# What words annoy you when they are pronounced correctly? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [June 6, 2003, 12:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-words-annoy-you-when-they-are-pronounced-correctly/180057 "2003-06-06T12:18:43Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Briny\_Deep](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/briny_deep/32/17188_2.png) [@Briny\_Deep](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Briny_Deep)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2003, 6:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-words-annoy-you-when-they-are-pronounced-correctly/180057/21 "2003-06-06T18:08:46Z")
Supposedly the “correct” pronunciation of “forehead” is FARR-ud. Someone who ought to know told me this, but I’ve never heard it said this way. Which is a great blessing. ---
**Author:** ![X\_Slayer\_ALE](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/bbe5ce/32.png) [@X\_Slayer\_ALE](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/X_Slayer_ALE)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2003, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-words-annoy-you-when-they-are-pronounced-correctly/180057/22 "2003-06-06T20:17:07Z")
I cant believe no one mentioned it yet NUCULAR! or was that Nuclear…? 😃 Vegetables …it sounds so “british” to say it ve-get-tibles. has anyone pronounce Memorial day properly? ---
**Author:** ![AskNott](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asknott/32/5790_2.png) [@AskNott](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AskNott)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2003, 10:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-words-annoy-you-when-they-are-pronounced-correctly/180057/23 "2003-06-06T22:50:20Z")
I’ve looked up process, so I know the plural may be correctly spoken “pross-ess-uhs” or “pross-ess-ees.” I refuse to accept that. It grates on my ears. To me, pross-ess-ees are the pigs who become processed meat in a packing house, or perhaps black guys who get their hair straightened. ☹ ---
**Author:** ![Odinoneeye](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/97f17d/32.png) [@Odinoneeye](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Odinoneeye)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2003, 5:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-words-annoy-you-when-they-are-pronounced-correctly/180057/24 "2003-06-07T05:31:52Z")
I used to work in radio and so I had proper pronunciation drummed into me. I always love hearing people say forte correctly and then being “corrected” by someone else. When I’m with my wife’s family in West Virginia and mention the hollow near their house I sometimes get corrected by hearing “holler”. But one thing I’ve been wondering about. I was once told that the proper pronunciation of the town where Jesus was born is “Beth-lum” but I have never heard it that way anywhere else. ---
**Author:** ![Jervoise](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/d2c977/32.png) [@Jervoise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jervoise)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2003, 6:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-words-annoy-you-when-they-are-pronounced-correctly/180057/25 "2003-06-07T06:37:33Z")
Moët et Chandon. It’s “mo-ett”, not “mo-ay”. (IIRC, Moët is a Dutch name, not French.) Still sounds odd though. ---
**Author:** ![Potter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Potter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Potter)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2003, 8:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-words-annoy-you-when-they-are-pronounced-correctly/180057/26 "2003-06-07T08:26:28Z")
Penchant. “Paunshon” sounds deeply silly if not surrounded by a French accent, I find it toe-curlingly cringe making. “Kudos” is another, in any of its various pronunciations. Horrible word. Bleh. “Hegemony” another. I have to stop, this is giving me the extreme oogies… ---
**Author:** ![Thaidog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/50afbb/32.png) [@Thaidog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thaidog)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2003, 9:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-words-annoy-you-when-they-are-pronounced-correctly/180057/27 "2003-06-07T09:23:16Z")
The English pronunciation of aluminum… they say it AL-YOU-MEN-YUM I remember sitting through a 2hour chemistry film and having absolutely no idea wtf this English dude was talking about until I got lucky with an equation at the end of the show… what a pain… no warning or anything from our teacher… ---
**Author:** ![irishgirl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/8edcca/32.png) [@irishgirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/irishgirl)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2003, 11:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-words-annoy-you-when-they-are-pronounced-correctly/180057/28 "2003-06-07T11:44:59Z")
It’s AL-you-MIN-ee-um. I can’t stand the US pronunciation of capillary. It Cap- ILL- ary, not Cap-il- AIRY. Spartacist, Celtic IS Keltic with a hard K (in Ireland anyway, and we should know). It’s just the Glasgow football team who mispronounce it. ---
**Author:** ![Thaidog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/50afbb/32.png) [@Thaidog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thaidog)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2003, 12:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-words-annoy-you-when-they-are-pronounced-correctly/180057/29 "2003-06-07T12:14:47Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by irishgirl \* > \*\*It’s AL-you-MIN-ee-um. > > I can’t stand the US pronunciation of capillary. > > It Cap- ILL- ary, not Cap-il- AIRY. > > Spartacist, Celtic IS Keltic with a hard K (in Ireland anyway, and we should know). > It’s just the Glasgow football team who mispronounce it. \*\* It’s ah-lew-ma-numb… here in North Carolina… but we don’t say anything right last time I checked… Sometimes I wish I was back in Ireland. ---
**Author:** ![Laughing\_Lagomorph](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/6bbea6/32.png) [@Laughing\_Lagomorph](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Laughing_Lagomorph)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2003, 12:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-words-annoy-you-when-they-are-pronounced-correctly/180057/30 "2003-06-07T12:46:32Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by irishgirl \* > \*\*… > > I can’t stand the US pronunciation of capillary. > > It Cap- ILL- ary, not Cap-il- AIRY. > > … \*\* I think I pronounce it more like CAP-il-airy. Derailleur, anyone? Or however you spell that thingy that allows you to shift gears on a bike. I usually pronounce it “American”: derailer, but I have heard Americans who insist on pronouncing it French. It may be correct but it sounds funny. And isn’t one of the strengths of the English language that, unlike French, we have a history of borrowing words from other languages and making them our own? ---
**Author:** ![AskNott](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asknott/32/5790_2.png) [@AskNott](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AskNott)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2003, 12:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-words-annoy-you-when-they-are-pronounced-correctly/180057/31 "2003-06-07T12:57:14Z")
I don’t have a British dictionary handy, but I believe “aluminum” is spelled “alumin **i** um” in the UK. Is that true? ---
**Author:** ![Sapphire\_Wolf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f14d63/32.png) [@Sapphire\_Wolf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sapphire_Wolf)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2003, 1:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-words-annoy-you-when-they-are-pronounced-correctly/180057/32 "2003-06-07T13:40:08Z")
I don’t think it’s a mispronunciation, but it drives me nuts to hear Carribean prounced as “Care-ib-bee-in” - I always say “Cah-rib-bee-in.” One that always made me laugh though, was when **Maltrasea** consistently used the word “rueful” in place of “gleeful.” I finally asked her what was up with that, because I couldn’t figure out why a very funny joke would require a rueful grin on the part of the joker. ---
**Author:** ![ruadh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/d2c977/32.png) [@ruadh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ruadh)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2003, 1:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-words-annoy-you-when-they-are-pronounced-correctly/180057/33 "2003-06-08T01:37:42Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by irishgirl \* > \*\*Spartacist, Celtic IS Keltic with a hard K (in Ireland anyway, and we should know). It’s just the Glasgow football team who mispronounce it. \*\* Actually, there is a fair amount of evidence to suggest that the word originally WAS pronounced “Seltik”. The theory is that the K sound was adopted within the recent past at the behest of some prescriptivist who decided that since the original (take your pick) Greek or Latin word had a hard K sound, so too should the English word (in much the same way that it was decided you can’t split infinitives in English just because you can’t split them in Latin … and in equal measures ridiculous). At the time Glasgow Celtic - and the Boston Celtics - were named, the S sound would still have been in common currency. So it seems it isn’t a mispronunciation at all, at most merely an anachronism. ---
**Author:** ![jesleigh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/58f4c7/32.png) [@jesleigh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jesleigh)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2003, 2:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-words-annoy-you-when-they-are-pronounced-correctly/180057/34 "2003-06-08T02:43:25Z")
My mother’s name. Her name is Jaunita…she goes by Nita. It is pronounced One-Knee-ta. Telemarketers call asking for JA-knee-ta, JA-NEYE-TA, or One-Neye-day, and various other combinations. If you ever corrected them, you get a customery “whatever”. I mean, it is fairly common name. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Blue\_Sky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d26b3c/32.png) [@Mr.Blue\_Sky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Blue_Sky)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2003, 2:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-words-annoy-you-when-they-are-pronounced-correctly/180057/35 "2003-06-08T02:59:19Z")
Length and strength pronounced without the “g” - “linth” & “strinth”. ---
**Author:** ![Jervoise](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/d2c977/32.png) [@Jervoise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jervoise)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2003, 3:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-words-annoy-you-when-they-are-pronounced-correctly/180057/36 "2003-06-08T03:02:01Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by AskNott \* > **I don’t have a British dictionary handy, but I believe “aluminum” is spelled "alumin** i **um" in the UK. Is that true?** Yep, as it’s also pronounced in Australia and New Zealand. [Anecdote] My friends hold an annual Festivus party (more an excuse to drink too much the week before Christmas, really). For that special day, we bring out the aluminium pole (around which the grievances are aired), and pronounce the word “aluminum” for that one day only. 🙂 [/Anedote] ---
**Author:** ![TBG](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c89c15/32.png) [@TBG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TBG)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2003, 3:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-words-annoy-you-when-they-are-pronounced-correctly/180057/37 "2003-06-08T03:31:10Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by X~Slayer(ALE) \* > \*\*I cant believe no one mentioned it yet > NUCULAR! > > or was that Nuclear…? 😃 > > Vegetables …it sounds so “british” to say it ve-get-tibles. > > has anyone pronounce Memorial day properly? \*\* Like Homer says, “Nucular. It’s pronounced nucular.” ---
**Author:** ![straykat23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c4cdca/32.png) [@straykat23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/straykat23)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2003, 3:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-words-annoy-you-when-they-are-pronounced-correctly/180057/38 "2003-06-08T03:42:16Z")
I cringe when I hear “Pulitzer” pronounced correctly (pew-litz-er) rather than incorrectly (pull-itz-er). ---
**Author:** ![Tanaqui](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/3bc359/32.png) [@Tanaqui](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tanaqui)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2003, 4:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-words-annoy-you-when-they-are-pronounced-correctly/180057/39 "2003-06-08T04:01:08Z")
> [@](#): > > Tortilla > taco > burrito (de pollo y arroz con frijoles of course) > their hispanic surname even though they don’t speak spanish-especially those who correct others for gringofying the pronunciation ?? There are actually people who pronounce the l’s in tortilla? That just sounds stupid to me. The same goes for pronouncing, say, baja the English way. How else do you say taco or burrito? I guess you could roll the R in burrito… As for people’s surnames, it’s only common courtesy to pronounce someone’s name the way they want it to be said. I’d feel like an jerk pronouncing the name of someone who was obviously Hispanic in an English-ized way. I mean, I’ve been hearing Spanish ever since I was watching Sesame Street–it’s not like I’ve ever been unaware of the correct way to say these words, even before I took Spanish in college. ---
**Author:** ![Blonde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/3be4f8/32.png) [@Blonde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blonde)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2003, 4:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-words-annoy-you-when-they-are-pronounced-correctly/180057/40 "2003-06-08T04:33:50Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by tbg \* > \*\*Like Homer says, “Nucular. It’s pronounced nucular.” \*\* We Texans say it like George Jr. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-words-annoy-you-when-they-are-pronounced-correctly/180057.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-words-annoy-you-when-they-are-pronounced-correctly/180057.md?page=3)