to the children: “Yessir, no Calvaries here! Come on in to the Calvary-Free Methodist Church!”
Them: :rolleyes: “Mahhhhhmm.”
Heh. I use it as a lesson on the importance of hyphens. If you use them correctly, there’ll be no mistakes!
Yes, I know they didn’t make a mistake. I just like being goofy.
I know a woman in her 70’s who consistently uses bad grammar and pronounces words wrong. She said her husband had prostrate cancer.
My co-worker continues to say she wants to put a blurp in the newsletter. I think it should be blurb. She often makes grammatical mistakes and I don’t want to correct her all the time. Besides, maybe I’m wrong.
I also say thow instead of throw. Not because I don’t know how it is supposed to be pronounced, but when I’m not paying attention somehow I leave out the R.
I read something recently on a chat room where someone was talking about the “end times” but she wrote the “in times.” I wonder what she thinks the “in times” are–a period of time that is going to be really popular? Or the end of the world as we know it?
[QUOTE=OneCentStamp]
It was pronunciation, like your FIL. I know it wasn’t exactly germane to the thread, but it was really funny at the time.
[/QUOTE]
Oh, don’t get me wrong, I thought it was a funny story! It was funny enough that my FIL had my parents all confused, much less someone having a conversation like that with their own mother. Ususally, my husband could tell what his dad was trying to say, but sometimes it took him a while to figure it out.
[QUOTE=fetus]
:rolleyes: Again: Do you generally pronounce every single consonant in “asked”, “instinct”, “Arctic”, and “old-fashioned”? If so, are you a robot?
BTW, one of my high school classmates once asked why so much art of ancient Greece showed “their Gentiles”.
[/QUOTE]
I appreciate what you’re getting at, but when I say the words specifically and pacifically they don’t sound that similar to me. Maybe if the e and the a made the same vowel sound, and you were arguing they just dropped the s, but they don’t make the same sound.
It’s like people who pronounce supposedly, supposably. No, they are not merely mangling the suffix–they are using the entirely wrong (and also non-existent) word.
[QUOTE=fetus]
:rolleyes: Again: Do you generally pronounce every single consonant in “asked”, “instinct”, “Arctic”, and “old-fashioned”?
[/QUOTE]
Ayup.
[QUOTE=OtakuLoki]
Bookmaker.
I even know what the word means. I’ve got no problem with the expression, “to make book.”
…
I’m glad I’ve never gone looking for a bookmaker’s establishment, hoping to simply watch a craftsman at work. Though I usually think about it, when I hear the term.
[/QUOTE]
What does “to make book” mean? We have bookmakers’ shops on every street in Britain but I’ve never heard that expression. When someone acts as an unofficial bookie they “open a book on…” the matter in question; is that what you meant?
[QUOTE=fetus]
:rolleyes: Again: Do you generally pronounce every single consonant in “asked”, “instinct”, “Arctic”, and “old-fashioned”? If so, are you a robot?
[/QUOTE]
I certainly do. Otherwise I’d sound like I was slurring.
[QUOTE=Lillith Fair]
I know a woman in her 70’s who consistently uses bad grammar and pronounces words wrong. She said her husband had prostrate cancer.
My co-worker continues to say she wants to put a blurp in the newsletter. I think it should be blurb. She often makes grammatical mistakes and I don’t want to correct her all the time. Besides, maybe I’m wrong.
I also say thow instead of throw. Not because I don’t know how it is supposed to be pronounced, but when I’m not paying attention somehow I leave out the R.
I read something recently on a chat room where someone was talking about the “end times” but she wrote the “in times.” I wonder what she thinks the “in times” are–a period of time that is going to be really popular? Or the end of the world as we know it?
[/QUOTE]
I don’t leave out the R, I add them in. It took practice for me to stop saying “gararge”. Where the hell did that extra “r” come from? O, that’s right, I used to say “libary” instead of library". So I guess I was just borrowing from the libary to put in my gararge.
[QUOTE=fetus]
:rolleyes: Again: Do you generally pronounce every single consonant in “asked”, “instinct”, “Arctic”, and “old-fashioned”? If so, are you a robot?
[/QUOTE]
Yes, I do. No, I’m not a robot.
ETA: I pronounce the first “r” in “February” too.
[QUOTE=Swallowed My Cellphone]
I pronounce the first “r” in “February” too.
[/QUOTE]
Me too. But I do usually skip the first C in arctic. I know this is wrong, and I feel shame for it.
[QUOTE=Meyer6]
My old boss once told me that he had taken his cat to the vet to get it seduced before they flew somewhere.
Sedated, boss, sedated!
[/QUOTE]
I wonder if that’s the same vet where my MIL took her cat to be “spaded.”
I haven’t the heart to correct her, but I can’t stop imagining the vet clobbering the poor kitty on the head with a shovel.
[QUOTE=G. Odoreida]
What does “to make book” mean? We have bookmakers’ shops on every street in Britain but I’ve never heard that expression. When someone acts as an unofficial bookie they “open a book on…” the matter in question; is that what you meant?
[/QUOTE]
I’ve always heard it as a somewhat archaic way of saying “so-and-so is taking wagers on such and such an event.” In my circles in the US, the expression “to make book on…” and “bookmaker” itself are both somewhat archaic.
Instead we’ve got OTB. 
I think we’re bumping into another US/UK English divide.
In line with the anecdotes about accents, my aunt married a gentleman from New Zealand. They were coming over to my parents house for a party, and my uncle-in-law asked, “Do you think they’ll have any snakes?” When asked why he wanted to know, he said, “I’m pretty hungry.”
Turns out, he was saying, “snacks.”