The obvious here, of course, is George Bush’s consistent use of nukular. I want to slug him everytime he says it. I can’t listen to his speeches if I think the word has a better than 50% chance of occurring.
But others that come to mind:
hisself (when not intentionally trying to be folksy)
irregardless
*he/she/I/we had went to a ballgame
Me and s/he will be going to the ADC office (Actually, a lot of TV shows have writers who don’t seem to know when to use “he and I” v. “he and me”, etc.)
It’s particularly irksome when somebody knowingly mispronounces a word. I have SIRIUS radio and I like to listen to the Broadway channel, but an unimaginative musician/disk jockey (he plays the same tracks over and over and over and over) named Seth Rudetsky, a guy who makes Richard Simmons sound like LBJ incidentally, insists on pronouncing the word “amazing” as “ah-MOZ-zing”- fingers on a chalkboard everytime. I flip channels when he’s talking just to avoid it.
For some reason, “culturally-accepted” mispronounciations drive me crazy - especially names of places.
When I went to college in Virginia, there was a town called “Lebanon” close by, but everyone called it “Le-bone-un” - perfectly reversing the vowels. When I said “Lebanon” (you know, like the place), they looked at me like I was insane.
Here in Chicago, there’s a street called “Paulina” - but everyone around here, including the El’s announcement voice, calls it “Puh-line-uh.” It is, of course, the name “Paw-leen-uh.”
You need to stay far far away from Georgia then. It’s cities include Cairo (KAY-ro), Buena Vista (rhymes with Tuna Mister), Albany (all-Binny), Perry (Parry) and several others that aren’t pronounced as they probably are elsewhere.
A probably regional case of error in tense that drives me nuts is when, for example, I pull up to a fast-food restaurant’s drive-through window at 11:02 p.m., not realizing that they closed at 11:00 p.m., and a voice comes over the speaker to inform me “We close.”
Yes, obviously, most businesses aren’t 24/7 and therefore at some point they close, but thanks for the information. I’d like a chicken sandwich and… oh, you meant to say "we ARE closeD didnt’ you? Well, that’s very different.
Speaking of Georgia place names, there is a street in Macon, Georgia named “Pio Nono Blvd.” (named for Pope Pius IX, though I’m not sure why). I didn’t have a map at the city and I’d been told the road I needed was off of “pee - ah-NO- na”. I spent an embarassing amount of time one day trying to find “a street called ‘Pianola’ or something like it” and not only couldn’t I find it but nobody had heard of it until finally one old man on a corner told me, “Oh, you tryin’ to say Pie- ah- NO- ner, it’s over here 'bout six blocks”.
A couple of months ago I took a guided tour of St. Augustine, FL (oldest city in the country, big fort, etc.). It literally took me 15 minutes to figure out that when the tour guide spoke of “Pawnce Da Lawn”, she was actually referring to “Ponce De Leon”.
Not a peeve of mine, but a source of amusement: you can always tell when a new anchorperson from out of town has arrived on the news team. Inevitably, a story will come up that mentions the city of Huntington Beach here in California. Unfortunately, unless you lived here, you’d assume it was pronounced HUN-ting-ton, but no one here says that. You sound ridiculous unless you say “hunnington.”
Another vote for being annoyed with “nukular,” by the way. It really pisses me off that Jack Bauer, as much as I admire the character, says that on 24. Jack, hear me out – when you say that, the terrorists win, OK?
The inability to distinguish between two very different words: **it’s ** and its. This grammatical error is particularly prevalent on the SDMB. One can find an example in practically every thread (including this one). I use the difference as one of my key tests when assessing graduates’ spelling and grammatical knowledge when they apply for positions within my organisation.
Not as bad as a street in New Orleans called Clio. I’ve heard natives call it “See El Ten” (C-L-10).
My pet peeve is people who misuse “fewer” and “less.” I don’t know why, but hearing about “less calories” drives me crazy. Probably because it seems to be so prevelant.
People who think that any “s” at the end of a word must be preceded by an apostrophe. So all plurals are formed by adding 's. :smack:
poorYorick, a local newscaster many years ago was reading an item about a interplanetary problem to Jupiter’s moon Io. Except he pronounced it “ten”. Whadda maroon.
[QUOTE=Cunctator]
The inability to distinguish between two very different words: **it’s ** and its. QUOTE]
I must admit I’m one of the worst offenders on this, even though I know the difference. Homophones are bye Farr and a weigh my single wurst problem inn writing.
My ultimate hatred is reserved for those who refer to lib’aries and lib’arians. The first is not silent. Und now please you vill please be still vile ve extract your molars mit dies wrench zo that you will better remember dies…
The worst was when our library receptionist (a lovely woman in most respects) insisted on using these words, and seeing as how she answered the phone at a place with “library” in the name and often took messages for “librarians” you’d be amazed how %$#$ing many times you had to hear her say both words. She was politely spoken with about it but it did no good. She somehow could not hear the difference.
A place-name thing that always annoys me: The town of Holyoke, MA. I always pronounced it “HOLE-ee-oke,” but many locals, including the newscasters, refer to it as “HOY-oke.” Gaaah!!
The word is “collate” or “collated”, NOT “co-a-llated”.
Jeesh, even the numbskulls on TV, who supposedly speak for a living, get it wrong every damn time! Even in commercials. I hear this everywhere, and it is driving me crazy. Crazy, I tell you!
That little extra vowel seems to be creeping into a vast majority of words these days, but of course I can’t think of any examples right now. I’m sure that as soon as one of my coworkers begins speaking, I will notice one and send another post.