Commonly mispronounced words

[Clodfobble]

Originally Posted by Brianna

Twicet

What is that word even supposed to be??

Originally Posted by Undertoad

I had a teacher who pronounced the word "root" as if it rhymed with "soot", and not "boot".

Yeah, I was consistently reminded that the majority of my teachers were complete idiots. I had a teacher in fifth grade who argued with the whole class for ten minutes that the L in salmon was not in fact silent. And I had a teacher in high school who persisted in using the word "irregardless" every single day. And then there was the 7th grade teacher who swore up and down that a line graph was nothing but a bar graph with the tops of the bars connected by a line. But the very earliest disappointment was my first grade teacher, who while teaching us about rounding, was asked whether a 5 was supposed to round up or down, since it was right in the middle. The teacher looked quite seriously at us all and said, "Scientists haven't decided that yet."

But back on topic: my husband says "acrosst" for "across" and "melk" instead of "milk." He also pronounces melee as "mee-lay" instead of "may-lay." You'd think this wouldn't come up so often, but we have a videogame in the house called "Super Smash Brothers Melee," and now he's got the kids pronouncing it the wrong way too.

[Troubleshooter]

Everyody is missing our most commonly represented screw up.

nucular

Thank you Mr. President.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

I had a teacher who pronounced the word "root" as if it rhymed with "soot", and not "boot".

So did my grandparents and most of their friends including a family named Root.

[Guyute]

Brianna hit the nail on the head..."ebonics"...sheesh. That is just a loose acronym for "Too-lazy-to-enunciate-clearly". The prof who studied that should be stripped of his degree. If Ebonics is actually a valid dialect or language, then Eredneckonics and Ehickonics pre-dated it by 150 years LOL.

[Tonchi]

Typical North Carolina mistakes which drove me up the wall when I was in school were "chimbley" instead of chimney, and "bum" instead of bomb. I always wondered at what point somebody would realize that the National Anthem does not have "the bums bursting in air". It seems incomprehensible that somebody would actually WRITE the wrong word, but plainly they did not know the actual word they were speaking.

And speaking of this ebonics BS, raise your hand if you have not gritted your teeth to powder everytime a black person being interviewed says "ax" instead of "asked"?

[Trilby]

Clodfobble--twiceT is not once, but twice! Eg: "Boomer done hit me with that thar baseball bat not onceT but twiceT!" The mountain folk around here put a "t" on the end of once and twice. Say it with me--"twice-T".

Now, doesn't that feel all down-homey?

[Happy Monkey]

Originally Posted by Guyute

If Ebonics is actually a valid dialect or language, then Eredneckonics and Ehickonics pre-dated it by 150 years LOL.

Um, both of those are dialects, though they probably have more genteel names. I'm not sure what valid means in this context.

Though I don't see any need to teach any of them in schools.

[Troubleshooter]

Ebonics, redneckonics, etc, are valid dialects, but the trick is to not tolerate their intrusion into into prevelant usage. They are a study of cultural anthropology, not a language to be taught as an acceptable replacement for english.

[be-bop]

The one word thats always mispronounced that drives me Bloody batty is
Schedule pronounced "Skedule" there's no fukin' K in there........

[limey]

Originally Posted by Clodfobble

Oh, yes. Mispronounced words grate on me.

...Jewelry is not pronounced "jewl-er-ry"...

Unless you spell it properly - jewellery ...

[Kagen4o4]

one ive noticed (because i always use to do it) but no one else seems to is "obvious" just listen to people and youll hear them say OD-vious.

aluminium is NOT a-loo-min-num as americans think it is. notice the "nium" at the end? its not "num"

[Clodfobble]

Originally Posted by limey

Unless you spell it properly - jewellery

But even then, don't you guys pronounce it "jew-ELL-er-ree?"

[xoxoxoBruce]

Originally Posted by Kagen4o4

aluminium is NOT a-loo-min-num as americans think it is. notice the "nium" at the end? its not "num"

From here.

In 1807, Davy proposed the name alumium for the metal, undiscovered at that time, and later agreed to change it to aluminum. Shortly thereafter, the name aluminium was adopted to conform with the "ium" ending of most elements, and this spelling is now in use elsewhere in the world. Aluminium was also the accepted spelling in the U.S. until 1925, at which time the American Chemical Society officially decided to use the name aluminum thereafter in their publications.

It's num. :p

[Kagen4o4]

from here

The International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) adopted aluminium as the standard international name for the element in 1990, but three years later recognised aluminum as an acceptable variant. Hence their periodic table includes both, but places aluminium first [5]. IUPAC officially prefers the use of aluminium in its internal publications, although several IUPAC publications use the spelling aluminum.[6] Nevertheless the "ium" spelling has the advantage that the non-English-speaking world prefers the -ium spelling: aluminium is the name used in French and German, and identical or similar forms are used in many other languages. As the non-English speaking world has more people, the forms used in languages other than English are one of the reasons IUPAC chose to officially prefer aluminium over aluminum.

its NIUM but NUM is acceptable

[xoxoxoBruce]

snip~~aluminium is the name used in French~~snip

Reason enough to stick with num.