# Weird quirks of your speech that everyone laughs at. **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [August 19, 2001, 7:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-quirks-of-your-speech-that-everyone-laughs-at/77037 "2001-08-19T19:52:31Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Lodrain](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/c4cdca/32.png) [@Lodrain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lodrain)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2001, 7:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-quirks-of-your-speech-that-everyone-laughs-at/77037/1 "2001-08-19T19:52:31Z")
I pronounce _England_ and all derived words as _Anglend_, the _a_ being long, and the _e_ being a schwa sound. I live in the southern US, and have lived here for all of my life, but the only other person whom I’ve heard pronounce it that way was a German exchange student. I make it a point to always pronounce _the_ as _thee_, and never _thuh_, no matter how clumsy it sounds. Same with _(n)either_, being pronounced _(n)eye-thur_. I always pronounce _angst_ as _ahngst_, the ‘ah’ being the same _a_ in _father_. My friends make fun of me for this all the time, and I’m beginning to wonder whether or not to drop my hifalutin’ accent, and adopt the local… ---
**Author:** ![racinchikki](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/eada6e/32.png) [@racinchikki](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/racinchikki)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2001, 8:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-quirks-of-your-speech-that-everyone-laughs-at/77037/2 "2001-08-19T20:02:31Z")
I used to get made fun of by my friends because I pronounce the _l_ in _talk_ and _walk_. In Mississippi I get made fun of because I say _off_ as _awf_ (like the first syllable of the word _awful_) but that’s just my accent. ---
**Author:** ![Lamia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Lamia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamia)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2001, 8:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-quirks-of-your-speech-that-everyone-laughs-at/77037/3 "2001-08-19T20:13:11Z")
The only obvious Southernism in my speech is that I pronounce “naked” as “nekkid”. (This is not, by the way, the standard pronounciation throughout the South, only in some regions.) Everyone in my family says it the same way. In fact, I was 15 years old and living in the Midwest before I realized that there even was another way to pronounce the world. I might never have realized it at all if a friend hadn’t burst out laughing at me when I said the word and asked me to “Say ‘naked’, come on, say ‘naked’!” about a dozen times. ---
**Author:** ![KneadToKnow](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kneadtoknow/32/3999_2.png) [@KneadToKnow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KneadToKnow)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2001, 8:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-quirks-of-your-speech-that-everyone-laughs-at/77037/4 "2001-08-19T20:21:27Z")
“Naked” means you ain’t got no clothes on. “Nekkid” means you ain’t got no clothes on … and you up to somethin’. ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2001, 8:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-quirks-of-your-speech-that-everyone-laughs-at/77037/5 "2001-08-19T20:55:29Z")
A persistent Southern expression: My girlfriend finds it most funny that I use the phrase “I have ever…”, meaning that, although it isn’t a commonplace occurrence, there has existed at least one instance of me doing something-or-other. e.g., – > [@](#): > > “Hey Ahunter, I hear you used to live in Georgia. Did you eat chitlins and turnip greens?” > > “Turnip greens, definitely. As for chitlins…I have ever eaten a chitlin, but it wasn’t something I’d describe as a regular part of my diet” She says the first time I said “I have ever…”, she had to analyze the sentence to figure out what it meant. ::shrugs:: Seems self-explanatory to me. Opposite of “I have never”. If it ain’t true that “I have never”, then I must have ever, even if only once. ---
**Author:** ![Kbean](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Kbean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kbean)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2001, 10:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-quirks-of-your-speech-that-everyone-laughs-at/77037/6 "2001-08-19T22:42:58Z")
I know it really isn’t an oddity, but my friends find it absolutley hilarious that I say “Pardon?” or “I beg your pardon?” instead of “What?”. It gets really annoying, I’m just trying to be polite! Oh well… ---
**Author:** ![Kaitlyn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/73ab20/32.png) [@Kaitlyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kaitlyn)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2001, 11:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-quirks-of-your-speech-that-everyone-laughs-at/77037/7 "2001-08-19T23:36:20Z")
Where I come from, if someone is “crowding you”, they are invading your personal space. When I moved to my current locale, I noticed that a lot of my students were very picky about their personal space, as they often complained about someone “crowding them”. It took awhile for me to realize that what “Bob crowded me” meant “Bob got in line in front of me”. That would have been called “cutting” where I come from. My students make fun of my pronunciation of certain words most notably route (pronounced like root); the prefix anti, (me: an-tie; them: an-tee); and the word aunt (me: ant; them ont). I have also discovered that there is a difference between a skillet and a frying pan, between a bag and a sack (although I can’t quite figure out what the difference is), and that the rules for the use of “could” are a bit different here. For example, “might could” and “used to could” are considered correct usage. Dialect puzzle: What is being said in the following conversation? A: Cheat Chet? B: No Jew. A: Nose go. ---
**Author:** ![AwSnappity](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/a3d4f5/32.png) [@AwSnappity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AwSnappity)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2001, 12:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-quirks-of-your-speech-that-everyone-laughs-at/77037/8 "2001-08-20T00:47:45Z")
I say “ah-range” instead of “orange” and “Flah-ri-da” instead of “Floor-da”. No matter how many times my friends have heard these, they still have to make fun of me every time I say them. It’s getting old, guys…just let it rest.