My ex would use “alas” to signal any surprising turn of events, good or bad. As in, “I was in the mood for some ice cream, and was sure we were out of it. But alas, I found a half-gallon in the freezer.”
Or, “The concert was sold out, but alas, I was able to score some tickets.”
I told him many times that wasn’t the way to use that word, but he never caught on. Ever. Grr.
My husband once told me after a physical therapy session that his therapist had told him his muscles were atrophying. I was shocked - he’s 32, in reasonably good shape, has no problem walking or running and is healthy. So I asked him if the therapist had used that word. He said no, she had said that the muscle around his knee was weaker than it should be and that was why his knee hurt. But with certain exercises, he could build the muscle up and fix the problem.
I explained to him that atrophy implied a wasting disease where the muscle was deteriorating, which was a HUGE difference from simply having a weaker muscle than the surrounding ones. I also told him that if he told me his muscles were atrophying again, he better have a doctor’s note.
Alas!
FWIW, I also pronounce all the consonants in asked, instinct, Arctic, and old-fashioned. I’ve heard “Artic” and “old-fashion,” but truly I’m amazed to hear that large groups of people say “assed” for asked and “instinc” for instinct - especially the former, since it sounds like a vulgarity.
As for poor, pour, and pore, I’ll add another wrinkle - when I was in Scotland I visited a museum where they were giving a talk about the Viking invasions. I couldn’t figure out why the man kept going on about how the inhabitants at the time were so *pure *- seemed irrelevant to the subject, and weirdly value-laden. Then I realized he was saying, of course, “poor.”
Now, to the actual topic, my friend persists in using “drug” as the past tense of “drag,” often mentioning how she “drug her kids” somewhere. Thankfully the context makes the meaning clear, but I wince because it just sounds so ignorant. (I just Googled it, and evidently it springs from a perfectly cromulent variation of the verb “tragen” in German, but I still think that in our culture, it has become a use that is associated with poor education.)
Don’t get me started on women who say, “I shave my vagina.” Good God, I hope you mean “mons,” because otherwise you are freakishly hirsute, limber, and brave!
In the mid-90s my Grandparents’ church started shifting from being a very conservative church to a bit more modern. My grandparents continued to go until they were shut-in, but my Granny always complained about the loud music and my Pappaw thought the greatest travesty was the “HIV Bibles” that they put in the pews. We never could correct him on that!
My mom has a friend who scrapbooks – which she refers to as her pitcher albins. I mean, I know that pitcher is the lazy way to say picture, but the albin thing on top of it makes us crack up!
My biggest typing pet peeve is congradulations. And it’s worse when someone says “Congrads!” That one drives me nuts (as does “for all intensive purposes”). Oh, and I saw someone once type about a couple keeping their relationship “in tack”. Ha ha!
My uncle and cousin always get “in case” and “unless” backwards. I can’t remember which way it is that they do it, but it’s always wrong and very grating.
I notice lots of people using ‘barter’ when they mean ‘haggle’ or ‘bargain’.
I do, actually, pronounce all of the consonants in those words. And no, I am not a robot. I sort of wonder how other people pronounce them, aside from ‘ardic’.
[Hijack]
Thank you! I have an ongoing disagreement with a friend about this, because he insists that it’s not called a hummer because the giver hums, but rather because it’s performed in a moving automobile (which may or may not be a Hummer). [/Hijack]
In the category of Stuff Not Meaning What It Used To, there’s a restaurant near where I live called Git Yo Chicken. I also have a 60-something friend with whom I have a regular lunch to try new restaurants, and at each lunch we have, she mentions something (loudly!) about how we’re going to have to try that **Choke Your Chicken ** place next time . . .
blink
This is where we need that thread of voice samples. I pronounce “poor” differently from “pour” and “pore”. I pronounce the last two identically.
Here’s how I say them (MP3; 34 kB).
Her articulation was otherwise fine, she was pronouncing “pacifically” with great clarity, so I assume she just didn’t realise that she was using the wrong word.
And as to pronunciation … it’s kind of the point of having different words for things, otherwise we could just resort to charades and holding up pictures.
Same here. I have no idea how those words would be pronounced *without *saying all the consonants. 
Assed? Old-fassioned? Is this common somewhere?
Yup. Pet hate of mine, but Mrs M won’t be told that “barter” means “exchange goods and services directly without the use of money”. :smack:
Instint? Ast?
I once got into a pretty serious disagreement with someone over the word “thorough.” We were looking at someone’s one-page resume and she said, “Boy, he’s thorough.” I asked her what she meant because so far as I knew, there was no way you could look at a one-page resume and tell whether the subject is thorough. It got worse from there.
Erin as in “end”
Aaron as in “and”
as(k)ed, old-fashion(ed), instinc(t), ar(c)tic
I think there might be quite a few people who think they’re pronouncing every single consonant in these clusters, but who aren’t actually producing all the sounds audibly.
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Fetus, this is not the Pit.
Keep it civil in IMHO, everyone.
Just sayin’, you know?
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Thanks for the mp3 sample–I’ll have to record myself saying some of the words mentioned in full sentences when I get the chance.
You’re telling me that she didn’t think there was any difference between “specific” and “pacific”? Having known enough people who pronounce it that way, I don’t buy that for one hot second.
I have no idea what you’re trying to argue here. You’re saying that you specifically pronounce every single letter of every single word exactly how that letter is canonically pronounced? BTW, the examples I gave were specific to a handful of American dialects.
I already answered this question.
Huh. I have Audacity, so I could record the sample, but I haven’t anywhere to host it. Those three words, though, are completely identical when I say them. Mary/merry/marry are another group that sound the same when pronounced by me. This is very interesting.
It’s hard to give examples of what the vowels sound like because I think you probably don’t pronounce those words the same way I do either!!
Do you hear a difference between “pond” and “paw”? If so, that’s the respective difference between “Don” and “Dawn” for me. If not, it’s a regional thing. 
Somebody stole my microphones! Damn. I was all ready to post a whole bunch of full-sentence examples of the words in question.
Anyone willing to part with a microphone?