[QUOTE=RachelChristine]
My biggest typing pet peeve is congradulations. And it’s worse when someone says “Congrads!”
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I’ve long had a pet theory that this resulted from “cutesy” spellings by the greeting card industry. I have seen many cards for high school and university graduations events that have variations on “Congraduation!”
I think I developed this pet theory when I finished high school and got a card from my uncle that said: “Congrads!” I vaguely recall thinking “Ohhhhh… So that’s where that comes from!”
A friend of my sister told her that her boyfriend took her for granite. This was in a letter so it was wasn’t a matter of pronunciation.
I guess she was hard-up for a date.
My worst fox-pass was really just a misreading coupled to my unfamiliarity with a new word. Suffice it to say, while reading poetry aloud in class, that the word “Ogre” is not pronounced, “Or-gee”.
[QUOTE=Telperien]
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.
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PM me. I can send you details for sending the file to me so that I can host it on my site (as long as it’s a small file, say 100 kilobytes or less…)
Merry, marry, and Mary sound the same to me. So do Don and Dawn.
[QUOTE=fetus]
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?
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I’ve got one you can have, but the shipping would be a bit much (also the mice nibbled on the cord a bit back when I had a mouse infestation). Cheaper to go to Fry’s.
Gah. I bet it was that bitch who stole the custom engraved scotch glasses my dad got in Europe and now proudly displays them in her cabinet with his freakin’ initials engraved into them. :mad:
That’s only the icing on the cake with that woman. I swear if there were a “Roommate Exception” to the murder law I would’ve killed that bitch a long time ago.
[QUOTE=Sunspace]
PM me. I can send you details for sending the file to me so that I can host it on my site (as long as it’s a small file, say 100 kilobytes or less…)
Merry, marry, and Mary sound the same to me. So do Don and Dawn.
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Will do, and I don’t think it will be very big. I’ll do it tonight after work.
[QUOTE=Telperien]
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.
[/QUOTE]
In my dialect, poor/pour/pore are often pronounced the same. Sometimes I vacillate between “poor” with the “oo” and long “o” sound. Usually, they’re all homonyms for me. I’m sure how I would even go about differentiating the last two.
“Mary”=“marry” to me. “Merry” is different, although as a kid, I pronounced all three identically.
As for “old-fashioned,” “asked,” “instinct” and “arctic,” the only one I drop consonants from occasionally is “arctic.” And even there, I usually stick the “C” in there.
[QUOTE=pulykamell]
In my dialect, poor/pour/pore are often pronounced the same. Sometimes I vacillate between “poor” with the “oo” and long “o” sound. Usually, they’re all homonyms for me. I’m sure how I would even go about differentiating the last two.
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[QUOTE=xanthous]
“Six and a half dozen of the other” and “Six to one”
used instead of “Six of one, half dozen of the other” by my sister and boyfriend, respectively.
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I always say “seven of one, half dozen of the other.” just to see if people are paying attention.
[QUOTE=levdrakon]
I always say “seven of one, half dozen of the other.” just to see if people are paying attention.
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“Half of one, six dozen of the other.”
[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.
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Wow, that’s pretty picky for someone that can’t distinguish homonyms from homophones.
I’m practically positve that Guadere’s Law is going to bite me here despite my proofreading!
I had a friend (a woman) who was in sales, describe a transaction to me one day. She said that the customer tried to “chew her down” on the price. I looked at her with surprise, and mentioned that she really shouldn’t use that expression. She asked me why, and I said that it’s not chew, it’s Jew.
She looked horrified, and said “are you sure?”, and I said “yup.”
[QUOTE=Sarahfeena]
When I was in my first job after college, I had a boss who would call things that were unbelievable “hummers.” Don’t know if she was shooting for “humdinger” or what. But it cracked us up every time we heard her on the phone shouting, “oh my god, that’s a real hummer!” We finally took pity on her (sometimes she was talking to clients when she said it :eek: ) and told her what it meant in the popular vernacular. Oy.
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Ok, I’ll bite…what is a hummer? It must be a regional euphomism, huh? In general, you can’t say anything without it having a dirty meaning. But, on that note, I say “Dirty is only in the minds of the beholder”. - Jinx
P.S. Never heard of a woodie, either, until I came into PA. Again, it’s regional. May yours not have termites! :eek:
[QUOTE=Greg Charles]
Wow, that’s pretty picky for someone that can’t distinguish homonyms from homophones.
I’m practically positve that Guadere’s Law is going to bite me here despite my proofreading!
[/QUOTE]
Greg, there were NO homophones until about 1980 when some Ph.D. had to write a paper and change the rules. The Ph.Ds are the root to all evil in education.
[QUOTE=Jinx]
Ok, I’ll bite…what is a hummer? It must be a regional euphomism, huh? In general, you can’t say anything without it having a dirty meaning. But, on that note, I say “Dirty is only in the minds of the beholder”. - Jinx
P.S. Never heard of a woodie, either, until I came into PA. Again, it’s regional. May yours not have termites! :eek:
[/QUOTE]
Hummer is, at least in these parts, another word for blow job.
I figured at the time that it was a generational thing, so I asked my dad if he knew what it meant. He said he did. Unfortunately, my mom overheard this conversation and insisted that she wanted to know what we were talking about. My dad fled the scene, and I was left to explain to my mom that it meant oral sex.
I was afraid if I said blow job, she wouldn’t know what that was, either. She’s come a long way, though…her favorite show now is South Park!
