50 Incorrect Pronunciations That You Should Avoid

446 Responses to “50 Incorrect Pronunciations That You Should Avoid”

1. Kerry on December 2, 2008 4:57 pm

   An additional mistake for foliage is to pronounce it “foy-lage”. There is no “i” next to that “o”!

   Another one I cringe at is “EX-presso” instead of “espresso”. If you can’t say it right, just order “coffee”.

2. Bernadette on December 2, 2008 5:13 pm

   I have a co-worker who pronounces obese “o-beast”… but that may be filed under a different topic…

3. Jared Stein on December 2, 2008 5:16 pm

   I lean toward a descriptivist philosophy of linguistics, and so except in cases where a pronunciation is merely ignorant (e.g. one read a word and used it without figuring out how it’s supposed to be pronounced), I put little stock in such corrections.

   When a population pronounces a word in a non-standard way, it may be dialect, or it may be linguistic change in action. Neither is sufficient cause for correction.

4. One Night Stanzas on December 2, 2008 5:21 pm

   This makes bizarre reading for a British person! It got off on the wrong foot with me, because in Britain, no one says “offen” – I’m sorry?! It’s “often” – pronounced “off-tenn.” End of.

   And not to sound snobby, but I think most of these are not common among British people. We never use “anyways,” which seems to be common in Canada and the States – similarly we don’t miss out random letters (see “often”) as in “accessory,” “arctic”, “cavalry”, etc. “Asterisk” sometimes becomes “asterix” over here, but that’s the comic book’s fault… and “ask” becoming “aks” annoys the heck out of me too. But this really did point out to me that, for all we might be morons with grammar, we Brits are pretty good with our punctuation!

5. Sara on December 2, 2008 5:32 pm

   I grew up in the Mid-west and when I was younger my parents, babysitter, etc. used the word ornery to describe my behavior. However, they dropped the initial “r” so it came out sounding like /ON-REE/ (2 syllables instead of 3). I thought it was an entirely different word and didn’t figure out they were just butchering it the whole time.

   Also people in the Mid-west like to say /MELK/ instead of milk. Gah!

6. temp- on December 2, 2008 5:32 pm

   what about: it ain’t no something

   is that correct?

7. sl on December 2, 2008 5:45 pm

   I agree wholly with all of the above, but just wanted to point out that “forte” in Italian does also mean “strong”. It is used as a musical term, and is mostly interpreted to mean “Loud”, in a relative way, but it really means that the player should convey a strong sound.

8. John Gordon on December 2, 2008 5:49 pm

   I notice this in Chaucer’s “The Knight’s Tale” at line 3147:

   Yow loveres axe I now this questioun:

   While it may betray a lack of education today, the pronunciation of “ask” as “aks” seems to have a long history.

   BTW: The story also uses “aske” for first person singular in another spot. I don’t know why Chaucer switches back and forth.

9. Metroknow on December 2, 2008 5:52 pm

   Oh, one of the worst: “nuclear” – not nuc-u-lar.

10. Robert V on December 2, 2008 5:53 pm

    True, but you Brits need work on your Rs. You add them to the end of words that don’t end with one, like drama, and you ignore them in words that do, like mother. And I’m tired of you Brits calling me Robet!

11. Maeve on December 2, 2008 5:59 pm

    John,
    “Ask” is not the only word in which letters and sounds have switched positions over time. “Girl” used to be “gril” and “whale” was “hwale.”

    Disclaimer: I didn’t put the word “dumb” in the headline. I don’t equate “uneducated” with “dumb.” And I don’t equate the quest for a standard pronunciation with “elitism.” With so many people from so many backgrounds communicating in English, a standard pronunciation is desirable. Of course, we all prefer our own pronunciations so there’s going to be plenty of room for disagreement as to what the standard should be.

    As for “February,” I only noted the spelling. While we’re waving degrees, I have one from the University of London and I say “feb u ary.”

    

12. Adrienne on December 2, 2008 5:59 pm

    Nuclear!!

13. Catherine @ Sharp Words on December 2, 2008 6:06 pm

    I’m with One Night Stanzas on a lot of this – it seems very specifically American and doesn’t take into account other variations. (I didn’t know how to pronounce Arkansas into well into my mid-20s!) Brits would almost always pronounce the ‘t’ in ‘often’, and would slur other words that might not be that way in American English.
    Actually, I was more baffled why you didn’t like the ‘t’ sounded in ‘often’ when most of the other incorrect pronunciations involved letters not being pronounced…

    I’m forever correcting my husband on ‘calvary’/'cavalry’ though! And one pronunciation you missed is ‘Wednesday’. I love hearing BBC newsreaders say ‘Wed-uns-day’ while the rest of us just say ‘Wensday’.

    I do think a lot of mis-pronunciations happen that way simply because they’re easier to say, though, particularly in quick speech. Trying to get those extra Rs into February and library is something I admit I rarely do unless I’m consciously trying.

14. grippingyarn on December 2, 2008 6:17 pm

    This article rubbed me the wrong way and smacks of elitism because it is too localized and doesn’t account for international or even cultural differences in pronunciation.

    I would prefer not to read any more of this kind of thing in my daily blogs. I like Daily Writing Tips, but topics with a mean spirited voice will have to go. It’s a legitimate article if it explores mispronunciation from the specific perspective of a localized custom, but the attitude is derisive.

    In a climate where people are struggling just to get by, the last thing on my mind is snubbing my neighbors over their choice of pronunciation. This is particularly true for me since I reside in a household with a speaker who is well educated, but English is his second language.

    Blah.

15. Anand on December 2, 2008 6:27 pm

    Wednesday?

16. SteveGray on December 2, 2008 6:28 pm

    Versus. Two syllable word indicating comparison or contest. The word “verse” is a reference to poetry.

    District. Note the “T” at the end. Please include it, rather than saying “districk”.

    Tossed salad. It’s called that because traditionally, the ingredients are mixed, or “tossed.” It is NOT a “toss salad.”

    Iced tea. See above. It’s tea that has ice added to it. The tea itself is not ice. Please don’t call it “ice tea.”

    Nuclear. Nuke-lee-ur. Not nuke-you-lur.

    You really have me on a roll…I’d better stop now before my head explodes.

17. Doug Rosbury on December 2, 2008 6:40 pm

    my pet peeve is people who pronounce comfortable as
    comfterbul. It drives me crazy that they can’t just as easily pronounce
    it( com for ta ble ) in 4 sylables (!!!) Please publicize this for me.
    thank you ——Doug

18. joe c on December 2, 2008 6:45 pm

    It’s not common, but i hate it when people mispronounce “zoological” or “zoologist”: the first O is a long O, so it’s not supposed to sound like the word “zoo.”

19. Lori on December 2, 2008 6:48 pm

    How about “asphalt”? This one makes me crazy. I know many people who pronounce it “ash-fault”.

20. joe c on December 2, 2008 6:48 pm

    Elitist? And I thought I had heard it all when someone told me using “curly quotes” was elitist. This article wasn’t mean-spirited at all. (I sure can’t speak for myself, though.)

21. Lori on December 2, 2008 6:50 pm

    Another one that gets me is “escape” prounced “ex-kape” instead of es-cape. Argh!

22. jd on December 2, 2008 6:54 pm

    get the fuck over yourself.
    people pronouce stuff different/wrong whatever.
    get off your high horse.tramp.

23. Al on December 2, 2008 7:02 pm

    I have to chime in on nuclear. /noo’-klee-uhr/ It drives me bonkers that our elected officials can’t pronounce it correctly.

24. Joshua on December 2, 2008 7:04 pm

    The matter of “often” is really more of a toss-up, or personal preference. The ‘t’ sound was dropped around the 15th Century to make the word easier to say (kind of like the first ‘t’ in “chestnut” or the ‘p’ in “raspberry”). As education spread and more people learned to write, though, the sound came into use more frequently as people attempted to match the pronunciation to the spelling. So, one could regard the ‘t’ as silent, but it isn’t necessarily wrong not to do so.

25. jennifer on December 2, 2008 7:10 pm

    grippingyarn, i agree. this article is helpful in some respects but also really classist and ignorant. pronouncing a word a certain way makes you sound ‘hicky’? do you really think that’s not an offensive phrase? just because someone doesn’t speak standard english doesn’t mean they’re dumb; it just means they don’t speak standard english.

26. Xander on December 2, 2008 7:15 pm

    Disagree with “jewelry.” It has 2 syllables, not 3.

    It is /JULE-REE/.

    Nobody pronounces jewel /JEW-ELL/, it’s /JULE/, hence /JULE-REE/.

27. aravah on December 2, 2008 7:21 pm

    Are people who say preventative mispronouncing preventive or are they correctly using and pronouncing the word preventative?

28. Euthyphro on December 2, 2008 7:24 pm

    Nice bit overall, but I have to agree that it does come off as regional.

    One problem with the “Realtor” pronunciation, though, the term is a trademark of the NRA (National Realtor Association) according to their own pronunciation and documentation it is a two syllable word “REEL-TOR” not a three syllable word.

    Cheers

29. Clare Lynch on December 2, 2008 7:27 pm

    I have to say, some of these do seem overly prescriptive and a bit snooty to me.

    One example that sticks out is February. For a start, since when has spelling been a helpful guide to correct pronunciation? And the fact that, as you acknowledge, everyone says it without the “r” suggests that the “r”-less pronunciation is now standard. Neither I nor anyone I know pronounces the “r” (and I have three degrees, including one from the University of Cambridge, so there!) If I came across anyone consciously trying to pronounce the “r” I’d think them socially insecure and affected. Like an American trying to be a bit too English and getting it wrong, in fact.

    And as for your comments on place names – unfair, very US-centric and definitely reminiscent of pots, kettles and the colour black. Next time you come to London, try asking a native for directions to Leicester Square, Streatham or even the River Thames. And don’t be surprised when they snigger.

    These points aside, I do have prejudices of my own. I automatically assume that anyone who vocalises the “h” when pronouncing “h” (the letter aitch) is illiterate, and that English people who pronounce “privacy” the US way are dimwits who live on a diet of American culture.

    Thanks for such a contentious post, though – it makes for much more interesting reading than some of the bland stuff you find on so many writing blogs.

30. aravah on December 2, 2008 7:32 pm

    It’s not common, but i hate it when people mispronounce “zoological” or “zoologist”: the first O is a long O, so it’s not supposed to sound like the word “zoo.”

    It is common and perfectly correct to pronounce it like ‘zoo’ in the UK.

    Neither I nor anyone I know pronounces the “r” (and I have three degrees, including one from the University of Cambridge, so there!) If I came across anyone consciously trying to pronounce the “r” I’d think them socially insecure and affected.

    I am the only person I know who pronounces February with the r, and people do look at me like I’m a bit weird! I can confirm that I’m neither socially insecure or affected, but I do only have two degrees, and neither of them were from Cambridge, so maybe that’s it.

31. Eric on December 2, 2008 7:34 pm

    Thank you so much. One of my biggest pet peeves is when people mispronounce cache. It’s like nails on a chalkboard.

32. Julian Perrera on December 2, 2008 7:44 pm

    I had a teacher that used to say across’d instead of across. My mom still says ideal instead of idea.

    We could get into racist territory with this list… some people just can’t pronounce certain letters. Lots of black people pronounce mad as mat, basically most d’s at the end of words become t’s.

    Anyhow, I don’t really subscribe to the proper grammer or pronunciation school… if I don’t understand you I will ask for clarification. Don’t care if you speak well or good.

33. PurpleCar on December 2, 2008 7:51 pm

    Library! Did I miss it on the list? It’s lye-brare-ee not lye-berry.

    Others’ mispronunciations of words do tend to be pet-peevey, as we are truly just cringing inside at others’ potential embarrassment of seeming uneducated. I tend to agree with Jared Stein in comment #3: Language changes. Some pronunciations, like “joo -lur -ee” for jewelry are so widely adopted they become the norm. (“joo well ree” is too difficult for me).

    That being said, I don’t think this is a mean-spirited list. This is a writing tips site. The point is: use words wisely. Track down the accents of your character’s region. Avoid words that have varied pronunciation if you want all readers to get the same impression of your character. If you are writing words for performance, like plays or other entertainment art, take special notice on what different pronunciations say about a character. A little bit of dialect goes a long way.

34. Declan on December 2, 2008 7:55 pm

    You omitted George W. Bush’s two most favorite words.

    Nuclear, which he pronounces New-cue-ler instead of NEW-KLEE-ER

    Terrorist, which he pronounces Te-rist instead of TE-RO-RIST

35. PurpleCar on December 2, 2008 8:04 pm

    Oh I also wanted to add a bit from Merriam-Webster.com (a paid subscription service). They say that forte (pronounced for tay) meaning a strong point or talent, can be pronounced either fort or for tay. here’s a quote (I edited the special symbols):

    “”"”"”"”"”"”"”"”"”"”"”"”"
    2 : one’s strong point
    usage In forte we have a word derived from French that in its “strong point” sense has no entirely satisfactory pronunciation. Usage writers have denigrated \’for-tay\ and \’for-tee\ because they reflect the influence of the Italian-derived 2. forte (loud). Their recommended pronunciation \’fort\, however, does not exactly reflect French either: the French would write the word “le fort” and would rhyme it with English “for.” So you can take your choice, knowing that someone somewhere will dislike whichever variant you choose. All are standard, however. In British English \fo-tay\ and \fot\ predominate; \FOR-tay\ and \for-TAY\ are probably the most frequent pronunciations in American English.
    “”"”"”"”"”"”"”"”"”"”"”"

36. Lmparks on December 2, 2008 8:19 pm

    I’m from the South, so we have many incorrect pronunciations, but the one that wreaks havoc in my bones is really a matter of using the wrong word. People say “Ideal” instead of “idea”. For example, if I was to suggest seeing a movie, someone might respond, “what a great ideal!” ARGH…no. please. It’s a great IDEA!

37. Buttoned-Up.com on December 2, 2008 8:25 pm

    I hate it when people say “duck” tape instead of “duct” tape.

38. Charlotte Xi on December 2, 2008 8:25 pm

    I agree with Jared Stein and “grippingyarn” on this one. You’re obviously not referring to pronunciations with regional significance. If you were, than I’ll be damned – I must be an idiot!

    I’ve never in my life heard anyone pronounce the first “r” of February, nor medieval with four syllables.

    On a side note – you should probably not insult people by the way they pronounce words. I would say that’s borderline prejudice. A lot of those “mispronunciations” are accepted in a wide region, even if they are *technically* wrong.

    Once I see your degree in linguistics I may forgive you, but until then – this article is just rude.

    PS: What is the “proper” way to pronounce “zoological”? I’ve always said “zoo-o-logical”.

39. Maeve on December 2, 2008 8:33 pm

    Catherine,
    My preference for “offen” instead of “often” has nothing to do with logic. It’s the way I was taught to say it. Pronouncing the “t” makes more sense since 1) it’s there, and 2) the word derives from OE “oft.” But then, the “r” is in “February” and you can see from the comments what most people think about the necessity to pronounce it after the “b.”

    I prefer “offen” because it sounds right to me and pronouncing the “t” doesn’t. However, I recognize “often” as a perfectly acceptable alternate pronunciation. I even acknowledge the certainty that as my generation dies off “offen” will cease to be heard.

    For the fun of it, look up what H.W. Fowler has to say about the “t” in “often” in the 1926 edition of Modern English Usage. I’d quote it here, but talk about snotty!

40. chris on December 2, 2008 8:40 pm

    Honestly, I learned the /FOR-TAY/ vs. /FORT/ pronunciation when I was young, but after constantly being “corrected” when I would say “that’s not my forte” the proper way by educated people who should know better, I gave up on the word in spoken English.

41. Joe on December 2, 2008 8:45 pm

    I’m surprised that “nuclear” didn’t make the list– not nuc-U-lar…..

42. WordPorn on December 2, 2008 9:11 pm

    Ah, frak. Here I was thinking I was all smarts and edumacated, and I miss a few of these. Then I also realized how my boyfriend’s somewhat-Southern accent is ruining my remnants of good pronunciation – the-ATE-er instead of THE-a-ter, ruin as one syllable instead of two, and so many more…

43. Grace on December 2, 2008 9:47 pm

    It bothers me when people pronounce the word ‘crayon’ like ‘crown.’

44. Courtney on December 2, 2008 9:48 pm

    Realtor is actually is a two syllable word. Say/Reel-tor, not Re-al-tor. N.A.R has really hammered this pronunciation into the brains of every Realtor in the U.S!

45. Zach on December 2, 2008 10:18 pm

    i know someone that says marine corps as how its spelled not (core)

46. PurpleCar on December 2, 2008 10:24 pm

    A friend just linked me to this brit thing online:
    http://www.tiscali.co.uk/refer.....82632.html
    preventive or preventative
    The words are often used interchangeably to denote whatever prevents something else happening or occurring, especially when it is undesirable. However, preventative is often applied to an actual object, especially in noun form, while preventive is mostly reserved for an abstract concept, and remains an adjective: Preventive medicine regards vitamin C as an effective preventative against colds.

47. Greg on December 2, 2008 10:25 pm

    Preventive and preventative are interchangeable words, preventative is generally used to refer to a direct object (used as a noun), whereas preventive is used when discussing the abstract concept of prevention.

    http://www.tiscali.co.uk/refer.....82632.html

48. Greg on December 2, 2008 10:28 pm

    buttonedup.com

    duct tape is the generic name for the type of type. “Duck” tape is a brand of duct tape.

    It is the tape equivalent of calling an adhesive strip a band-aid, or a tissue a kleenex.

49. GoingLikeSixty on December 2, 2008 10:39 pm

    Niche: Neesh is too hoity-toity.

50. –Deb on December 2, 2008 11:06 pm

    Amen.

    (And, in fact, that’s one of them … AH-men, please, not long-A-men.)

    My best friend’s family always used to look at themselves in the “mirrow” and it used to drive me nuts. I finally pointed out to her (but not her parents or brothers) that the word had an R on the end, and she actually changed that–such a relief!

    Lately? Both my parents are flattening the “-er” in things like “drawer” ane “error.” I don’t know where this came from, but suddenly we’re keeping things in “draws” and making “eras” when we’re careless … grrr!

    Of course, they’re thrilled to point out that I used to mispronounce “museum” all the time when I was little … but at least I outgrew it.

51. Scribbler on December 2, 2008 11:17 pm

    This article seems to have generated some mixed feedback!

    A common difference in pronuncation I hear is with the word, ‘philanthropist’. I pronounce this word with a long ‘a’ and a ‘u’ for the ‘o’. Does that make sense? Many pronunciation websites say it this way too with their ‘soundclips’. But I have heard many pronounce it with a short ‘a’ and short ‘o’. The latest Bond movie pronounces the word in the latter fashion.

    Are both right?

52. Rachel on December 2, 2008 11:28 pm

    I am one of those people who are rather well read, meaning that I do read quite a lot, various things from newspapers, magazines, books, you name it. I am also one of those people who have, on occasion butchered words because, while I understand the meaning of the word, I may have only read it, not heard it. Additionally, I wear hearing aids and thus may miss hearing some of the nuances of correct language pronounciation.

    However, it is also quite true that “correct” pronounciation of language is quite dependent on locale, or origin of the person(s) speaking. I know, I have experienced this when as a HS graduate I spent several years overseas, befriending people of various countries, the UK included — and the misunderstandings that occurred between people who THOUGHT they were speaking the same language were numerous.

    The most interesting thing, though, that I noticed, was the disparity in pronounciation of the word “herb”. In the US, the “h” is silent and the word is pronounced “erb”. In the UK, however, the “h” is not silent — it is pronounced, the same as in the word “house”. I wonder too, now, about the word “honest”. In the US, the “h” is silent. How is that pronounced in the UK?

53. Candice on December 2, 2008 11:28 pm

    Well god forbid language ever, oh, I don’t know … CHANGE?

54. Sexy Cheese on December 2, 2008 11:34 pm

    With all the other problems in the world why worry about someone pronouncing something right? Me personally, I think that butchering the language makes someone sound dumb. Everyone messes it up a little.

    My $0.02

55. GoingLikeSixty on December 2, 2008 11:45 pm

    May I? Here’s my post using all your words. If I had the ambition, I would have used them alphabetically…
    http://goinglikesixty.com/2008.....d-allowed/

56. Buck on December 2, 2008 11:48 pm

    Pecan is always pronounced with a short “a” as part of dialect subsets in the South (mainly North and South Carolina). Were you to pronounce it with a long “a” there you would be laughed at for the mispronunciation.

    One that you missed is “Iced Tea” – It is often pronounced “Ice Tea” and even has gained acceptance being written that way which is not only a mispronunciation but also a grammatical error.

57. Ryan Malm on December 2, 2008 11:57 pm

    I must agree with the people on the “you’re being a bit snooty” side of the fence. Especially cases in which the so-called mispronunciation is simply a matter of where you’re at. Like Halloween. I’ve always said it /hol-lo-ween/, and quite frankly have never thought about it that hard.

58. kevin on December 3, 2008 12:26 am

    Several people I know pronounce the word “WHILE” like “why” – it completely blows my mind and irritates me. This is really the only mispronunciation that consistently makes me angry. “I’m going to type this letter why you dictate it to me” – ARGHH!!

    On the other hand, I am guilty of saying “preven-TA-tive”, but only because I use the word so rarely and have never noticed the spelling. Now I will be more careful with this word, thanks.

59. Charlie on December 3, 2008 1:05 am

    You missed my favorite mispronunciation, New-cu-lar. Don’t you just love the extra syllable in Nuclear? It’s New-Clear! Get it? Now just say it correctly Mr. Bush!

60. onscrn on December 3, 2008 1:18 am

    I agree on most of these, including softening often. But I’m not going to change the way I say clothes or vehicle.

61. mike on December 3, 2008 1:23 am

    How could you leave out MOOT/MUTE? (as in, a moot or mute point). That’s the bastardization I hear most often at the office.

    Also, I agree with Claire Lynch about February. Words don’t always sound like they are spelled, so your argument for that is weak, especially since you agree that everyone says it that way. Webster acknowledges both pronunciations as correct, so that’s good enough for me.

    Also, to buttoned-up.com, “Duck” tape is actually part of the etymology of the stuff… check it out on Wikipedia. Interesting stuff.

62. birdfarm on December 3, 2008 1:38 am

    Elitist tone is too much for me. It can be *extremely* useful to know how to talk like an Ivy League grad (I know, I am one). It opens many doors. BUT it is very…. stupid, for lack of a better word…. not to see that the whole idea of “correct” pronunciation (not to mention grammar and spelling) is utterly useless except for one purpose: to identify an “in group” (old-money establishment wealth, i.e., the ruling class) and an “out group” (everyone else). “She walk to table” or “she be walking to the table” are both perfectly understandable; they do, however, identify the speaker as “out group.” It is useful to be able to talk like “in group” because they hold the reins and have the power. But one should never fall under the delusion that the “in group” is “smart,” or that the “out group” is “dumb” (as the title of the list implies)……… in short……….. useful list, bad attitude.

63. Maeve on December 3, 2008 1:41 am

    GoingLikeSixty,

    COOL.

64. Michelle Hartz on December 3, 2008 1:41 am

    Some of these are valid, and some come off a bit snooty. But with that being said, the one that gets to me the most isn’t here: There is no “Q” in coupon.

65. Cyrus on December 3, 2008 2:08 am

    haha I made a blog entry about the, “anyway’s',” problem. I agree with most your your observations, but there agreeably must be some leeway with certain words. One example would simply be, “asterisk.” (I just picked some of the top couple) Some patience for people like me, who when they try to pronounce the second “s”, slur it and sadly transform it into a small, “cat hiss,” if you may. It’s not a lisp, but I’ve noticed many people with tongue quivers. Great commentaries, though! Good research! You’re a credit to the grammatical culture of our apathetic world!

66. Eric TF Bat on December 3, 2008 2:16 am

    I consider myself a practicing peddant (watch as other peddan’ts brains explode on reading that statement) but perhaps the fact that I’m Australian explains the several discrepancies I can see in your list:

    10 – /KAYSH/, not /KASH/ — I think that’s a US-vs-UK thing
    21 – /FORT-ay/ is correct for both meanings
    24 – /HEE-nuss/ is much more common
    25 – /HI-rar-kee/ is quite normal
    30 – /JOOL-ree/ is common and acceptable
    41 – preventative is a word
    48 – /TICK-uh-lish/ is common and acceptable
    50 – /VIHR-kl/ (the -IHR rhymes with beer)

    Of those, #21 is the only one I’m uncertain enough about to check in a dictionary, but I don’t have one with me that I trust, so I’ll just have to wing it.

    And as for “elitism”: thankfully, the eight years of celebrating mediocrity in the US are now over. “Elite” means “better”, not “snooty”, and if there’s one thing the world needs it’s more elites, not fewer.

67. Skeetgun on December 3, 2008 2:19 am

    I think it’s a good ideal to have this discussion.

68. Neil on December 3, 2008 2:28 am

    I hear Ser-stiff-i-cate for certificate an awful lot, where they get the second ‘s’ sound from I have no idea!!

69. Neil on December 3, 2008 2:30 am

    ..oh and ‘Haitch’ for the letter ‘H’! It’s AITCH, not Haitch! People drop the letter so often, they feel it should be pronounced when talking about the letter itself.

70. Paul Russell on December 3, 2008 2:40 am

    aravah asks: I am the only person I know who pronounces February with the r, and people do look at me like I’m a bit weird!

    You’re not the only person as I always pronounce the ‘r’. But I don’t know if if people look at you a bit weird, or even if they think I’m a bit weird.

    As for the ‘t’ in often… I don’t pronounce it and yet my wife does. We are both Canadian of British origin, so I suspect there may be regional differences within the UK. I’m from the West Midlands whereas my wife is from London.

    Now though we live in Malaysia, where a common mistake is the pronunciation of the word southern. Everyone assumes it sounds like south and says south-ern, rather than suthern. Come to think of it, they drop the ‘r’ too, so it sounds like south-un.

    –paul

    P.S. Interesting topic. Can’t think why people would write things like “This article rubbed me the wrong way and smacks of elitism.” If you don’t like it, don’t read it.

71. Rete on December 3, 2008 2:59 am

    I have a co-worker who speaks of office etiquette – pronouncing the q like ‘etiquit’ instead of ‘etikut’ and it drives me nuts. She can hear everyone else say it correctly and still she persists.

72. Doug Rosbury on December 3, 2008 3:03 am

    I’m not sure its worthwhile trying to correct peoples speech.
    they seem to carry their pronounciations like a badge of honor.
    However, if I had a blog, I might insist on correct usage as a condition of membership.——Doug

73. Vince Winkler on December 3, 2008 3:31 am

    I’ve decided that the people who cry “Elitist!” when they read this found out that they were pronouncing things incorrectly.

    I myself found a handful of mistakes that I make, yet I’ve known for a long time that I was pronouncing it oddly.

    Now I actually know how to pronounce it, though.

74. Seo Co on December 3, 2008 3:52 am

    I hate it when people say FUSTRATED instead of frustrated. Or they add an S on the end of verbs like,

    So I goeS down to the store.

    But my biggest pet peave you mentioned that is

    AXED for asked
    Drives me nuts ;-0

75. Brad K. on December 3, 2008 3:58 am

    I learned that when you are in Nebraska, “Norfolk” is pronounced “NorthFork”, just like Chuck Connor did in the Rifleman. When in Virginia (Vuh-Jin-yuh), it is “Nau-fuhk”.

    “The pronunciation /ar-kan-zuz/ is waaay off base.” Since I moved here to Ponca City, OK, I have been amazed. The Arkansas (AR-ken-saw) river runs from Kansas (KAN-zuz) through Arkansas City (ar-KAN-zuz SIT-ee) through Kaw Lake, east of Ponca City, and on down to the state of Arkansas (AR-kun-saw). I bow to the good people of Arkansas City, about the correct pronunciation of the name of their fair town. No one around here seems bothered by the variety of pronunciations for what seems like the same word.

    35. Niche
    I gotta challenge that one. This should sound like the fiche in microfiche. Well, almost. I say fiche (FEESH) and niche (NITCH). For me, niche is almost like notch. In fact, a notch could become a niche (a small indention to hold something). But a notch (a nick or dent, or cut) would not always be suitable as a niche. Natcherly. Uh, ‘naturally’. Sorry.

    Nuclear – President Jimmy Carter was the first that I recall making me cringe with this one. Despite his service in the US Navy Nuclear Power program, he persisted in parading “NUK-lee-uhr” in public.

76. jipi on December 3, 2008 4:20 am

    @ Kerry -

    ES-presso is the Italian way.
    EX-presso is the french way.

    Both are acceptable ( http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/espresso ) . Just make sure to pick the more elitist one.

77. Alison Daugherty on December 3, 2008 5:34 am

    I love you forever for this. My mother was an English teacher I always correct peoples’ errors without thinking.

    One thing to note (you’ve done nothing wrong): Et cetera can also be pronounced et-KET-er-a if you learned Latin with an ecclesiastic accent.

78. CannedAm on December 3, 2008 6:09 am

    Hey, Paul, I’ve only ever heard southern pronounced like south – ern in Canada! Many, many variations on pronunciations from one side of the border to the other. Up here I hear “bean” for been as opposed to our ‘bin’ and ‘a’ is taught and pronounced like apple’s a instead of ape’s a. So when my son asks for a pencil my brain does a somersault.

    This is rather regional. You’ll have very different pronunciations from one part of the country to the next. And the whole rest of the English speaking world thinks we’re a bit slack jawed in our pronunciations.

    I enjoy differences in pronunciations. It lets me know where a person’s from. I hear so many accents and dialects, I begin to wonder what’s actually correct. So long as we understand each other, I don’t think it’s necessary to point out when someone pronounces something differently than I would. Also, hop across the pond or over the border and suddenly you’re wrong in many of your pronunciations that you don’t have listed here.

    I definitely do not think one’s pronunciation is indicative of either his intelligence or education. I’ve heard poorly educated people speak more properly than well educated people. I’ve heard professors of English speak with such thick dialect that I could barely understand them. It didn’t make them sound stupid. Just made me listen more closely.

    I have never heard /vee-ikle/. The ‘h’ sound is very soft and barely audible, but it’s definitely there. Even listening to the /vee-ikle/ pronunciation at dictionary.com I can still hear it.

79. Metroknow on December 3, 2008 7:04 am

    Oh, and one more for you non-Oregonians: It is not OR-eh-GAWN. OR-eh-gun.

80. ash on December 3, 2008 7:39 am

    While I agree that words have correct pronunciations vs non, I do think it is distasteful to say someone is “dumb” or “uneducated.” You use both of those words in this article.

    Words like “ask,” may have a correct prono., but I think have become part of some people groups. In the U.S., it is common for the black community to use it that way and it should be noted!

    There are others here that I realize I have said wrong or may say wrong, and perhaps as a writer, I should be more aware. But it does not make me uneducated. There are cultural norms, as you quickly referenced in the beginning, that are important to consider.

    Overall, I think this is an EXCELLENT list and certainly I will pass it on.

    Gracious!

81. hank101 on December 3, 2008 8:32 am

    I think I will trust merriam webster on these, rather than you. Simply, you are wrong many times here.

82. Sheila on December 3, 2008 11:16 am

    In the early years of my marriage I corrected my husband’s grammar and pronunciation a lot. But I’ve changed my perspective through the years.

    First, I’ve learned about multiple intelligences and don’t judge intelligent/unintelligent by verbal skills.

    I’ve also realized that a lot of the things I used to make fun of in some people are merely the result of which country their ancestors were from. My husband’s Polish grandparents didn’t speak English, and his father didn’t speak English until he went to school. So he says tree instead of three and haich instead of aich. I never am unsure of his meaning when he speaks to me. And he’s bilingual, for heaven’s sake! A lot of the people I know who would make fun of him for his little pronunciation “mistakes” would love to be bilingual.

    And so his son has picked up on the haich. It’s okay. It has nothing to do with his intelligence and everything to do with his heritage. These differences in pronunciation give our language a wider, richer variety.

83. Patrick on December 3, 2008 2:00 pm

    It is a curiosity — When my daughter was learning to speak and used words like “poink” (to poke with a pointed object or a pointy object) or “comfordy” (comfortable) I thought these were wonderful words. When I hear an adult say “chesterdrawers” (chest of drawers) or “pregnate” (pregnant) I cringe. I wish I had the same sense of wonder and delight for the adults’ innovative words that I had for my daughter’s — one great thing about English is that there is no Academy telling us we are doing it wrong — it is free to evolve and we can observe it happening.

84. Maeve on December 3, 2008 2:28 pm

    ash,
    Upon reflection, I have to agree that “uneducated” was an unfortunate word choice and I’ve amended the sentence. As I wrote in a previous comment, “dumb” was not in my original headline. I would think, however, that the headline was written in a spirit of fun and was never intended to be offensive.

    The comments sparked by this post are entertaining and thought-provoking. Thanks to everyone who has commented. It’s great to have such a lively, passionate readership!

85. Brad K. on December 3, 2008 2:44 pm

    About “elitist”. To those that are concerned about hoity-toity and “I speak *correctly*, and those that don’t are stupid” concerns – look again at the title of this article, and at the specific list.

    This is not a list of words that are commonly mispronounced. It isn’t nearly complete.

    Remember the dictum, “Hate the sin, not the sinner?” That is what is going on here. The particular words chosen make the speaker *sound* less aware, less careful, less respectful of themselves and others. We all know about dialect. And no one is using this list to call names – unlike a couple of comments.

    That is – using these mispronunciations may make the speaker *sound* dumb. No one is implying that using these mispronunciations means that the speaker *is* stupid.

    Notice how “dumb” in the title is deliberately used incorrectly, to convey the colloquial meaning of “kinda stupid”, rather than the “correct” meaning of “incapable of speech”? The point of this particular list is to avoid these dialect or colloquial usages and common mistakes, when correct speech is important,.

    For those that do understand about correct usage, and understand when it is appropriate to stress correct usage – say at a public speaking engagement with a mixed crowd – some of these common mistakes will detract from the respect your listener pays to you and to your words.

    When trying to persuade a boss, a co-worker, or a group, the onus on the speaker is to *be heard*. There is a responsibility there.

    You cannot affect what your listener hears. Your listener may or may not be paying attention, and will hear through filters – from hearing aids to dialects to background noises to distracting thoughts they are trying to wait for an opportunity to state. What we call “correct” speech is a dialect, that most people can understand. So if you break into this strange, weird, stuffy dialect – more people are more likely to understand what you are saying.

    We only have control over what we say – not what our listener hears.

86. Quiet Mr. T on December 3, 2008 3:18 pm

    Auxiliary – There is a second I. It is not: AUX-il-ery.

    And of course – warsher. ug.

87. bad tim on December 3, 2008 4:08 pm

    i think many of the words in your list are prejudiced toward the dialect i refer to as brokawese; the generic american speech pattern exemplified by tom brokaw and other mainstream journalists before they jumped on the dropped-verb bandwagon.

    i take particular issue with fussy words like ‘february’. the only people around here who say it your way are pretentious academics. ‘caramel’ is another example of regional dialects dropping a fussy syllable, and the english language abounds with dropped sounds.

    one you missed that really bugs me is the incursion of spanish on words of french origin. ‘cadre’, which i know as kay-der, has somehow become kah-dray. i remember hearing someone say ‘gen-ray’ recently, too.

    i have an issue with standardization of dialects. regional speech patterns should be encouraged. they enrich the language. brokawese is fine for national broadcasts, but i don’t go to places like savannah to listen to midwesterners.

88. Edward F. Gumnick on December 3, 2008 4:58 pm

    If anyone’s keeping score, count me with the descriptivists on this debate, rather than the prescriptivists. And I enthusiastically concur with those who’ve noted the narrow regionalism reflected in the list.

    The only fresh thing I have to add: How does a list of pronunciation pet peeves qualify as a “Daily Writing Tip”?

89. Brad K. on December 3, 2008 5:13 pm

    bad tim – nuh-uh. Letting the language drift invites divisiveness – and allows communication differences to become communication difficulties. Inability to communicate easily and clearly, as, say from inner city to city hall, invites violent confrontation.

    Look what the difference in dialect means to Israel and Palestine, or Sunnis, Shiites, and Kurds in Iraq and Afghanistan.

    Look what the drift in language meant in our own Civil War.

    Letting dialects drift unchecked allows those that remain conversant with the dominant languages elsewhere control and manipulate the flow of information for often personal and petty ends.

    I was taught “Feb-roo-ary” in Junior High, about 1964. It was an unpopular pronunciation then, too. And I find myself, most often, slurring the first r into a y – Feb-yoo-airee. Mostly because I don’t use many “roo” words, so the consonant before “ru” feels odd to me. But I do recognize the word when correctly used.

    And that is the point. We all need to remain aware of both “correct” usage and how it relates to our community, family, and personal dialects. So we can share in a “Common” dialect.

90. Clayton on December 3, 2008 6:39 pm

    I hear meme mispronounced frequently.

91. Ray on December 3, 2008 6:39 pm

    As long as the dialect is in English, we’ll be fine. But bless the brave like Bill Cosby.

    One of my favorite quotes is still…….
    “If you can read this, thank a teacher. If it is in English, thank a Soldier”

    Now, feel free to flame me. LOL

92. Doug Rosbury on December 3, 2008 6:40 pm

    I have run into conflict with certain indiviuals whos english usage
    creates confusion and resistance for me, the reader. they will invariably defend their usage and obfuscate the critical importance
    of correct usage. This points up a problem with those from another country who may wish to feel that they belong in the american society. What’s my point ? A pressing need for education. Well
    anyway, so it is.——-Doug Rosbury

    such an individual will invariably defend their usage especially whem I

93. Doug Rosbury on December 3, 2008 6:41 pm

    I have run into conflict with certain indiviuals whos english usage
    creates confusion and resistance for me, the reader. they will invariably defend their usage and obfuscate the critical importance
    of correct usage. This points up a problem with those from another country who may wish to feel that they belong in the american society. What’s my point ? A pressing need for education. Well
    anyway, so it is.——-Doug Rosbury

94. Brandon on December 3, 2008 7:57 pm

    At least two handfuls of words listed in the author’s pronunciation corrections are not putatively incorrect. Neither are they just American pronunciations; I glanced at dictionary.com, which includes the American Heritage dictionary, to verify this. Although certain of the variant pronunciations don’t reflect the spelling of the word, if they are common in educated speech, they are considered acceptable. For instance, glancing at dictionary.com on each of these, one finds:

    [ar-tik] for ‘arctic’ is okay
    [dee-is],[dey-is],[dahy-is],and [deys] for ‘dais’ are all okay depending on whether you’re Brit or American
    [kloz] for ‘clothes’ is okay
    [feb-yoo-ary] for ‘February’ is okay
    [hol-uh-ween] for ‘Halloween’ is okay
    [il-uh-noiz] for ‘Illinois’ is okay
    [med-ee-vuhl] or [mid-ee-vuhl] for ‘medieval’ is certainly okay!
    [min-uh-cher] for ‘miniature’ is okay
    [nich] for ‘niche’ is okay
    ‘preventive’ and ‘preventative’ are both words and they are synonymous

    Also, the [barb] in ‘barbwire’ could easily be heard as [bob]. Barbwire is a standard word and means the same thing as ‘barbed wire’.

95. Jesse on December 3, 2008 8:06 pm

    Yes, I have something to add. It really bothers me when people say aink-chent instead of ain-chent for ancient.

96. saphira on December 3, 2008 8:13 pm

    For me, the problem with this list isn’t so much the spirit in which it’s offered (though I do find it offensive, even as an English teacher!), but the fact that so many of the things on this list, which purports to be giving me the True and Proper way of saying things, are just wrong!

    For instance, “orient.” How does one get “orientate” out of “orient”? Simple–you don’t. “Orientate” is an actual word (if one I don’t especially like), according to the fine folks at Merriam-Webster, and people who say the word that way are undoubtedly not so ignorant that they look at “orient” and imagine a whole extra syllable on the end.

    “Realtor” is another case–and your “correct” pronunciation isn’t vaguely right (or even pronouncable, as far as I can tell–/re-a-la-tor/? Really??), as has already been mentioned here. As for “medieval,” is your issue with the vowel sounds or the number of syllables? Please make up your mind (and I have to add that I have never in my life heard “MEED-eval”, while “MID-eval” is quite common). “Old-fashioned” is a problem in print, and the result of indistinct pronunciation of the final “ed.” It’s a vicious circle.

    I’m especially offended by “vehicle.” M-W acknowledges that both pronunciations are correct, and to say that one makes you sound “hicky” is just snotty and rude.

    Do mispronunciations bother me? Yes. But my mother taught me that if I don’t have anything nice to say, I shouldn’t say anything at all. This article feels like someone taking out their own ill-informed frustrations on those who are different, and that’s just bashing, not intelligent discussion.

    You’ve lost a lot of credibility with me today. I used to recommend your site to my students, but I don’t think I will anymore. I want them getting unbiased, relevant information–and I still haven’t figured out why an article on pronunciation is relevant to good writing practices.

97. One Night Stanzas on December 3, 2008 8:26 pm

    *applauds saphira*

98. Grace S. on December 3, 2008 8:40 pm

    I believe, Brad K., that you have expressed quite clearly the advantage of having a dialect that most speakers of a language can understand. I was going to comment, bad tim, that while I have been “accused” of having a Midwestern accent when I have lived in other parts of the U.S., it seems that most national newscasters’ pronunciations match mine pretty closely, even when you’d expect a regionally influenced difference. (Although Peter Jennings, Canadian by birth, did pronounce “out” more like a combination of OAT and OOT, as do many in the UP of Michigan.) I had not, however, thought to call it “Brokawese.” I don’t believe this is “elitism” or “stuffiness,” but rather a move to be understood across the nation. When I listen to BBC reporters, I expect that they will drop certain words that Americans use (e.g., “in hospital” rather than “in the hospital,” or “prevent disaster happening” rather than “prevent disaster from happening,” because that is the British use of the language. While Henry Higgins certainly was snobbish in his study of pronunciation and education of Eliza Doolittle, the point remains that her use of language DID say a lot to him about where she had been raised and the people who had influenced her ear and tongue. His deplorable attitude does not invalidate what is fact.

    Having been raised in the Midwest by parents who very consciously taught us the difference between colloquial and more universally accepted speech, and teachers who often were heard to say things like, “Kids are baby goats–you are children,” the pronunciations I use mostly agree with “the list.” I do often check a dictionary for accepted pronunciation(s) when I hear a new one. My Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary allows both “preventative” and “orientate” (they are actual entry words), though they are considered variations of “preventive” and “orient.” And I am among those who pronounce the first “r” in “February,” though farther forward in my mouth than the second, so not so predominantly. (This awareness of placement of the sound probably comes from an excellent high school choir director who taught us how pronunciation of a word when sung may differ from the spoken word, and particularly in a large group as opposed to a solo.)

    Brad K., I do remember Jimmy Carter pronouncing “nuclear” as NOO-key-yer (no L at all); several Presidents since then have said NOO-ku-ler; and I remember observing that both Obama and Palin in the recent election run pronounced both NOO-ku-ler and NOO-klee-er, sometimes in the same section of a speech or answer. It appears to be a hard word for many people to pronounce as it is spelled; TV just allows us to hear and sit in judgment as it happens, and over and over. Yet we understand what these leaders are saying.

99. sharon on December 3, 2008 9:06 pm

    Nuclear is another word I hate to hear George Bush (and many others who should know better) say. I have even heard nuclear scientists who don’t know how to pronounce their chosen profession. It’s noo-cle-ar NOT noo-cu-lar GW BUSH – get a clue!!

100. Covarr on December 3, 2008 9:10 pm

     One that really bugs me is cliché. Cliché is a noun and a verb, not an adjective. Something can be “a cliché” or it can be “clichéd”, but not “cliché”.

     CORRECT:
     X is a cliché.
     X is clichéd.

     INCORRECT:
     X is cliché.

     I’ve noticed that quite a few people have corrected my pronunciation of the word “often”, regardless of whether or not I pronounce the T. So many people seem to think that only one way or the other is correct.

101. Steve Orris on December 3, 2008 10:16 pm

     Next time choose a topic that people will respond to, no one is interested in this anyway. (ha-ha)

     I have heard garage pronounced gar-rooshj. I could do that with audio but I probably don’t know how to write the sound I’ve heard.

102. BradyDale on December 3, 2008 10:30 pm

     awry: uh-rye
     Not: are-ee or ah-ree

103. Andrew Mores on December 3, 2008 10:41 pm

     I also prefer the descriptive approach to linguistic “correctness,” which is almost oxymoronic that as a self-proclaimed “descriptive linguist” I would have anything to say about correctness (note that I say *almost* oxymoronic), but I’m sure some still see my point; still, you took the time to write it, and here I am just criticizing it.

     My point is ultimately that some of this just feels like priggery.

104. Steve M on December 3, 2008 10:57 pm

     I have one addition and two variations.

     One of my pet peeves is REALTOR. I can tolerate REEL-TER but no reading of the word supports being pronounced RE-LA-TER.

     Second is JEWELRY being pronounced JEW-luh-ry.

     The third is the word CENTIMETER. Many in the medical profession incorrectly pronounce the initial “e” as a short “o”, as in SONT-i-mee-ter. The correct pronunciation is with a short “e”: SENT-i-mee-ter.

105. Lisa on December 3, 2008 11:06 pm

     How about this one guys: Supposedly. NOT Supposably. That drives me nuts!

106. chris on December 4, 2008 12:25 am

     dictionarys and hence language are dynamic changing over time.
     the meaning of words and spelling changes over time depending mainly on how the population use them and pronounce them.
     words and sentence stucture must be considered de facto standards as dictionaries are simply a record of what the current meaning, spelling and prononciation of words are.
     probably why they came up with a US dictionary with words like center, organize, color… http://www2.gsu.edu/~wwwesl/eg.....rences.htm
     i believe its just evoulution of a language, some changes will get accepted in to popular use and become added to dictionaries. good or bad.

107. Emily on December 4, 2008 12:38 am

     Some of these aren’t really fair to those who just pronounce things differently, or who have an accent. English is a hard enough language to learn as it is without critiquing pronunciations and accents. Everyone I know pronounces February like Feb-yoo-ary. The extra ‘r’ just feels weird on the tongue. I personally don’t like how it sounds when I say the extra ‘r’, so I don’t pronounce it that way.

     As for the pronunciation of “nuclear”, it’s really pronounced as NOO-klee-er because of the base word “nucleus”. I think when you have a nuclear reaction, it involves the splitting of the nucleus. I love chemistry.

     I definitely agree with Saphira on this one. The tone of this article is pretty harsh and unforgiving. I myself don’t like it when people say “melk” rather than “milk”, but I know they know how to spell it. They’re not going to spell it with an ‘e’ because that WOULD be wrong. But telling them that they way they’re saying it is wrong is kind of rude and seems like you’re insulting their intelligence. I don’t think one can really blame someone if they think you’re haughty when you critique the way they say things.

     P.S. Don’t come to Chicago if you hate the short ‘a’ sound in pecan. My family is Southern AND lives in Chicago. There are a lot of short ‘a’ sounds when we speak.

108. Krilu on December 4, 2008 1:03 am

     I’m really surprised at all the accusations of elitism. English is my second language, but the words on this list are very basic; the only ones I pronounce incorrectly are Illinois and Arkansas (and I am glad to have learned the proper pronunciation), as well as “Wednesday”, but this last one is from the comments.

109. Elizabeth on December 4, 2008 1:19 am

     As someone from Illinois, it is actually quite annoying to hear the “s” at the end pronounced. I have never heard anyone from Illinois say it. The “s” is silent. That tends to happen sometimes in the English language.

     I also disagree with the generalities made towards African-Americans concerning the word “ask” in particular, but pronunciation in general. It is not as if African-Americans are the only people mispronouncing words–I am African-American, I know people who aren’t African-American that pronounce ask as axe, and I am made fun of by African-Americans because I say axe and they don’t.

     In the end, I agree that pronunciation is relative to where you live, and the dialects spoken there. I feel that the bigger issue with standard English is not pronunciation, but proper grammar. Regardless of how you pronounce the word, if you are using proper grammar you will be understood.

110. Brad K. on December 4, 2008 3:24 am

     I understand and believe that “innovative” is meant to sound as /INN-oh-vay-tiv/. But I want to say, and often do, /ih-NAH-va-tiv/.

     I find the rotor at the top of my TV antennae quite understandable. A stepping motor that rotates the antennae. Yet if I order one, the part is called a “rotater”. I have to call it rotater or they won’t order the right gizmo.

     Brandon, 40 years ago dictionaries started including “ain’t.” The word had been in use, but my school held that it couldn’t be used in homework assignments, because it wasn’t a “proper” word. It wasn’t accepted by scholars as proper English, and was not included in dictionaries. Then it cropped up in the dictionary, and which refuted one of the English teacher’s arguments. But we still could not use the word “ain’t” in our homework.

     The dictionaries I use contain snippets of information, describing whether a word is slang, or colloquial. For a public statement, a resume, a business document, you would want to weigh carefully any words that are considered slang or colloquial. In other contexts, using words not found in a list of “proper” English words might save your life. Any tool can be misused.

     Saphira, Any tool can be misused, including English class and this web site, and this post. Students about the fourth grade need to be aware of this, and begin making considered judgements when they use words that aren’t on the spelling lists, references not called out in class or in the school library, and at times even the material in the text books.

     Experiments with Whole Language reading, Ebonics, Sight Reading, and other approaches that denigrate the existence and performance of “proper” English accomplish many goals – but cheat the student of respect for standards, and for ethics in communication. Remember – the speaker and writer are the only ones that can determine how well they will communicate with a reader or listener.

     What textbooks instruct as “true” and “information” changes from publisher to publisher, from year to year – and from administration to administration in the US Department of Education. Emphasis changes, different research is referenced, and different political agendas are prescribed or proscribed.

     I had to laugh this evening. While shopping in Wal-Mart in Ponca City, OK, I heard an announcement, “Mr. Potter, your vehicle is ready in in the automotive department.” With a definite, pronounced “aitch” sound, /VEE-hick-el/.

     Grace S., I think part of the ‘flat’ Midwest accent is due to the planning that went into development on the prairie. Compulsory education was being implemented at the same time homesteads were created and counties and territories were forming. Textbooks were common and consistent across the region. In other areas, there was too much tradition in education and especially in dialects before the imposition of compulsory education. The Midwest was too new, the traditions not as entrenched, and better expectations of “book learning” let the language of Daniel Webster replace other interpretations. The people in the Midwest were as smart as anywhere, but their *culture* was naive and malleable. I think. (I grew up in rural NW Iowa.) Then, too, the greatest part of the population of the Midwest lived on farms – and the school provided a greater degree of language stability through lack of competing social contact. So the “proper” English of the text books had a larger impact on unifying the language usage for the region. Many of the non-English speaking families relied on the school to define the dialect they learned.

111. Konraden on December 4, 2008 4:40 am

     I’m taking all this with a grain of salt. Most of the mispronunciations are just dialect and natural linguistic change. The only one I seriously have a problem with was “aks.” It just sounds ignorant.

112. ART on December 4, 2008 4:59 am

     English is not a phonetic language – it is not driven by the sounds that the alphabets produce consistently! Keeping that in mind, having ‘rules’ about how words should be pronounced as to not cause embarrassment is ridiculous!!

113. Noel Pautsky on December 4, 2008 5:21 am

     I hate it when people take it upon themselves to correct other peoples speech. Does obnoxious have three or four syllables?

114. Minimart on December 4, 2008 7:07 am

     entrepreneur– definitely should be added.

115. brad on December 4, 2008 8:25 am

     “35. niche – The word is from the French and, though many words of French origin have been anglicized in standard usage, this is one that cries out to retain a long “i” sound and a /SH/ sound for the che. Say /NEESH/, not /nitch/. ”

     Or how about when condescending blog posts focused on correct pronunciation don’t know what a long “i” sound is. Are you saying I should say it with the “i” pronounced like the word “eye”? /N-eye sh/? somehow that seems wrong.

     Perhaps you meant the long “e”, but then that relegates the preceding portion of that sentence into the realm of nonsense.

     I wonder if this comment will be deleted before or after you correct the error.

116. Nestor on December 4, 2008 10:11 am

     “aegis” isn’t exactly a household word…

117. Chris on December 4, 2008 10:37 am

     Just a comment to all those who believe jewellery is spelt jewelry.

     It is the product of the labours of a jeweller, thus jewellery.

     Just like stationers and stationery, confectioners and confectionery.

118. skeetgun on December 4, 2008 10:48 am

     I have lived in SW Indiana for the last twenty years and before that in central Illinois (NO noise)/St. Louis the other 29 years. The language issue I found most disturbing in this part of Indiana is the lazy use of words like mail, sale, retail, jail. They are pronounced as mayl, sayl, retayl and jayl folks, not mell, sell, retell, and jell. Also a biggie here is to drop the “l” in shoulder, holder, holding. In many cases here these words are pronounced showed-er, hoe-der, and hoe-ding. There is a 100 year old plus bank here called Old National Bank and I have heard this on their automated answering system. “Thanks for calling Owed National Bank, please continue hoe-ding while we redirect your call.” Drives me nuts. Don’t be LAZY.

119. Bill Fenstermaker on December 4, 2008 12:09 pm

     You missed “accurate,” often said as “accruate.”

     Of all the words to “pernounce” “percsicely.”

120. Brad K. on December 4, 2008 1:39 pm

     Skeetgun, I grew up in Iowa /EYE-oh-wa/, and lived a year in Des Moines /dee MOYN/. I have heard both mispronounced.

121. saphira on December 4, 2008 2:23 pm

     Brad K, I don’t know why you think I teach 4th grade, but I don’t. I agree that students need to learn to differentiate, but my ESL students don’t have the background to do that where pronunciation is concerned. (I also just noticed that this pronunciation entry is tagged as “spelling,” which makes me wonder if our author knows the difference.)

     brad 115: thank you for pointing out something I meant to include yesterday but forgot. The “pecan” issue really made me raise my eyebrows, as the “long” A sound, as in “ape,” obviously does not apply.

     As my mother also often said, you shouldn’t spout off your mouth if you don’t know what you’re talking about. She did not point out that doing so simply makes you look like an idiot and weakens your argument (and reputation) tremendously, but the author of this post might do well to consider those repercussions, as well as the level of her own expertise–real and perceived.

122. Calvin on December 5, 2008 1:42 am

     Don’t forget the notorious city in baja california commonly referred to as Tia Juana. It’s THREE syllables TEE-HWA-NA.

     Tijuana is a city… tia juana is my long lost mexican aunt

123. John on December 5, 2008 6:29 am

     The word ‘deteriorate’ is often pronounced ‘de-teer-e-ate’ by people who should know better. There are two r’s, people!

     And I know we’re discussing pronunciation, but if I hear one more person say ‘between five to ten’ instead of ‘from five to ten’ or ‘between five and ten’, I’ll scream.

     I’ve even heard someone say ‘between one and two people’. Does that mean one and a half people?

124. discontinuuity on December 5, 2008 8:49 am

     Of course it’s correct to say “anyways.” It’s just the plural of “anyway”!

     Seriously though, I agree with most of the comments that this it is a bit elitist. As we’ve discussed, even people who speak the “Queen’s English” don’t always pronounce every word as it is spelled. Regional variation is one of the things that make English such a rich and interesting language.

     One thing that does bother me is when people mispronounce loan words from other languages improperly, such as “espresso” or “Rio Grande.”

     Anyways, I never have discovered what the proper pronunciation of “realtor” is. I’ve always pronounced it “real it er” but I don’t know what is standard.

125. Nash on December 5, 2008 12:01 pm

     May I add some other words?

     - Lettuce : /`letIs/
     - Legal : /lee`gol/not /leg all/
     - Debt : dett
     - Gear : /gee/ not /jee/

     And many others. Anyway as an English teacher I encourage you to speak English spontaneously, freely and unconsciously. Conveying meaning is the most important thing in any communication. In daily and casual interactions don`t be too much obsessive with your pronunciation. Everybody apts to mistake even native speakers! Take your time…

126. Sam on December 5, 2008 6:56 pm

     I think Maeve makes it pretty clear that this is the American English ideal. Regional dialect is not incorrect in the context of the given region, but it also isn’t the prescribed Midland “accent-less” speech.

     The idea behind this post isn’t elitist, I don’t think. It’s worth knowing how the word ideally sounds; pronouncing it another way is not always wrong (/nuk-yoo-lur/ is incorrect, for example, but /bob wire/ comes from an accent, not a misunderstanding of the word), but quite frankly, language is massive part of how people perceive you–speaking “correctly” is almost a necessity if you’re in a prominent position within your field. Take a look at the reception of Bush’s /nuk-yoo-lur/, for example.

127. Erin on December 5, 2008 9:39 pm

     Chimney, not Chim-in-ney,

128. Mattress on December 5, 2008 9:42 pm

     Great, awesome tips here!! I really am going to start saying accessory (/AK-SESS-OR-Y/) the correct way for now on. I am a woman for crying out loud =D

129. Diana on December 5, 2008 10:03 pm

     I know people who say Drawring instead of Drawing

     Queue

     volatil /volaTYLE

     same with versatile

130. Chelsea on December 5, 2008 11:43 pm

     dais- two pronunciations accepted by Merriam Webster, one of which you discredited
     February- again, M-W says not saying the first r is acceptable.
     It is acceptable to pronounce the h in vehicle.
     Wintry can be spelled and pronounced wintery.
     Niche goes either way.
     Again with mischievous.

     Basically I think you need to recognize that YOUR way of saying it isn’t necessarily the only way. English is a tricky language, and you can’t just go by phonetics.

131. AvidR on December 6, 2008 12:13 am

     I’d like to point out that correct language use and pronounciation pertaining to a word clarifies the meaning of the word, and its etymological connection to other words. This applies in particular to those who learn English as a second, third, or fourth language. Could you imagine trying to learn a language, or understand someone speaking it, when each person pronounces the word how they feel it should be pronounced. For this reason, some standard is absolutely necessary; I can’t fathom how a language could evolve gracefully without upholding some semblance of proper pronounciation.

     As a student of the French language, I listen carefully to all native speakers for their pronounciation of words. While I understand and appreciate the differences between Québécois French and Parisian French, I’d like to think that I could trust one Quebecker’s pronouciation to be extremely similar to everyone else’s, if not identical. If not, I would shudder at my chances of ever being fluent in the language.

     I admit that different dialects are fun to hear. Personally, I love to listen to southerners speaking, simply BECAUSE of their tendency to softer consonants and harder vowels. The music of language is in the variations- the different words, dialects, and cultures through which people speak. This applies to Australians and Brits, in my opinion. The differences in pronounciation, and their native expressions, are what makes listening to them so enjoyable.

     However, there is a difference between accepted dialogue in a given region, which is perhaps different than another region, and pronounciation of a word as you see fit, simply because that it how you feel it should be pronouced.

     Speaking correctly does allude to a better education, whether or not this is fair. If you want to sound educated, you should learn to speak properly. It’s that simple.

     For all of the older generation who’ve written here in dismay of the apathy of youths’ pronounciation and grammar, perhaps this will cheer you up. I am a fourteen-year-old, in the public school system, who really and truly cares about pronouciation and grammar. Though our schools may not be igniting this spark in every student today, or even most students, the flame will not die out. There are, and likely always will be, those who care. I intend to instill in my children the love of language, not just their own, but all language, in all its complexity and variations.

     Wow, when I scrolled up I realized how long I’d allowed this to become. I hope that you will all forgive me.

132. kaylee on December 6, 2008 4:08 am

     this is cool but something that really gets me is recognize (rec og nize)

     some people say recanize(rec-a-nize)

133. Chuck on December 6, 2008 5:02 am

     I work with a hillbilly from Pennsylvania, and she always talks about..
     This is myan idea on the project and that is your’in idea.

     My mind immediately wonders to… I wonder how Myan Urine compares to My Your’n.

     It drives me a bit crazy.

134. nrb on December 6, 2008 5:36 am

     As a former English teacher (and a Kansan), I found many of the mistakes noted in the text and in the notes familiar (and annoying as ever). I admit to being a stickler and perhaps even a prig about language. Nonetheless, I find it endearing that my mother says “wash” as /warsh/ and that the city of Du Bois, Nebraska is pronounced /doo boys/. I guess how offensive a mistake or eccentricity is depends on the context.

135. Megan Clendaniel on December 6, 2008 5:46 am

     White people love correcting grammar. It’s pretty obnoxious. Isn’t there something else that you can devote your empty time with? Try not being a stereotype.

136. SRS on December 6, 2008 8:21 am

     Some of those spelling ones matter to me. Speaking depends on company and one ought to have enough finesse to speak well or speak colloquially.

137. .. on December 6, 2008 10:33 am

     I like misproducing cache. saying CASH makes me happy.

138. jake on December 6, 2008 12:59 pm

     Some have mentioned issues with considering a certain pronunciation correct and others incorrect. The link (on my name) has my short take on it, as a translation student.

139. Adam Steer, Better Is Better on December 6, 2008 7:13 pm

     You can’t imagine how happy I was to see the word niche included in your list. When I hear someone say “nitch,” it feels like nails being dragged down a chalkboard!

     And why do you Americans say zee instead of zed…?

     Cheers,
     Adam

140. Rodnei Reis on December 6, 2008 7:45 pm

     Thank you for the tips. I’m from Brazil and I’m learning English, so this is very helpful.

     To Megan Clendaniel: Are you kidding?

141. wisp on December 6, 2008 8:16 pm

     White people? Hahahaha! Who’s being a stereotype?

     I love correcting grammar. I’m a dark skinned guy from Argentina. Don’t waste your filled time posting bs.

     What i hate the most is the use of the word “then” instead of “than” in chatrooms and MMORPG.

     “Your not better then me!” >_<

142. bobrick on December 6, 2008 10:57 pm

     i’ve never actually heard anyone say most of these. perhaps the author simply associates with some dim people who can’t speak english. or perhaps americans.

143. Nim on December 7, 2008 12:47 am

     In the UK jewellery is spelt that way’ jewellery … as such it is correct to pronounce it with four syllables.

     Apart from that … you made me smile many times

144. Chris on December 7, 2008 1:32 am

     I would agree – many of these are annoying. One I find particularly annoying is “aks”. I have a coworker who simply is incapable of saying “ask” – and I’ve tried to get him to say it. “Nucular” is another that really bugs me. Oh yeah, and “kil-AW-mitter” vs “KIL-oh-mee-ter”.

     But I think some in your list are a bit nit picky. Like “offen” vs “often”. Also, “preventative” IS a valid word though “preventive” is more common.

     I wonder if Megan noticed the irony in her comment about stereotyping.

145. carouselle on December 7, 2008 2:17 am

     Get a life for pete’s sake!

146. Tina on December 7, 2008 2:49 am

     Quit being a baby.

147. corajudd on December 7, 2008 3:50 am

     I find that most well-read people have a vast vocabulary that they use correctly but have rarely heard spoken and simply guess at the pronunciation. Keep that in mind when judging a speaker ignorant. If that doesn’t help, viewing language as a living, evolving entity might.

148. Nuria on December 7, 2008 4:51 am

     I have one to add. It drives me crazy when people say “library” as “li-berry.”

149. Amanda on December 7, 2008 4:56 am

     I have to disagree with #6 and the various responses to it. While “aks” may not be correct for Standard American English, it is acceptable in African-American Vernacular English (more commonly known, unfortunately, as Ebonics). It does not bely a lack of education or refinement– it is part of an accepted dialect of the English language. I would suggest an addendum to #6 that explains the difference, and maybe even leads the reader to some source of information about AAVE. The more you know…

150. Bill Vincent on December 7, 2008 4:59 am

     Thank you for this. Over the last 15 years or so, I’ve watched the average American’s grasp of their own language go to hell in the proverbial hand basket. Even major publications like the New York Times is sending out articles with 3rd grade level spelling and grammar errors, and many people seem to think this de-evolution is acceptable, and should even be embraced as “normal”.
     The ability to communicate in a clear and concise manner is the single most important facet of modern civilization, and the fact that people defend the slaughtering of language and refer to people that try to fix errors with derogatory terms like “grammar Nazi” disturbs me to the core. If I hear one more person say “woof” when they mean “wolf” I’m going to freak the hell out.

151. DrS on December 7, 2008 5:04 am

     I find it ironic that your first sentence talks about how you accept alternate pronunciations of words; however you still go ahead and ramble off this condescending list. How do you think words took on alternate pronunciations, popular usage. Love or hate it, it happens. Grammar and language are not confined to set rules, they change all the time. Deal with it.

152. Shoni on December 7, 2008 5:16 am

     No one mentioned converse/conversate?

153. John on December 7, 2008 5:59 am

     OK after reading your intro I was all ready to be a good little linguist and say that there’s no such thing as “correct” pronunciation, only standard pronunciation, and that the standards can change depending on where you live and who you talk to (which is how dialects appear in the first place). But after reading a few of the examples… people actually *say* these things? Not being American I’m exposed to a whole different spectrum of errors than you, and some of these ones blow my mind. I mean, “tchaos”, seriously?

     PS I love reading these kinds of articles’ comments board just for all the self styled pedants (or “peddan’ts”, thank you Eric) making stupid mistakes regardless.

     PPS Megan^ is a dick, I’d rather be a stereotype than come up with the damn things.

154. Jim on December 7, 2008 6:32 am

     What about the question words like when, what, where, and why?

     I remember I had an English teacher in elementary school who always used to pronounced an the H sound before the words.

155. CJ on December 7, 2008 6:41 am

     While I do understand the frustration of mispronunciation (I cringe when I hear aks instead of ask), I can only describe much of this list as pretentious.
     Before anyone starts ripping on other people’s pronunciation, he or she should take into consideration accents (the reason why I never actually say anything about those irritating pronunciations) and, oh yeah, dipthongs. Medieval, eh?
     And while, yes, you did have some fair points on additions/deletion of syllables, I really don’t know how to take “to pronounce [the h in vehicle] is to sound hicky” as pretentious and ridiculous since “hicky” isn’t even a word.

     Regarding the last comment about “white people,” who the hell do you think you are? I would LOVE for you to tell me what race I am. Oh, wait. You would have no idea sitting at your computer feeling all offended that there are people who value the ability communicate well.
     Everyone has his or her pet peeves and I bet you vocalize yours every chance you get (maybe one being white people correcting grammar?).

156. Azri on December 7, 2008 6:43 am

     “tempe*r*ature,” not “tempitchur”

157. susie on December 7, 2008 6:47 am

     i have a co-worker who misuses words on purpose, she thinks its cute! UGHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
     i hate her

158. Frosty on December 7, 2008 7:32 am

     @ Megan

     You devote time TO something, not with.

159. amy on December 7, 2008 8:51 am

     being austrailan i know it may be somewhat hypocritical of me to comment on this subject but a lot of the corrections in the other comments here seem to be people complaining about accents, at least as far as vowel pronunciation is concerned, most of the time this is something i make allowances for when i hear other people say things wrong, my problem is people who continue to mispronounce words specific to a locality when they have heard the correct form, amongst other aussies things like ‘nasi goreng’ indonesian for fried rice, its a phonetic language that doesn’t have a hard s sound, i have a similar problem with americans using a soft s to pronounce ‘aussie’ in australian slang ‘ss’ is always ‘z’, no australians say it otherwise so i don’t know how this variation has occurred. other pet peeves have to be antarctica is said how its spelled, people who drop the first t always make me cringe, another common error is people saying pronounciation instead of pronunciation, and the phrase “i could care less” to mean i don’t care, it’s “coudn’t” or it doesn’t make sense. anyway, i’m going to have to take your word for it on those mispronunciations mentioned, because i’ve never heard most of them, i suppose americans make different mistakes, but thanks for an interesting read

160. Charles on December 7, 2008 8:58 am

     I would HAVE to add:

     Government which has an “n” there in the middle and should be pronounced Gov-ern-ment not gover-ment.

     Vegetable which should be Veg-et-able not veg-table

     And Probably which should be pro-ba-bly not pro-bly
     (interesting side note to that one. My sister, when she was young, wrote the word “proi” on a school paper. When questioned about the word it was discovered that it was the word “probably” but she wrote it as she said it (prah-ee.) Hooked on phonics definitely would not have worked for her)

     I’m proud to say that I scored 48 out of 51 from the list. And Sherbet I actually thought was spelled with an “r” as I seldom order or eat the stuff I had just taken the common pronunciation for granted. I’ll have to start getting myself some extra funky looks for pronouncing it correctly now. I already get them for such things as Aluminium, Comfortable, February, Government, Vegetable, etc.

161. amy on December 7, 2008 9:01 am

     megan which is worse: playing to a stereo type or making certain assumptions despite the knowledge that what they are based on is in fact a stereo type, even by your own admission?

162. Charles on December 7, 2008 9:05 am

     I just HAD to write this, whether it gets approved or not.

     To Megan (comment number 135):

     It’s not that those who are correcting grammar are stereotyping their ethnicity but rather their intellectual stature. It’s not that we are white, we’re SMART. I know a LOT of “White” people who desperately and repeatedly need their grammar corrected. I also know of a number of “Black” and “Yellow” people who are first to speak up when such corrections are needed.

     Those of advanced intellect are not constrained to a single ethnic background or geographical origin any more than those of substandard comprehension are.

163. John on December 7, 2008 9:09 am

     As an Australian I am very surprised by the similarities in pronuounciation. Almost every (the exceptions being heinous: HEE-NUS and often: OFFEN) word is described as how Australians are taught to speak. From reading the postings I think pronunciation is (should be) ruffly the same everywhere; it is the accent that differs.

164. Beth Barton on December 7, 2008 9:47 am

     May I congratulate AvidR for a very well written opinion.
     I have thoroughly enjoyed reading the previous 136 entries and even though I am a 67 year old Australian, I managed to get the gist of what everyone had to offer as their opinion or suggestion.
     I have always been a stickler for pronunciation and correct grammar and I would say that it all boils down to what we were taught.
     I do feel that TV writers have a lot to answer for also, as they want to be perceived as being current but do not realise that they are projecting bad influences to young people.

165. Robert on December 7, 2008 9:52 am

     “Arctic” was actually borrowed into English from the Latin word “articus” (note the lack of a ‘c’ before the ‘t’). The Latin word, however, comes from the Greek word “arktikos”. At some point, the powers that be decided to add a silent ‘c’ to the spelling to be more etymologically accurate. Following the change, people spent decades complaining (such as you are here) about all those stupid people pronouncing the silent ‘c’. In fact, /ah-tick/ is the only pronunciation the OED gives for this word (that being the british “r-less” pronunciation)

     I tend to be a descriptivist, and feel that, linguistically speaking, it’s pointless to enforce all these little rules that people feel are so important. From a stylistic point of view, yes, there are things that sound better than others, there are pronunciations that sound “uneducated”, and there probably is some value in people knowing what the “correct” way to say something is. What I get really annoyed with is people claiming that all the mispronunciations and slips in grammar are indicative of an overall decline in language, and pretty soon we will be reduced to gibberish. This is simply not held up by the evidence. People have been saying the same thing for 1000 years or more, and language changes, but it never degrades.

     Sorry for the length of the comment

166. mike on December 7, 2008 10:22 am

     niche is pronounced nitch accept it, check proper dictionaries

167. Gabrielle on December 7, 2008 11:02 am

     ARCHIPELAGO:
     In my dictionary it states that the English word was influenced in the 16th century by the Italian word ARCIPELAGO (which is definitely pronounced “AR-CHI-PE-LA GO” CH as in CHANGE). It does however also state that the correct pronunciation is with a K sound and not a CH sound.

     The origin may be Greek but in my opinion they should both be accepted. It just sounds so strange to say it with a K, maybe it’s because I live in Italy and I hear it so often with a CH sound.

168. not-chad on December 7, 2008 11:46 am

     Jared Stein: That’s very democratic of you. It’s very PC and nice of you to say let’s let’s all hold hands and love each other, maaan. However, some people – you know, the ones who bothered to go to school to try to communicate effectively – actually do lose respect for those who can’t be bothered to speak correctly. Sure, people will do what they want to do, but that doesn’t make it right. For example, George Bush, who is widely-perceived to be an idiot, was voted into office. Twice. Change is natural, but it’s not always for the better.

169. Asher on December 7, 2008 12:05 pm

     If everybody spoke in the same way, nobody would have anything to say.

     Embrace the quirks of your language and enjoy when people speak differently from you. Language is dynamic, it doesn’t exist in a dictionary or prescriptive grammar.

     All the same, I wince at a couple of these =P

170. Mel on December 7, 2008 12:16 pm

     I stopped reading this when I got to “February”. It’s widely accepted that the first “r” is silent. As with most English words, the spelling doesn’t necessarily tell you how the word is pronounced.

     And “pecan”? Well – sorry if this annoys you, but no Brit is going to say pe-caaayn. We have different accents. You sound strange to us too, but we’re generally quite polite about it.

171. Nazreel on December 7, 2008 12:17 pm

     Robert V come to Scotland. We don’t use intrusive rs here. We also know how to pronounce “ch” properly. Loch not lock!

172. Doug Rosburyh on December 7, 2008 2:41 pm

     Please include (comfortable) in your list. This needs urgent attention.
     Thanks——-Doug Rosbury

173. Shan on December 7, 2008 4:06 pm

     Another one to point out – Merriam Webster accepts “sherbert” as an alternative spelling to “sherbet.” Which is honestly the only way I have ever seen it. Thus, that pronunciation could be considered as correct.

     The way in which words are pronounced does change over time. Without that trend, a language becomes dead. Is that not what happened to Latin? It was in use for a millennium after the fall of Rome, but Renaissance humanists made the decision to standardize and perfect the language. From that point on, it became unchanging. Certainly, English is not a dead language. Pronunciation-elitists may just have to accept that.

174. Will on December 7, 2008 4:26 pm

     The ‘H’ at the start of the words herb is not silent. Honest. It’s a herb, not an erb. Similarly, Bernard is pronounced bUrn-ud, not bur-nArd (I used capitals to show emphasis). American culture has a habit of pronouncing these words in a slight French accent, which is weird. Granted, the words may be of French origin, but many many English words originate from other languaegs, and we rarely overpronounce them in these accents.

175. Rooty on December 7, 2008 5:22 pm

     19. February – Just about everyone I know drops the first r in February. The spelling calls for /FEB-ROO-AR-Y/, not /feb-u-ar-y/.

     -I pronounce this Feb-ro-ee and I’m not going to change.

     24. heinous – People unfamiliar with the TV show Law and Order: S.V.U. may not know that heinous has two syllables. (The show begins with this sentence: “In the criminal justice system, sexually based offenses are considered especially heinous.”) Say /HAY-NUS/, not /heen-i-us/.

     -Heen-us.

     30. jewelry – The word has three syllables. Say /JEW-EL-RY/, not /jew-el-er-y/. The pronunciation /jew-ry/ is common but not correct, as it removes one syllable from the word.

     -Jool-ry.

     31. library – Notice where the R comes in the word. Say /LI-BRAR-Y/, not /li-ber-ry/.

     -Lib-ry.

     33. miniature – The word has four syllables. Say /MIN-I-A-TURE/, not /min-a-ture/.

     -I say min-a-ture. I don’t care.

     46. sherbet – The word has only one r in it. Say /SHER-BET/ not /sher-bert/.

     -A standard British variation is sher-bert.

     48. ticklish – The word has two syllables. Say /TIK-LISH/, not /tik-i-lish/.

     -I say tick-i-lish. Always have, always will.

     50. vehicle – Although there is an H in the word, to pronounce it is to sound hicky. Say /VEE-IKL/, not /vee-Hikl/.

     -I sometimes say ve-hikl for comedy purposes. Many British people do.

     So, to conclude, no. All the ones I highlighted above are standard British variations on English words. And guess what? Britain is where English comes from.

176. Rooty on December 7, 2008 5:43 pm

     Also, can Americans PLEASE stop calling British people “Brits”. If you must, call us “Britons”. “Brit” is an awful word.

177. Ryan on December 7, 2008 5:55 pm

     Prescriptivism for the lolz. Some of these are legitimate complaints, but “vehicle” has a slight h sound. Also, considering how demanding and precise you’re being about how things are pronounced, it escapes me why you wouldn’t want to use something a little more nuanced with your transcriptions of the “proper” way to say words like hierarchy or daïs (for instance IPA or X-SAMPA), especially when the same combination of letters represents two very different sounds (ay represents /æɪ/ in daïs but /eɪ/ in heinous). Also, “foliage” has 2 syllables, no one I know gives the i a full beat. It’s slurred into a diphthong and/or palatalizes the l preceding it.

178. a humble linguist on December 7, 2008 6:02 pm

     Clearly who ever wrote this is not a linguist and is not aware of acceptable dialectal differences. Just because it may not be the IPA pronunciation given in the dictionary doesn’t mean it’s wrong. If that were the case, everything said by Americans would be wrong because we don’t speak with RP, which I would assume would be the prescriptivist norm in terms of English Phonology.

179. Nobody on December 7, 2008 6:22 pm

     Dear Xander,
     Guess I’m nobody. My lips make the “w” in jewels.

180. Kendra on December 7, 2008 6:33 pm

     All of this stuff does really bother me for whatever reason, though I admit I’ve always said KASH-AY instead of KASH.

     It really bugs me when people say “crown” instead of “CRAY-on.”

181. jezebel on December 7, 2008 6:53 pm

     wow… an instruction manual on punctuation! pompous twat.

182. James on December 7, 2008 6:53 pm

     AAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!! Bloody yanks!! No one says mini-a-ture!!! How dare you American idiots tell people how to pronounce English words properly!! Your accents and pronunciations are a mish-mash of other countries and cultures! I hate the American pronunciation. It’s a pox upon this Earth. What a waste of time this website is. You make me sick.

     Thanks,

     James

183. The Dude on December 7, 2008 7:45 pm

     Lemme aks you sompn! Why do people talk? I think that it is to convey a message and hope that message is received and understood, maybe even also felt by the receiver. So if you understand the message being delivered why do some pretentious bastards insist on correcting it? It seems like it would be pretty dull if every English speaker in the world had the same accent, dialect, vernacular, etc. Language is not stagnant, it is a constantly evolving and changing thing, building upon itself through itself and it’s users. My advise is to learn to enjoy the funny quirks of language that annoy some of you so much.

184. Bill Vincent on December 7, 2008 8:21 pm

     Jim: I’ve also known many people who pronounced “wh” with an audible “h” preceding it. Simply put, it’s a regional mispronunciation. As is the case with a great many things, the fact that many people believe something to be true or correct, this does not MAKE it true or correct.
     200 years ago most everyone thought the earth was flat. Their assurance didn’t flatten the earth. It stayed roundish regardless.

185. captaincrank on December 7, 2008 8:37 pm

     I disagree with your pronunciation of “et cetera”. I know the t in “et” is not pronounced, but others might not. So, when you’re telling people to pronounce it correctly, I think you should spell it “AY CETERA” or something like that.

186. legbamel on December 7, 2008 8:53 pm

     If Realtor has three syllables, then does real, as in real estate, have two? I agree that real-uh-tor is incorrect, but reel-tor is the proper pronunciation of the word in question.

187. mohan on December 7, 2008 9:02 pm

     I think there is lot more words than this we are,still pronouncing them wrong.I have seen many people pronouncing even the common words,wrong

188. Pauline Waggoner on December 7, 2008 9:27 pm

     I often hear and read the word “tack” misused, as in “they’re going to take a different tack.” The word tack relates to the direction one turns in sailing. I often see it written or hear it spoken as “tact.”

189. Luke on December 7, 2008 9:52 pm

     It seems that all of you have forgotten why humans have language: to communicate. It really doesn’t matter HOW something is pronounced as long as it’s understood by the listener and speaker.The entire notion of grammatical and vocalic “correctness” is really a redundant one.

     Given the divergence of English into different dialects which will probably end up eventually as different languages its a little unfair for everyone to speak the same way. For example most of the American dialects are rhotic (for non-linguists: they pronounce post-vocalic r’s e.g. /robeRt/ or /loRd/) and Commonwealth English is non-rhotic (we’d say something more like /lod/ or /robet/

     I’m sick to death of my fellow Kiwis feeling like hicks because they feel they don’t speak proper English.Dialectation is a valid part of linguistic evolution: DEAL WITH IT!!!

190. Sadie on December 7, 2008 9:57 pm

     The writer of this article has clearly never studied any form of language study. Sure, some of the words mentioned are frequently pronounced incorrectly and there are definitely some mispronounced words that drive me up the wall (my mother says fustrated, libary, and resterount) but fact of the matter is different areas have different ways of pronouncing different words. Have you ever heard of an accent? The complaint of the word “halloween” was the one of the worst on the list, in my opinion. It’s like saying “aunt” is pronounced ant. Sure, it’s pronounced “ant” in certain regions but many people say “awnt” it just depends on where you are from.

     This article is calling all sorts of people ignorant, but fact of the matter is the writer of this article is extremely ignorant and elitist. Get over yourself. There are many ways to say many words. The beauty of the English language (any language for that matter) is that it changes and has many different colours. We adopt words from different languages and adapt them to our accents and speech patterns. That’s the way language works!

     Also, to the person who commented on espresso vs expresso. This word also bothers me, and I was insistent on espresso being right, but I live in a predominantly French speaking Province and many people here say expresso, the Italians included. It’s spelled expresso sometimes too.

     Also, think about this. My mom calls gas “gaz” this is due to the fact that although she is an Anglophone, she grew up in Quebec. In Quebecois gas is “gaz” so she was clearly influenced by her surroundings. Most Anglos who grew up in Quebec will say gaz. They also say “close the lights” which sounds pretty strange until you notice that the French way to ask to turn out the lights is the direct translation.

     I guess what I’m saying is that proper pronunciation isn’t so black and white. There is almost no such thing as the right way and the wrong way to say thing. If you disagree you should check into some sociolinguistic studies. Some great sociolinguists include: Labov (can’t remember his first name) and Charles Boberg.
     Please educate yourselves about linguistics before you decide what’s “right” and “wrong” in language. What makes you the authority anyway?

191. Dylan on December 7, 2008 10:37 pm

     I really don’t like the presumption there’s an absolutely correct way to pronounce. As anyone who’s listened to older movies and radio shows will realise, even ‘correct’ pronunciations differ. Those objecting to difference are being, at best, Canute-esque.

     Fortunately, the article defeats itself with its numerous errors, as many have pointed out. Here’s another…

     Only three sounds for CH in English, huh (see chaos)? That forces you to mispronounce words like LOCH, which use a fourth. It’s not spelt LOCK because it’s not pronounced LOCK; it’s correctly pronounced using the CH very similar to the Flemish (not Dutch) CH.

192. Rogier on December 7, 2008 10:46 pm

     How about Aluminum (A-LU-MI-NUM) apposed to Aluminium (A-LU-MI-NI-UM)? Many Americans pronounce this word incorrect. But then again, perhaps the metal is just called that way in the USA.

193. Stephanie on December 7, 2008 11:16 pm

     Working in a Starbucks for the last 2 years has given me some insight into how many people just simply cannot read.

     Its not so much the incorrect way people say drink names as much as it is when people add an “x” to Espresso. Even my co-workers do it.

     Its not eXpresso, its eSpresso.

     That’s it for me…

194. rusty shackleford on December 7, 2008 11:23 pm

     This really bothers you that much? Most people don’t mispronounce most of these words anyways….

     You don’t seem like a fun person to hangout with.

195. Fish on December 7, 2008 11:41 pm

     On nuclear:

     http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nucular

     read it before you make any comments about the origins of the word defining the pronunciation of it.

196. Jenny on December 8, 2008 12:00 am

     When I started reading this, I was like, okay, yeah, I agree with a lot of this… then you started tearing into dialect.

197. Elodie on December 8, 2008 12:36 am

     Realtor has two syllables. REAL – tor. (REEL-tor)

198. Fink on December 8, 2008 1:20 am

     Jim,

     Your teacher was probably using a voiceless labiovelar approximant in her pronunciation of these words [ʍ], not an [hw]. If she was Scottish or from the South, this would be genuine. Otherwise, she was likely hypercorrecting a bit.

     Most dialects don’t have [ʍ] in words like when, what, and why (or whip or whale or wheat), and [w] is the sound used in its place. So however your peers talk…that’s ‘correct’.

199. Merrick on December 8, 2008 2:17 am

     dialects are what make this world unique. sure it might not be ‘proper’ english but dialects what bring diversity to this world.

     cheers

200. Paul on December 8, 2008 2:18 am

     Hloy crap! Get a grip! I bet you get so hung up on how people talk that you don’t even hear what they say.

201. Passenger on December 8, 2008 2:56 am

     I was just stumbling bye… I thought I would correct you, by telling you about “ask”. You are complaining about how people pronounce ask. However, “aks” was the latin word, and pronunciation. So, when your telling everyone not to say it that way… Your the mistaken one…

202. dania on December 8, 2008 3:34 am

     I hate it when people say “car-mull” for caramel. I live in Quebec and grew up speaking english and french and I know for a fact that caramel has three syllables due to its etymology. Cah-rah-mell.

     Dialects only come into play when there’s a different accent, not when the word sounds completely different (i.e., has a different number of syllables or different letters), imho. Route is a good example. I say it like roof but my dad says it like rowt. Both are legitimate. Saying that “axe” for “ask” is dialect is just allowing sloppy pronunciation. Though I must say there’s a weird phenomenon here: people say “left-tenant” for lieutenant. I find that really odd.

     Also I hate it when people say supposably. AGH! suppoSEDly, dammit.

203. Kelli on December 8, 2008 3:54 am

     Well I am definitely one of those people who says February without the R because I think it sounds kind of silly with it, but other than that I totally agree with all of these. I’d also add Wednesday to the list. I also hate when people put H’s in front of words, like Hwhip, or Hwhere, that drives me nuts along with the whole aks thing. I also find that people sometimes say the word soldier as shouldier….

204. Kelli on December 8, 2008 3:55 am

     Also the error of saying Ongion instead of onion.

205. Spicky on December 8, 2008 5:02 am

     I think it’s fine to say Feb-u-ar-y. After all, we don’t say Wed-nes-day

206. James on December 8, 2008 6:07 am

     Some of these pronouncaitions will make you sound like an ass, not to mention that some of them are incorrect, for example the word preventative does exist and is more generally used than preventive (preventive is applied mainly to abstract ideas, while preventative refers to real life situations)

207. John Hawklyn on December 8, 2008 7:12 am

     ‘interesting’ – contains a pair of T’s – yet I’ll hear folks comment that an item is ‘inneresting’ …

208. mere on December 8, 2008 7:59 am

     It drives me crazy when people pronounce the “re” on the end of “macabre” – it’s muh-COBB, NOT muh-cobb-ruh!!!

209. ucchie~ on December 8, 2008 8:08 am

     First of all, WTF. If you think people are mispronouncing words now, wait till you go to the UK, or any other English speaking country for that matter (besides the US, obviously). You’ll cringe to your death.

     The fact of the matter is, this is a dialectal situation at best, and English teachers should have little to say about it. This is something we should leave in the hands of English language linguists. And even they don’t discriminate when it comes to how people speak English because they understand that no country owns the English language at the moment.

     Anyways, if English is to even exist hereon out, we need to be accepting of dialects and all these innovative ways of how people say things. Otherwise, be it too rigid it’ll die out (just like any civilization).

     I’m not saying we should allow English to be “pidginized” or anything, I’m just saying that, as far as spoken English goes, we should be accepting of the different varieties it comes in.

     BTW, “ad-” suffixed words like…say adventure, never used to have the “d” in them. It was added sometime before modern English (I think). I would say its all thanks to those incompetent lazy mouthed nimwits of back in the day who would’ve probably favored “assessory” to “akcessory”. But its whatevs.

210. ucchie~ on December 8, 2008 8:17 am

     I meant “prefixed”. I know what I’m talking about, I promise. Hehe.

211. Ali on December 8, 2008 8:23 am

     Gosh some of the people commenting – Americans, typical (including the writer of this article) – thinking you’re all right about everything! There is such a thing as British English and Australian English, with different spelling and pronunciation of different words

     Last time I checked, the English language originated from Britain. I don’t think it’s fair to say what is the right pronunciation of certain words when it’s so different in each country

212. PurpleCar on December 8, 2008 3:32 pm

     The Etymology of “Ask” according to Merriam Webster: http://unabridged.merriam-webs.....=0&y=0 (subscription only)

     Etymology: Middle English asken, axen, from Old English amacrscian, amacrcsian to ask, demand; akin to Old Frisian amacrskia to demand, Old Saxon emacronscon, Old High German eiscomacrn to ask, Latin aeruscare to beg, Greek himeros longing, Sanskrit icchati he seeks, desires

     Middle English had the ‘axe’ sound. The Latin aeruscare would have been pronounced air-oooo-SCAR-ay, with the ‘are’ at the end being the part that conjugated (changed with different tense and person).

     I’ve also heard from some linguists that african languages never have an ‘sk’ sound together. The pronunciation rules dictate that the k would always come first and the s to follow. If this is true, then it makes sense why the ‘axe’ pronunciation would stick. 200 years is but a blip in time when it comes to cultural habits.

213. Maple on December 8, 2008 4:09 pm

     I don’t want to get into the debate of what’s “proper” and what is not. I’m just happy to have a place where I can share my pet peeve word – exit.

     My experience is that most people say “egg-zit”, which is like nails on a blackboard to my ears. Personally I prefer “ex-sit”, but I don’t generally say anything about it because it no one really cares!

     Thanks for letting me vent though!

214. Matt on December 8, 2008 4:45 pm

     I like it, but I need to know is the word coupon koo-pon, or que-pon?
     thanks

215. Ryan on December 8, 2008 4:51 pm

     Dania, “aks” is a feature of African-American Vernacular English. It has its own standard grammatical and phonological rules, and to dismiss it as “sloppy pronunciation” is really quite stupid. In the context of this discussion it indicates to me that you’re not a terribly valuable contributor.

216. Brandon on December 8, 2008 5:25 pm

     Brad K., that would work, but any good dictionary will note whether the usage of a word is Standard or Nonstandard. I didn’t add the pronunciation for ‘athlete’, for instance, even though [ath-uh-leet] is listed. It’s nonstandard. Along with ‘ain’t.’

217. Curtis on December 8, 2008 6:14 pm

     Also, some medical terms are frequently mispronounced.

     First, the word “barbiturate” is pronounced /bar-BIT-choo-rate/, not /bar-BIT-choo-ate/

     And, “ophthalmologist” is said /off-thuhl-mo-la-jist/, not /op-tha-mo-la-jist/

     An “infarction” is not the same as an “infraction” either.

218. Curtis on December 8, 2008 6:18 pm

     ucchie~, what do you mean no country owns English at the moment? I suppose no country owns German either?

     The language started in England, and it’s pronunciations are still considered correct. And spellings mind you – “colour” not “color”, “neighbour”, not “neighbor”, and “doughnut”, not “donut” … lazy americans…

219. Texas Butterfly on December 8, 2008 7:27 pm

     I’m surprised not to see “similar” (mispronounced as “sim-U-lar”)

     BTW, I’m an African-American born in Chicago but living in Texas. I pronounce the “r” in February, the “w” in “jewel” though I do so softly in both cases. Also, I DETEST the pronunciations “aks” and “conversate.” As for the regional dialect consideration: there is a difference between regional nuances and outright mispronunciations.

     Thanks.

220. Rachel on December 8, 2008 7:35 pm

     @Covarr:
     Actually, you’re the one that has it wrong. It is a noun and an adjective, but NOT a verb. “Clichéd” is not a verb. In your sentence, “X is clichéd,” the verb is “is” not “clichéd.”

221. Charles on December 8, 2008 8:17 pm

     I have seen in several of the recent posts that people are claiming that language is used to convey an idea or feeling and as long as the person receiving the message understands it that it doesn’t matter how the words are pronounced. I have to agree that as long as the person hearing you understands you that the purpose of language is achieved. However, being understood does rely strongly on being understandable.

     I hear the word any pronounced inny and I hear the word our pronounced “are” rather than “hour”. I’ll grant you that in MOST context the meaning of these words can be derived but there is a vast difference between the meanings of “our | hour” and “are”. Another set that is not always as easy to distinguish through context is the “pen”, “pin” set.

     Along similar lines are the contractions that I have seen expanded on the internet. Those that bother me the most are the contractions Could’ve and Should’ve which people don’t even REALIZE are contractions. They write them as “could of” and “should of” because their meaning is not being received correctly.

     It is of vital importance that we learn to communicate properly and uniformly or there is the real chance that our messages and intentions will not be clearly received and understood.

222. Mr. Man on December 8, 2008 9:41 pm

     The one I love to hate: pro-cess-ēz

     “a bungled affectation”

     A nice quote from http://www.answers.com/topic/process

     “In recent years there has been a tendency to pronounce the plural ending –es of processes as (-ēz), perhaps by analogy with words of Greek origin such as analysis and neurosis. But process is not of Greek origin, and there is no etymological justification for this pronunciation of its plural. However, because this pronunciation is not uncommon even in educated speech, it is generally considered an acceptable variant, although it still strikes some listeners as a bungled affectation. In a recent survey 79 percent of the Usage Panel preferred the standard pronunciation (-ĭz) for the plural ending –es and 15 percent preferred the pronunciation (-ēz).”

     Warning: Sample contains 15% Pompous Ass.

223. Harv on December 8, 2008 9:51 pm

     Wow. OK.

     First, I just have to say I am English. This may explain or excuse a lot of the pedantry which follows. I hope…

     Jewellery – it’s what you get from a Jeweller.
     Stationery – from a Stationer.
     Cutlery (US silverware?) – from a Cutler.

     So, yes, it does have 4 syllables, but they’ve been allowed to run together over time.

     The “et” in “Et cetera” is LATIN. It’s the same as in “et al”, or, “Et tu, Brute?” There’s an audible “t” at the end. It’s NOT French – “Moet et Chandon” is properly pronounced “ay”.

     On a related note, the superbug that’s been so popular over here recently “Clostridium difficile” is NOT French – it’s Latin too! So “Di-ffi-chi-lay”, not “Di-fi-seal”.

     Oh, and a personal bugbear of mine – Noah Webster MADE STUFF UP! Completely. Out of whole cloth, as the saying goes.
     He deliberately altered the English language to his own taste, and dropped vital clues to the origin and usage of words in the process. It’s his fault that AluminIum lost its second I. The incorrect pronunciation followed logically from the incorrect spelling.

     And I agree that the form Aks is an older, re-discovered usage. However, I doubt very much that it was introduced by a scholar of Middle English. Two wrongs just happened to make a right, that’s all.

224. ucchie~ on December 9, 2008 1:35 am

     @Curtis. Maybe I should have said English is on the verge of becoming a lingua franca..? Hmm like if you put a Dutchman, a Nigerian, and a Japanese in one room, what language are they gonna converse in? English, right?…only because English has become such a global language. Like if you were to go to Oruwhorun, Nigeria or Tokyo, Japan, you’ll see street advertisements (advert-is-ment or adver-tyz-ment, your pick, ), road signs, billboards, etc all in English. Sometimes English is even mandated as part of their education by their government.

     Basically, the use of English is promoted everywhere. I’m sure they have to stick to the rules established by the UK, and sometimes the US, of proper usage of the English language, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they didn’t or couldn’t follow some of them as far as pronunciation is concerned. They in a sense will develop a dialect different from what we have now and who knows, it might affect our own dialect someday or maybe it is now.

     Anyways, had this been an argument on written English I would have taken sides with the author, but its one on spoken English and I simply must beg to differ. Your dialect defines who you are and where you’re from, if you can’t take pride in that, then I don’t know what is or isn’t wrong.

     Besides, we can’t all be robots, geeze…

225. Deanna on December 9, 2008 1:37 am

     Hey One Night Stanzas – You Brits are good with your punctuation, or your pronunciation?

226. Ian on December 9, 2008 6:16 am

     Espresso:
     The word has an S not an X its ess-press-o not ex-press-o

227. a.d. on December 9, 2008 7:06 am

     Bill Vincent said:
     “Thank you for this. Over the last 15 years or so, I’ve watched the average American’s grasp of their own language go to hell in the proverbial hand basket. Even major publications like the New York Times is sending out articles with 3rd grade level spelling and grammar errors, and many people seem to think this de-evolution is acceptable, and should even be embraced as “normal”.
     The ability to communicate in a clear and concise manner is the single most important facet of modern civilization, and the fact that people defend the slaughtering of language and refer to people that try to fix errors with derogatory terms like “grammar Nazi” disturbs me to the core…”

     Beautifully said!

     P.S. Which is correct: Heart-rending or heart-rendering? I thought it was ‘rendering’ but lately I’ve seen ‘rending’.

228. ailaG on December 9, 2008 10:48 am

     See, that’s the nice thing about using a phonetic (?) language like Hebrew.
     (I speak Hebrew as my first language)

     We have consonants and we have vowels. We don’t usually write most of the vowels but we know what they are. And if a word is written with an “a”, you’ll pronounce an “a”. If it has a “u”, you’ll pronounce “oo”. And so on.

     (there are very few exceptions, I can only think of one atm)

     So, for example, in Hebrew “Halloween” would be written “Hlowin” without vowels, “Halowin” with, and the pronunciation is clear.
     Or, “Arkansas” would be written “Arknso”(normal) / “Arkenso”(full) and once again, the pronunciation is clear.
     The language doesn’t rely on diphtongs as much either, diphtongs are hard to write sometimes.

     Weird English speakers..

     Re: February, at least with my semi-accent (American-wannabe accent) that R would get me stuck on the word. “FebRRRRRRRR-y-u..huh?”
     With a rolling (?) R it’s easier though.

229. Jason on December 9, 2008 2:37 pm

     Drives me crazy when people add an “r” to “wash.” I finally broke a friend of saying “warsh,” by mocking her constantly.

230. Shauna on December 9, 2008 6:16 pm

     Just a question here: “50 Incorrect Pronunciations That you Should Avoid,” but WHEN do you avoid them?

     In business transactions? What if I’m only dealing with local persons who speak the same way I do?

     Medical terminology frequently is mispronounced by those not in the medical/health professions, and often by those who are. As a nurse, part of my job in communicating with patients and their families is to make sure they understand what I’m telling them. If they are not familiar with the words, they’re not going to follow directions very well. “Plain english, please.” I will still use some medical words, but I try to re-explain them.

     In the long run, does it really matter?

     As a reformed perfectionist, I’ve realized sometimes you just have to let it go. People are not going to change how they say something just because someone they view as a snot or a prig is correcting them.

231. spacedinosaur on December 9, 2008 6:45 pm

     There is a difference between correct pronunciation and speaking with a dialect. There is nothing wrong with speaking with a dialect but if you follow the rules of English pronunciation (as strange as some of those rules can sometimes be) there is a correct way to pronounce words.

232. SapphireMind on December 9, 2008 7:34 pm

     I feel the need to point out that some of these are grammar mistakes more than pronunciation mistakes. And some things you are mentioning are less mistakes, more regional dialect, as much as hate some dialects.

233. Pete on December 9, 2008 8:05 pm

     Interesting article (not inneresting, which I hear a lot and driver me crazy). Another one that makes me cringe is the phrase “whole nother thing” … umm, what’s a nother?

     Elitist or not, I don’t see what pronunciation has to do with writing? Are you suppose to spell out for your audience the proper way to read your writing?

234. Doug Rosburyh on December 9, 2008 10:02 pm

     To number 22 (jd) Get off (YOUR) high horse and watch your language
     I was never taught to use the “F” word in school and neither were you. At least that’s one word you can’t make a mistake pronouncing.
     ——Doug

235. Kitsune on December 9, 2008 10:21 pm

     One word that people pronounce wrong that really ticks me off, is Crayons.

     It has TWO syllables, not one. It’s pronounced “CRAY-ONS” not “CROWNS” or “CRANS”

     Also, washing. It has NO “r” in it. It’s pronounced “WASH-ING” not “WARSH-ING”

236. Sinéad on December 9, 2008 10:27 pm

     Sorry, but prevantative is also a word, not a mispronunciation. Also, again with the word “Sherbert”.
     Really, Americans steal a language and then decide they know how best to use it. I’m not from England, and my English is excellent but I’m not ignorant enough to close myself off to another person’s way of pronunciation, just because they’re from another part of the world. It sometimes annoys me that Americans say Aluminum while we says Aluminium, but I haven’t made a blog about it.
     This just shows the typical elitist attitude of the whole American population. Way to make your country look closed-minded. Well done.

237. ailaG on December 9, 2008 10:47 pm

     What is it with the F word? It seems that some Americans consider it worse than death. It’s a word describing a joyful process, in the end of which children may come into the world.

     The problem with the F word is its CONTEXT. If you call another person “a f***ing idiot” or “a friggin’ idiot” – both are violent. So why did I have to censor (so that I won’t offend anyone) only the first one, if both are equally bad?

     It seems that many people forgot just why they were told not to use the F-word. The sole combination of these 4 letters isn’t as satanic as some treat it.

238. ailaG on December 9, 2008 11:07 pm

     233 Pete: some of these changes come from pronunciation limits.

     Take an example from Hebrew – it’s my first language, and this example is taught in middle school in Israel.
     The word for “to run” is “la-rutz” and its 1st person past form is “ratz-ti”
     The word for “to die” is “la-mut” and its 1st person past form is.. supposed to be “mat-ti”, because it’s of a similar structure.
     Try saying “mat-ti” three times fast.

     So the word is “mati” (with an emphasis on the “t”) despite the fact that linguistic rules lead otherwise. “Mati” is the correct form. That’s because a language changes to accomodate the speakers.
     Some pronounce it “mateti”. Nobody says “mat-ti”.

     Try saying “Whole a-nother” three times fast. At least with my accent it sounds goofy and makes the phrase drag too much.
     So the language adapts.

     (this isn’t true in all cases. some mistakes are bad imho – those without a proper reason)

     “Are you suppose to spell out for your audience the proper way to read your writing?” – well, isn’t that why humankind started writing in the first place?

239. Bons on December 9, 2008 11:12 pm

     I’m a Canadian living in Scotland and for the first 6 months my colleagues thought I was simple! Turns out they were speaking English after all, it just took a bit of time for me to attune to the accents.

     My two pet peeves here are the words medium (mee-dee-um) which many pronounce as meejum and Houston which most pronounce as Hoo-ston not H-you-ston. Cringe, cringe, cringe!

240. Sadie on December 10, 2008 12:18 am

     “I know for a fact that caramel has three syllables due to its etymology. Cah-rah-mell.”

     You do not know for a fact that caramel is pronounced cah-rah-mell. Perhaps you say it this way, but that does not make it correct everywhere. I too live in Quebec and speak French and English. I also studied linguistics as my minor in university (in Quebec!) and I say “care-a-mel” Heck, I even make the damn stuff for a living (I’m a pastry chef) and although the pronunciation “carmel” irks me, I understand that my way is not the only/correct way to say a word, it’s how I say it due to the region and socio-economics that effect my dialect.

     Another example is bay-zil vs bah-zil. I’m guessing that the poster who posted about caramel says bah-zil b/c she’s a bilingual Quebecker. I say bay-zil, and find that bah-zil bugs, but guess what? Neither is right or wrong! Quebeckers likely say “bah-zil” b/c in French it’s called “bah-zil-ic” and the Anglos have adopted this pronunciation to their dialect.
     We all speak dialects of English. There is no such thing as wrong and right. Furthermore, dialects are constantly evolving. Someone up thread recommended watching old movies/television shows or listening to old radio shows to prove this FACT.

     I love that there people who actually know things about language posted here. I don’t claim to be a linguist–I’m not. I just took many classes in university many years ago. It really bothers me when people insist that their ways of speaking are “correct”. GET OVER YOURSELVES. Stop harassing your friends for speaking differently than you. Instead, embrace your differences! Learn from each other!

241. Ann Gowens on December 10, 2008 12:31 am

     That last comment, “suppose” should be “supposed”. Part of the problem right there!

242. Andrew on December 10, 2008 1:49 am

     What about foyer?
     Say FOY-YAY, not FOY-EHR!!!

243. Eliot on December 10, 2008 3:21 am

     My English teacher criticized the meter in a sonnet I wrote because she thought foliage was two syllable. A high school English teacher!

     The cavalry one really pisses me off, too. It’s not that hard to say! Calvary is a hill, not a soldier or horseback!

     A lot of common pronunciations (not proNOUNciations!) here in Texas really annoy me. I despise the words “ya’ll” and “ain’t”, too.

244. Nikki Negele on December 10, 2008 3:22 am

     I thoroughly enjoyed the list! Words, English words regardless of international or cultural differences in pronunciation have a proper pronunciation. I think with the exception of words such as offen verses often, as you say that can be attributed to their spelling, they should be pronounced correctly. Dropping or rearranging letters to make up speed is unacceptable and frankly it does sound quite hickish!

245. fozzie on December 10, 2008 3:51 am

     I stopped reading at the word “Hierarchy”, but i’m glad for your attempt. But yes, you do seem to be fixated on a pronunciation particular to the US East Coast. Are you trying to portray the mid-Atlantic accent, perhaps? (I’m deducing from your patterns of stressings and clippings).

     I’d rather read the list as written by the commenter “One Night Stanzas” becuase at least they would have had a legitimate education in the language. Goofy accent, but the English do know how they meant to use the words as written.

     And here let me hypothesize: The English language is fairly distinct in its use of the long vowels (the historic vowel shift). And what that did subtly transform the spoken language with an added layer of slightly more articulated sounds.

     But, as people have drifted in distance from the birthplace of the language, the same instinct has pushed certain speakers to draw out their vowels to the point of oddly alternate pronunciation. There’s a bland history paper in social spread and dialectic diversity in there.

     So i would recommend that if you were to attempt to write an article such as this, you should at least judge “proper” pronunciation on a criteria such as geographic prevalence of pronunciations, preferring (where possible) those which stick closer to earlier (yet post-vowel-shift). Of course, that pretty much dispenses with American pronunciation, and a great deal of Canadian pronunciation as well.

     Hmm. What is “proper”?

     And since someone will point it out, yes, i’m aware that my punctuation is “wrong”, but i’m obliged by work habit to use a British style guide, and follow their rules. Ironically enough, i will be lambasted for being “wrong” by most of the people who will read this article anyhow

246. Chiron613 on December 10, 2008 4:14 am

     The “correct” pronunciation is the way that people say it, regardless of how scholars or pedants might wish it were said.

     Language constantly changes. One reason why our spelling is so bizarre is that we no longer speak the way we did when the words were originally spelled out. Once upon a time, “knight” actually was pronounced with a ‘k’ sound, and with the ‘gh’ forming a guttural sound.

     Arguing over whether one “should” pronounce words one way or another are as senseless as complaining that people confuse words like for, fore, and four, or to, too, and two. Why should we have different spellings for the same sounds?

     Why do laughter and slaughter sound so different, when they are spelled nearly identically?

     There is no good reason for any of these things. It’s simply custom, and customs change. Go with the flow.

247. dgrb on December 10, 2008 4:34 am

     I’d be more impressed if you knew the difference between “alternate” and “alternative”.

     The abbreviation etc. should not be capitalised.

     I have never heard anyone in Britain (where I grew up) pronounce the first ‘r’ in February.

     The Concise Oxford Dictionary has ‘fort’ as the *third* pronunciation of forte in the sense of strong point. Again I’ve never heard anyone pronounce it that way.

     Catherine: I am not now, nor have I ever been a BBC newsreader, but I have always said “Wedunsday”.

248. Jason on December 10, 2008 4:44 am

     You don’t pronounce the “w” in sword. You pronounce it Sord.

249. auralai on December 10, 2008 5:49 am

     Ha, come on people a little healthy debate never hurt anyone. I would agree with Sadie’s conclusion but not her method. Learn from each other, yes, but there’s nothing wrong with pointing out differences in other people’s dialects. How else do you expect us to learn?

     Personally, I find dialects fascinating and I do not think there’s anything wrong in pronouncing some things differently. It gives us linguists (or in my case, amateur linguists) something to live for, so why the heck not? Pick them apart, point them out, have fun with it. If you find it offensive or elitist, then maybe you’ve lost what makes linguistics fun, which is a little sad. I wish everyone could lighten up and not take offense from learning. That’s why the best books get banned…but don’t even get me started on that.

     That being said, here are a few dialectic variations I love:
     -/WARSH-ing-ton/ as opposed to /WASH-ing-ton/ (Although, I will admit, while entertaining, it’s one of my few pet peeves. There honestly is no “r” in Washington, so I find it a bit silly)
     -/WUH-ter/ as opposed to /WAH-ter/ (And no, I’m not referencing the British pronunciation so don’t get upset. I hear my friend from Jersey say it al the time, but I don’t know exactly where it comes from)
     -/RUM/ instead of /ROOM/ (One of my favorites. Last heard from a native Maine-er)

     And I always get a giggle out of Boston accents for some reason. With all those dropped r’s, you’d think people would be tripping over them. Ahhhh I love it. I would never want people to say things the same. That would be boring. By the way, if you like listening to accents, here’s a link to the speech accent archive, conveniently located for me, just as this website was, thanks to the glory that is stumbleupon:

     http://accent.gmu.edu/

     Go bananas!

250. Monte Asbury on December 10, 2008 6:19 am

     14. Clothes: actually, the preferred pronunciation in the USA is kloz

     26. Arkansas: As any Wichitan will tell you, the Arkansas river flows through Kansas, and there it is, properly and universally, said just as it’s spelled.

     35. Niche: NITCH is the preferred American pronunciation, though NEESH is acceptable.

     And to Doug, preferred American pronunciation of comfortable is, in fact, comf-ter-bul.

     Friends, having to say words the way they are spelled suggests we’re not getting out enough. Spelling, like written “music,” is just the starting place.

251. Zero on December 10, 2008 7:14 am

     Katana – A sword used by samurai.

     Pronounced: Kah-tah-nah.
     Not Pronounced: Kit-ah-nah, Kit-ay-nah, Kih-teen-ah, Kit-ayn-yah, or really anything else.

252. Colin Clarke on December 10, 2008 7:40 am

     Very enjoyable!

     One word that really gets my goat here in the Uk, and we hear it almost daily from the BBC of all people, is “secketry” for secretary!! I’m sick of hearing reporters on the news say that, “the Home Secketry has said…”

     Just avoided rant mode then.

253. Asher on December 10, 2008 8:53 am

     re: “a nother”:
     The word “orange” came into English from the Spanish naranja. English people said “a naranja”, but the a(n) got confused so people thought they were talking about “an aranja” hence orange … It is futile to class these language variations as errors; the whole language is the product of errors over time.

     A language is merely an average of the different ways a given group of people speak. The average is only useful to ensure that those using the “language” can understand one another. Language is DYNAMIC and whatever your attitudes to it may be they’re most likely irrelevant to the language itself.

     Additionally, if you want to pronounce “dificile” as it is in Latin, then don’t pronounce it like an Italian word, but as “di-FI-ki-lay” – as it’s Latin. Any pronunciation of it’s hardly going to stop you from being understood in an English-speaking context, however.

     And Jason (247)? Maybe the people you’re talking about are saying sward not sword …

     All of this wash/”warsh” discussion is just like “off” vs “awf” – it’s a matter of regional and social dialectology, not of mistakes.

254. sasha on December 10, 2008 12:22 pm

     1. aegis – EEjis, although if i was pronouncing it the Greek way I’d say aigis.
     2. anyway – (not a pronunciation thing)
     4. arctic – ahktic. my Collins dictionary says both c’s are pronounced.
     9. barbed wire – (not a pronunciation thing)
     10. cache – cash. I don’t know much about French pronunciation so I’ll not argue.
     13. chaos – kayoss. never heard it with the tch sound, but i can believe it.
     15. daïs – dace, but only coz i’ve only ever heard the word once. i heard it pronounced dayiss btw.
     16. dilate – quibbling.
     17. drowned – (not a pronunciation thing)
     18. et cetera – et setera. i’m aware it could also be et ketera.
     19. February – febree. not febyuary, but not February unless I’m concentrating.
     20. foliage – 3 syllables. never heard it with two, unless the person was saying foilage.
     21. forte – fortay.
     22. Halloween – quibbling.
     23. height – never heard height pronounced heighth, only spelt that way.
     24. heinous – probably quibbling.
     25. hierarchy – hi-rahky. 3 syllables, but not hi-arky.
     26. Illinois – Illinoi. I always wondered about Arkansas though, thanks for clearing that up.
     27. interpret – (not a pronunciation thing)
     28. incident – (not a pronunciation thing)
     29. “irregardless” – (not a pronunciation thing)
     30. jewelry – I spell the word jewellery. Hence, my pronunciation is joolery. because I don’t pronounce the w in jewel.
     31. library – li-bree. NOT li-berry, but also not library unless i’m concentrating.
     32. medieval – sometimes mi-DEE-vil, sometimes medi-evil. I’ve never heard it MEE-deval.
     33. miniature – MIN-acha, but I don’t defend it. I wouldn’t be looked at strangely if I used 4 syllables, but I’m never corrected for my 3 either.
     34. Mischievous – 4 syllables, but I could use the two pronunciations interchangeably without anyone thinking me strange.
     35. niche – neesh. i don’t know much about French pronunciation, but nitch sounds wrong for the e on the end.
     36. orient – (not a pronunciation thing)
     37. old-fashioned – this is a new one to me..
     41. preventive – (not a pronunciation thing)
     43. prostate – (not a pronunciation thing)
     45. regardless – (not a pronunciation thing)
     46. sherbet – probably quibbling.
     47. spayed – (not a pronunciation thing)
     48. ticklish – it takes real concentration to condense this word into two syllables.
     50. vehicle – i say VEE-ikil, but i also say veeHIcular for vehicular. I infer that the dropped h is the corruption.

255. Jason on December 10, 2008 1:08 pm

     Not really a distinction between sward and sword …, more the distinction between AN-SWER and AN-SER. The silent w should not be pronounced (http://eleaston.com/pr/sl-pat-w.html)

256. Dave on December 10, 2008 5:24 pm

     Processes:

     College professors and other people who like to try to sound erudite have adopted the abomination “pro-suh-SEEZ”. Despite the fact that organizations full of similarly pretentious folks have approved “prah-suh-SEEZ” as an acceptable pronunciation, etymologically speaking the only way to pronounce the word is “PRO-cess-es.”

257. Kristina on December 10, 2008 6:53 pm

     I really can’t get my tounge around “Worchestershire sauce”. But maybe that is just my mistake? Any tips?

258. Samuel Wright on December 10, 2008 7:52 pm

     Thanks for this… love it. I occasionally feel that I need to beat my Father-in-law in the head with a Thesaurus and Dictionary… He uses “irregardless” and “subtle” (pronouncing the “b”) all the time, along with many other infractions of the English language.

259. Chachi on December 10, 2008 8:56 pm

     One incorrect pronunciation that almost everybody makes a mistake about is with the word “bruschetta”. Too many people say bru-shetta, when the correct pronunciation is Bru-sketta.

260. Katie on December 10, 2008 9:07 pm

     I’ve noticed that several native English speakers outside of North America (ie Ali, # 211 or James, #182) have some problems with the US & Canadian English accent as well as Americans “thinking (they’re) all right about everything.”

     I’m an American, but I live in east Asia and teach English. When my students ask me if they should pronounce coffee KAH-fee (with that nasally American ah) or KO-fee (which they learned in elementary school but they never hear me say because it sounds much more British to me & I’m not British), I tell them that both ways of pronouncing it are correct in different native-English-speaking parts of the world and that they can pronounce it either way. However, when they pronounce she like the shr in shrimp (and believe me, a lot of them do), well, yeah, I tell them they need to fix it, because there are no native speakers that pronounce “she” like that.

     That said, I have had students here who learned American English, tested very well on IELTS, went to England to study high school or uni and were scolded by their teachers for having “poor English.” I myself have been scolded by a man from England for pronouncing his name STOO-wert instead of the correct British pronunciation of STYOO-wert. He angrily told me I said it wrong (even though I say it like almost everyone else in my native country, including my parents, my teachers, as well as academic and political leaders-so I’m wrong because I say it the proper way in my country?).

     I don’t say this to get down on people from England. I simply want to remind you that one know-it-all cannot represent an entire population of hundreds of millions of people. That guy Stewart is one guy, just like the guy who wrote this article. And it shows as much ignorance on your part to lump all Americans in with this author as it would be for me to say all Britons are linguistic snobs based on my experience with Stewart or my students’ experience with a few British teachers.

     Finally, Ali, you said that the last time you checked, the English language originated from England. And James, you deride American accents and pronunciations for being a mish-mash of other countries and cultures. I would remind both of you that the English language does not originate solely from the British Isles, but is a combination of old English, German and French (which is, for example, why we say beef instead of cow meat-many languages don’t have a totally different word and just say “cow meat”). A large portion of the language did not, in fact, originate in England. And, as British English has been affected by these various cultures throughout time, it is as much a mish-mash of accents as any other native English accent.

     Every language has hundreds of stories to tell about its history and
     origins. Please don’t belittle our shared language with stereotypes and insults.

261. denise on December 11, 2008 1:28 am

     My pet peeve is the word “addicting.” the word is “addictive.” it always has been and always will be.

262. stickler on December 11, 2008 2:55 am

     need you have regardless on there twice?

263. Zack! on December 11, 2008 3:46 am

     I’m hip to most of this, but here in Kansas, it’s “Arrrr-Kansas,” when referring to any landmark or street that is in our beautiful state. We’ll concede the more frenchy pronunciation if we’re talking about the actual state, but otherwise, we say it like it’s spelled.
     We’re straightforward that way.
     Smiles!
     Zack!

264. Monica on December 11, 2008 7:51 pm

     drives me nuts when people mispronounce SALMON.

265. mandy on December 12, 2008 1:43 am

     please please this one drives me crazy Iraq is pronounced ir-ak NOT
     eye-rak.

266. Leana on December 12, 2008 2:59 am

     Supposedly vs “SUPPOSABLY” (ew!)

     Probably vs “prolly” or “probly”

     Familiar vs “fermiliar” (even smart people do this!)

267. Peter on December 12, 2008 6:10 am

     Re: barbed wire – I so often see the “-ed” dropped: you have “barb wire” and “Fox News is bias” and so on. Gah! (Your pronunciation guide reminds me of something else: many years ago, in an episode of Diagnosis: Murder on TV, Dick van Dyke was looking after someone’s dog, which was named /bɑ:b/ – it wasn’t until the end of the episode that I realized he was saying “Bob” (/bɒb/)…I didn’t think it could be named “Barb”, but couldn’t figure out what it was )

     i know someone that says marine corps as how its spelled not (core)
     Perhaps he’s only talking about dead Marines?

     Both my parents are flattening the “-er” in things like “drawer” ane “error.” I don’t know where this came from, but suddenly we’re keeping things in “draws” and making “eras” when we’re careless … grrr!
     I can’t distinguish between “drawers” and “draws” (/drɔ:z/). Surely you don’t say something like /drɔ:rə:z/, do you?

     (I do distinguish “errors” – /ɛrəz/ – and “eras” – /ɪərəz/ – but that’s only the initial vowel)

     A common difference in pronuncation I hear is with the word, ‘philanthropist’. I pronounce this word with a long ‘a’ and a ‘u’ for the ‘o’. Does that make sense? Many pronunciation websites say it this way too with their ’soundclips’. But I have heard many pronounce it with a short ‘a’ and short ‘o’.

     It should have a short ‘a’ and either a short ‘o’ or a schwa…I suspect your ‘u’ is actually a schwa, but when you say “long ‘a’”, do you mean long-as-in-length (i.e., what are called “long vowels” in sensible languages, like Latin and Greek – /a:/) or long as in what English speakers for some inexplicable reason call “long” vowels (which are completely different vowels and dipthongs – /eɪ/)? I’d find it hard to say with either…

     “Arctic” was actually borrowed into English from the Latin word “articus” (note the lack of a ‘c’ before the ‘t’). The Latin word, however, comes from the Greek word “arktikos”. At some point, the powers that be decided to add a silent ‘c’ to the spelling to be more etymologically accurate. Following the change, people spent decades complaining (such as you are here) about all those stupid people pronouncing the silent ‘c’. In fact, /ah-tick/ is the only pronunciation the OED gives for this word (that being the british “r-less” pronunciation)

     Hmm…I just looked it up in the OED, on your say-so, and the single pronunciation given is /ɑ:rktɪk/ – with the k. (There’s also a c in the Latin, by the way)

     Similarly, Bernard is pronounced bUrn-ud, not bur-nArd (I used capitals to show emphasis).

     And Maurice is pronounced like Morris, not more-EEce.

     sherbet – The word has only one r in it. Say /SHER-BET/ not /sher-bert/.

     -A standard British variation is sher-bert.

     Sure, but it’s pronounced the same – no rhotic syllable.

     I disagree with your pronunciation of “et cetera”. I know the t in “et” is not pronounced, but others might not.

     Hehe…you know that, do you?

     I’m sick to death of my fellow Kiwis feeling like hicks because they feel they don’t speak proper English.

     Wəll, Nə Zələndəs thət speak lək thəs do tənd tə sənd like hicks.

     On a related note, the superbug that’s been so popular over here recently “Clostridium difficile” is NOT French – it’s Latin too! So “Di-ffi-chi-lay”, not “Di-fi-seal”.

     Bah. ‘c’ is always /k/ in proper Latin. Don’t listen to that Italian eedjits.

     P.S. Which is correct: Heart-rending or heart-rendering? I thought it was ‘rendering’ but lately I’ve seen ‘rending’.

     Rending – as in tearing – is correct. (What would “heart-rendering” mean? Boiling the fats out of it?)

     My two pet peeves here are the words medium (mee-dee-um) which many pronounce as meejum and Houston which most pronounce as Hoo-ston not H-you-ston. Cringe, cringe, cringe!

     Yes; my father always says “hooston”; makes me cringe, too. (But note that the New York street that gives SoHo its name is correctly pronounced “house-ton”)

268. Kris on December 12, 2008 7:00 am

     I’m not sure if it’s been said or not, but Oregon, like the state is pronounced OR-EGG-IN not OR-EE-GON or OR-GON. My girlfriend is from there, and she corrected all of our friends and me, and now it just drives me nuts when I hear it wrong.

269. Ryan on December 12, 2008 3:58 pm

     Finally someone uses an intelligible and geographically neutral system of rendering pronunciations! Thank you, Peter!

270. Grace S. on December 12, 2008 5:53 pm

     Katie (260), your ultimate point is well spoken and understood. However, when the name of an individual is being pronounced, it is always best to pronounce it as closely as possible to the way the individual prefers. It’s a very personal matter at that point, and not always subject to regional dialect. If the pronunciation is quite different from what one would expect (or as in the case of Stewart, what you had learned where you lived), however, the individual with that name must be prepared to correct many people with much patience (not being offended or pompous) throughout his/her life . . . and blame parents or his/her own expectations!

271. heather on December 13, 2008 7:45 am

     What about “woof” instead of wolf? I think that’s Midwest U.S. dialect, but I cringe every time.
     My pet peeves are orientate, cashay-not cache, and the use of the word ambiguous when the person means ambivalent.

272. James on December 13, 2008 9:28 am

     My pet peeve?

     When people act as if they are superior to other because of the way they speak.

     If someone prounounces these words, or any other words in an incorrect manner, it doesn’t make you better. That’s the air you give off. In addition, the person who pronounces the word incorrectly could be new to the language. How are they to improve if you and others like yourself are so discouraging?

273. Mike Ellis on December 13, 2008 11:43 am

     How very close minded of you. Language is a dynamic phenomenon, forever changing and morphing. Phonological change often drives morphological change and can change the lexicon for ever.
     Speakers have an instinct to make their communication system as efficient as possible, and this extends to speech sounds. There is no reason why ‘arctic’ cannot be pronounced /a:tIk/ (i’m a little sketchy on my IPA vowels sorry) providing there is not a similar lexeme blocking it. The speaker is understood, and has saved the effort of making the plosive /k/.
     Admittedly, there are some in here that are ‘wrong’ or rather ‘non-standard’ but to prescribe pronunciations that you (presumably) take to be universal across the myriad of accents, dialects and creoles that make up global englishes is rather arrogant.
     I am english and not even I claim to have authority over such things, as an american, you have even less – your dialect is a deviation from standard english too. If you want to know how to pronounce words ‘correctly’ listen to the queen, or trevor macdonald, or even better, language afficianados such as Stephen Fry. They speak ‘properly’.

274. Orlin on December 13, 2008 4:34 pm

     What about threshold?
     Some pronounce it TRA-S-HOULD or TRA-SH-OULD
     even TRA-S-HOLD or TRA-SH-OLD

275. Eeden on December 13, 2008 8:19 pm

     What a great debate! I can be a grammar pedant, but not so much for pronunciation. Don’t like ‘Nookle-ar’, though someone once told me they saw the word as being spelled nucle/ar rather than nu/clear, so I understand that, even if I don’t like to hear it. A friend of mine also pluralizes the word ‘pants’ as ‘pantses’, as in, ‘I’ve got lots of pantses that would go with that top’. Surprising how frequently she can bring that word into the conversation. I don’t like it, but would never correct her.

     Having grown up in the US (mid-west, melk and vanella and ‘jest’ for ‘just’) but having longer lived in Ireland, there are huge differences. Who can say whether the pronunciation for garage as ‘gar-AHJ’ is better or worse than ‘GAR-aj’? All Irish kids say ‘haitch’ instea of ‘aitch’. There are plenty of other examples, too.

     The Irish also soften the T at the end (and sometimes in the middle) of a word, often (offen or often, both) saying ‘Whass’ instead of ‘What’, for example. That can be annoying, especially in a word such as ‘motorists’ (by which we mean drivers), or meteor, which is quite regularly pronounced ‘mee-see-or’.

     I can also jar a bit when some Americans call us ‘immatoor’ instead of ‘immachure’, or tell us we’re being ‘hostel’ instead of ‘hostile’. However, without these differences, we’d never be able to figure out where the person we’re talking to is from!

     I think all the differences are fascinating. As the world gets smaller, many of them will probably disappear.

276. dr phil on December 13, 2008 10:02 pm

     What about Noo-cue-lar

277. dizit on December 13, 2008 10:39 pm

     My ex-mother-in-law (whom I still love 26 years into ex-dom!), always pronounced wash as WARSH. It hurt my ears. I never could bring myself to correct her, but I always wondered where that nonexistent “R” came from.

278. Cathrine on December 14, 2008 12:34 am

     As for number 21. The italian word “forte” is not pronounced /FOR-TAY/ , the correct pronounciation is /FOR-TEH/. You Americans obviously like to make your vowels sound like two vowels put next to each other.

279. Willa Jabir on December 14, 2008 1:31 am

     Duck tape? If you have been in an Ace Hardware store, there is “DUCK” tape for sale(even has a picture of a duck on it). If you go to Lowes, there is Duct tape for sale.

     Has anyone compared simple words like “not” in current versions of dictionaries and those of 50 years ago??

     Words, definitions, spellings and pronunciation have changed over time. When the next generation alters words a tittle, I’ll continue my own slang and local talk when I’m conversing with the locals. When I go to China, I use Chinglish. When I go to Argentina, I use Spanglish. When I talk to me Canadian neighbors, I’ll question everything you say, eh?

     I studid my Anglish in school, but then I learnt ta talk so folks cud understan me in the places I be visitin.

     I also studied communication (verbal and gestures) at UAB. Sometime you have to choose between being correct and being understood. There is a rich history of mispronunciation in linguistics.

     As a side note: You think this is big time errors in the English language? The Chinese have 80 different Mandarin dialects. Learning one doesn’t mean you can communicate in another. But the written language is the same in most of the dialects of Mandarin.

280. jeri on December 14, 2008 1:39 am

     sher·bet (shûr’bĭt) n.
     1. also sher·bert (-bûrt’) A frozen dessert made primarily of fruit juice, sugar, and water, and also containing milk, egg white, or gelatin.
     (from dictionary.com)

     in 8th grade i had a debate with a classmate as to whether it was shur-bet or shur-burt, and it turned out we were both right. the word was listed (in a print dictionary, mind you) as being pronounced both ways. it’s a matter of preference.

281. MTS on December 14, 2008 2:34 am

     This list was useful, but like others I did not appreciate the tone. There were two words on the list that I’ve butchered in the past, and as somebody else has stated, I’m well read and may know what a given word means but do not use it in conversation regularly enough to get the pronunciation right every time.

     As an aside, a friend of mine from Texas has a doctorate in aerospace engineering and has had a very successful career spanning four decades. He is probably guilty of mangling at least eighty percent of the words on the list above, yet his net worth and standing in his profession is enough to make an unemployed liberal arts major cry. Put that in your pipe and smoke it.

282. Sven Monk on December 14, 2008 3:17 am

     Hi, an actual linguist here, just reiterating what Mike Ellis has so eloquently expressed. If you’re going to claim that there’s a “correct” pronunciation of each word, then tell me how many syllables there are in ‘aluminium’, because Standard English and Standard American English disagree….which one is “correct”? How many syllables in “buoy”? There’s no such thing as “correct” pronunciation in a language like English which has many, many dialects, many accents, and has been changing continuously for many hundreds of years. Some of the “mistakes” listed above will doubtlessly become the standard form in the future, for ease of articulation and numerous other reasons. Do you pronounce the final /t/ in ‘trait’? That was a heinous error not too long ago.
     You might sound educated and knowing to amateurs, but this sort of prescriptivist nonsense makes you a joke to linguists.

283. Colton on December 14, 2008 5:49 am

     One that bothers the crap out of me seems to be prevalent only around here – the Midwest…

     And that’s pronouncing “creek” like “crick”. I don’t understand it! Grr!

284. Mark S on December 14, 2008 11:14 am

     “Primer”, when talking about an introductory class, should rhyme with “trimmer”.

285. blue john on December 14, 2008 5:31 pm

     My two biggest hates (for what it’s worth)

     Omega and Controversy

     Oh-megg-a NOT oh-meeg-a (I blame the similaritity to a certain old computer for this one)
     CON’-trov-er-see NOT cn-TROV-er-see (erm, that looks wrong – anyway, one way of pronouncing is sounds just plain wrong – it’s an emphasis thing).

     minor comment – someone said that they could not think of how medieval has 4 syllables – I am trying (and failing) to think of how to pronounce it in less than 4. Med-ee + ee-val (like 2 words)

     Also, everybody can mispronounce words that they may never have heard (and by the time they do hear them it’s too late to change). English place names are good examples (I live failry close to a town called Alcester and even this close some people mispronounce the name as AL-SES-TER, instead of AL-STER – I’m sure you Americans must have spotted how all of these place names should be pronounced by now so I won’t explian it (clue – break the place name before the ‘ster’ and then pronounce what you have infront plus the ‘ster’ part).

     Ooh. One more word LICHEN

     LI-KEN and not Lit-chen

     that’s all – see ya

286. LJ on December 14, 2008 7:51 pm

     This mispronunciation of “orient” drives me batty. I had a boss whose favorite word seemed to be “orientate”. She would work it into just about every conversation. Ugh. I would want to jump up and scream, “That’s not a word!”.

     I never did, though. Perhaps I should have.

287. Cookie on December 14, 2008 8:08 pm

     It makes me sad to think that people in England think Americans can’t talk. Yes, some of us are idiots, but most of us are pretty decent.

     I wish Americans talked like Syd Barrett and David Gilmour. I feel like people in England have a much more interesting way of talking.

     The end.

288. Estey on December 14, 2008 9:53 pm

     However, do not forget that there is a city in Kansas called Arkansas City and it is pronounced Ar-kansas City. So, there is one exception.

289. pp on December 15, 2008 1:12 am

     when people pronounce prerogative, per-rog-a-tive.
     Philadelphia as Philadelthia.
     youse instead of you.

290. Peter on December 15, 2008 3:40 am

     There is no reason why ‘arctic’ cannot be pronounced /a:tIk/ (i’m a little sketchy on my IPA vowels sorry)

     “a” is the high front vowel in “cat”; you need “ɑ” here (unless it’s supposed to sound like “attic”). Of course there’s no reason it can’t be pronounced that way – there’s no reason “good morning” can’t be pronounced “gord moaning”, either (as a certain character in a TV show was wont to do) – but it sounds silly.

     Having grown up in the US (mid-west, melk and vanella and ‘jest’ for ‘just’)

     That’s different from actual mispronunciation, though – like the NZer I was poking fun at for shifting all their unstressed vowels to schwa.

     tell me how many syllables there are in ‘aluminium’, because Standard English and Standard American English disagree….which one is “correct”?

     The English one is correct, obviously: IUPAC defines the names of chemicals. (Besides, it was spelled that way even in American dictionaries until the 1920s, and Americans don’t drop the “i” in the names of other elements – “helum”, “lithum”, “sodum”, “uranum”, etc.)

291. Socrates on December 15, 2008 5:29 am

     I need to chime in on this “duck tape” vs. “duct tape” debate:

     The word “duct” ends with a T.

     The word “tape” begins with a T.

     When you put the words to together, you get two T’s right next two eachother.

     You do not need to pronounce them both. You can run them together: ductape.

     Add to that the fact that anyone who actually uses duct tape would never be caught saying “ducT-Tape”

292. Jehu on December 15, 2008 8:04 am

     What about misuse of the verb “to note?”

     You do not notate something, you NOTE something. The result called is a notation.

     This bugs the hell out of me regularly.

293. Jehu on December 15, 2008 8:18 am

     *facepalm* “called is a notation”

     IS CALLED a notation.

294. Yoda on December 15, 2008 9:46 am

     Understand you I did!

295. Peter on December 15, 2008 10:28 am

     When you put the words to together, you get two T’s right next two eachother.

     You do not need to pronounce them both. You can run them together: ductape.

     Is /pɛnʌɪf/ an acceptable pronunciation of “pen-knife” in your neck of the woods?

296. RSD on December 16, 2008 12:55 pm

     I didn’t realise till recently that WEDNESDAY should be pronounced
     Wens’day and not Wed’ns’day! I had to check it in a dictionary to confirm it! Now that I know I still get it wrong most of the time! BTW it was a UK dictionary and the pronunciation may vary in other countries?

297. Ryan on December 16, 2008 4:31 pm

     Peter, I don’t know anyone that releases each /t/ in “duct tape”. Most (if not all) speakers I’ve encountered geminate the t. Same with pen knife.

298. Grace S. on December 16, 2008 5:30 pm

     Interesting comments; at the very least, we should all have been sent to our dictionaries or reference works of choice once again.

     Jehu (292), “notate” is a word with a more specific meaning than “note:” it also means to put down in writing, but using special characters, as with musical notation or mathematical characters.

     LJ (286), “orientate” is a word with a more specific meaning than “orient” (as a verb): it can be a variation of “orient,” but more clearly means to situate facing the east.

     I believe that careful pronunciation becomes more important when the “mistakes” one hears are carried over into written communication. An example of this has already been shared concerning contractions (“could of” rather than “could’ve”), where the “mistake” does not exist as a word (or phrase, in this case). More potentially embarrassing are mispronunciations that lead to use of the wrong word which IS a word (think Archie Bunker). Two examples which come to mind are “perspective” in place of “prospective” and “verses” in place of “versus.” Using the wrong word can lead to a complete change in the meaning of the sentence in which it’s used, and communication suffers.

299. Peter on December 17, 2008 1:24 am

     English place names are good examples

     Berkeley – as in Berkeley Square!

     Peter, I don’t know anyone that releases each /t/ in “duct tape”. Most (if not all) speakers I’ve encountered geminate the t. Same with pen knife.

     Yes, exactly – I didn’t mean to suggest it should be pronounced /tt/ (or /tət/, since you can’t say /tt/, with two distinct plosives), just that it’s not /t/ (in fact, I guess it’s really /?t/ where ? represents an alveolar stop; I don’t know the IPA for that)

300. SGSidekick on December 17, 2008 2:44 am

     Wow. I read this article and thought the author sounded a bit snooty, with an almost “holier-than-thou” attitude. I’ve lived on the east coast, in the plains states, out west, and finally the Pacific coast. I’ve heard many, many pronunciations, and never thought anyone was uneducated, unless it was someone using “axe” instead of “ask”. That is a peeve.

     The “pecan issue”. I don’t care if you say peh-can or peh-cawn, but PEE-can really, really drives me nuts!

     My mom comes from hillbilly stock, and puts r’s in words like “warsh” and “Warshington”. She is an intelligent woman, and as long as we both know what she’s talking about, I don’t care.

     As far as duct/duck tape, I agreed with the analogy that using either is like using “Band-Aid” for medical adhesives, and “Kleenex” for facial tissues. Or even “Xerox” for copiers.

     As for locations, I worked in Oregon. Not Or-re-gone, but Ore-gun/Ore-gin.

301. Ryan on December 17, 2008 3:51 am

     I think /t:/ is what Socrates was going for, and it is what I meant. /t̚/ is what you were looking for, I think. Hopefully that displays, it’s a t with a superscript upper right corner diacritic. I’m not sure /tt/ is quite the right transcription, because it indicates to me that both consonants are released. I’m pretty sure I’ve seen /t:/ in a similar situation, though if you want to be specific about it /t̚t/ is the way to go, I guess. Any phoneticians want to give a professional opinion?

302. Dan on December 19, 2008 9:06 pm

     I like the fact the author is pointing out valuable lessons about the English language – too many of us slip on on common words all the time. but I do have to protests several of them. While there may be a technically correct way to pronounce many of these words, something that must be taken into account is regional dialect.

     I live in Minnesota. If anyone here pronounced “Halloween” with like HAL-O-WEEN, and not HOL-O-WEEN, they would probably get punched.

     Its important to bring to light many of the most commonly mis-spoken words, but they must all be taken with a grain of salt, knowing that what you say and how you say it, greatly varies on where you are residing…weather you, or the English language likes it or not.

303. Grace S. on December 22, 2008 10:29 pm

     Sorry, Dan (302); I live in Minnesota and I say Halloween (not Holloween)–and haven’t been punched so far! I hear it both ways, which is OK with me–unless I’m trying to teach someone how to spell it! (Sometimes, when I was teaching, I would exaggerate the pronunciation very much according to the spelling to make the point about how a word was spelled, even though at all other times we’d pronounce the word with less precise attention to letter order–Wednesday is a good example.)

304. Cherilyn on December 24, 2008 12:56 am

     I know someone who pronounces batteries “bat-trees”. As a child I thought there were actual bat trees and it scared me to death. That is the stuff that nightmares are made of. He also mispronounced roof as ‘ruff’, it drove me nuts.

     I have a friend from Indiana who moved to New England who still says she’s going to warsh her clothes instead of wash them. She’s cute so she can get away with it.

305. TheDude on December 25, 2008 1:44 am

     Actually, “vehicle” can be pronounced either way. Look it up.

306. Paula on December 25, 2008 4:32 am

     I say February, pronouncing the first r because I was taught that it’s brrr cold in Febrrruary. And it’s my birth month so I make a special point to say it “correctly.”

     My sisters and mom say digikal instead of digital. Not sure where that came from. Only one has corrected herself after I said something.

     Being from Wisconsin, I don’t like to hear “Wes-consin” or “Ellinois” instead of “Wisconsin” or “Illinois”…the short e instead of short i sound.

     But life’s too short to worry about this stuff.

307. Jeff Davis on December 25, 2008 4:40 pm

     Nuclear. Pronounced ‘noo-clee-ar, Not ‘noo-cu-lar’. Extremely common.

308. beth johnstone on December 28, 2008 8:42 pm

     ok…to pronounce worcestershire sauce …..say…wuster shire …or shur.Pointsettia….4 syllables…point sett E AH. PLEASE prounounce SCHISM…..SIZZ EM. Keith Olbermann mispronounces that almost nightly!! I hate when people say … I look at myself in the MIR….it’s MIRR OR. I always pronounce FEBRUARY with both R’s ….FEb Ruh EREE….what’s so hard? besides…it’s my birthday month and my grandson’s as well…so it’s important and it’s a really short month so give it its due please. Hopefully is NOT a word. I am hopeful….or i’m hoping …but not hopefully. DOUR…is pronounced like poor.
     My husband hoping to trounce me and my parents in scrabble put down ……QUIETEN …..when we got through laughing at him for being such a hick….we looked it up and …..darn….IT IS A WORD!!

309. Ren on December 28, 2008 10:52 pm

     The pronunciation, “axe” for the word “ask”, is not a mispronunciation. Rather, it is the standard and preferred pronunciation in AAVE dialect. See the works of linguists like John Rickford and Theresa Perry.

310. Joshua on December 28, 2008 11:59 pm

     OK, so you can write, but can you count? You tout 50 mispronounced words, when you have actually included 51 bullets, and have paired some mispronunciations together. If you’re going to be elitist toward the commoners, at least have the respect not to insult our mathematical skills.

311. Charles Hannan on December 29, 2008 2:13 am

     Re Hallowe’en:

     The name derives not from “hallowed evening”, but rather from the fact that October 31 is the eve of All Hallows Day on November 1, or All Saints’ Day as we say nowadays.

     Note also the correct spelling above, in which the “v” of “evening” is elided.

312. OneNightStanzas on December 29, 2008 12:15 pm

     @ beth — yes, quieten is a word, and er, I’m afraid hopefully is too. Perhaps you should spend a bit more time with your dictionary… and think twice about calling OTHER people “hicks”.

313. Chris S on January 2, 2009 12:09 am

     Many English pronunciations depend upon where the speaker is from. For instance, in Kansas, they pronounce the name of the state to their southeast AR-KAN-SAW, but they pronounce the river of the same name as AR-KAN-SAS.

314. beeurd on January 2, 2009 11:40 am

     You should probably put a note next to “jewelry” about the English spelling of the word; “jewellery”. This spelling makes it a perfectly acceptable four syllable word.

315. Deb on January 3, 2009 2:26 am

     Nuptial=nup-chul, not nup-choo-ul

     Or at least that is how I think it is pronounced!

316. Jenni C on January 5, 2009 4:14 am

     Personally, I don’t find this elitist at all. What is wrong with speaking properly?

     There is one that I would love to add to the list :

     especially – I have heard so many people say “exspecially” – just a pet peeve that makes me crazy when I hear it, lol

317. Being the Change I Wish to See – Sherri on January 5, 2009 9:14 am

     I’m from South Louisiana, y’all. “Aks” is how New Orleans natives pronounce “ask”. It’s from the time of slavery and is an embedded part of the local dialect. The local dialect is a mixture of French, African, Caribbean, Spanish, Native American and English.

     “New Orleans” is pronounced [New Orluns], the ea is not a long e sound. Although, Orleans Parish is pronounced with a long e sound.

     The Cajun dialect is nothing like the South East Louisiana dialect. It is made up of French, English, Native American and Spanish. It is mostly French but broken with words from the other languages, hence the name, broken French.

     As I’ve spent more time on the web, I’ve learned there are different dialects of English: American English, Canadian English, The Queen’s English and Australian English, to name the main ones. Each one has some of its own peculiarities, and I don’t believe American English should be the world-wide standard for English. If you’re American, speak American English, but if you’re Australian, I have no problem with you using “learnt” instead of “learned”. Spell according to your native English as well: colour instead of color, for example. We Americans get too prideful about our English being the correct English. We came from the U.K., so our form of the language is bastardized, not the U.K.’s.

     Bonafides is a word most people mispronounce. It is the plural of bonafide. Bonafides is pronounced [boe-na-fee-daze].

     Bonafide may be pronounced either [boe-na-fide] or [boe-na-fee-day]. The first is the more common pronunciation.

     My 2 cents,
     Sherri

318. Shopwalker on January 5, 2009 10:51 pm

     Dour may be pronounced like poor, but according to Merriam-Webster, it’s also acceptable to pronounce it like dower.

     There are many words I read when I was a child, and while I understood the meaning of the word from the context, I didn’t know the correct pronounciation. One that comes to mind is the word ‘awry’, which I used to pronounce “Aw-ree”, until my brother pointed out my verbal faux pas.

     It’s my preference to be kindly and gently corrected if I mispronounce a work, however, when dealing with people who are not close friends or family, that may be ill-advised. After all, as the responses above indicate, it’s entirely possible you’re wrong that there is only one correct pronounciation.

     As it’s been said, it’s better to keep your mouth shut and let people assume you’re a fool than to open it and remove any doubt.

319. Val on January 6, 2009 2:40 am

     I hate when my husband says “being have” (long “a” sound there) instead of behaving. he says that it is 2 separate words, be and have (not to be confused with having something) and does not listen to me when I tell him otherwise.

320. Rogerscott on January 7, 2009 4:53 am

     I’ve heard Charley Rose say
     “dizzern” for ‘discern’.

     We don’t say ‘Zience’, we say
     SI-yence.

     Discern is “Dissern”

     Or does he say “Dizzy GEL-EZZpy”?

321. jane on January 7, 2009 12:19 pm

     I am will admit that ‘short’ a’s in words like grass bugs me, but that does not mean i impose my opinion on everyone. My opinions are purely cultural. There is no right or wrong. The way people pronouce things are never ‘wrong’ because by saying wrong you are saying your version is ‘right’, but your version is just another dialect. English (like most languages) is thought to be right when spoken in standard english, yet it is only standard when the ‘big’ people say it is. In english, the release of a dictionary was based upon one of the london dialects. You get where i’m comming from. It is very arrogant and egotistical to say you are right.

322. Bee on January 8, 2009 11:34 am

     I keep getting emails with comments from this article by mistakenly ticking the little box. Please make them stop!
     Fascinating as the subject might be, after 100 emails I think it’s safe to say that there is no right or wrong when it comes to English. Speak and let speak, I say.

323. Danny on January 9, 2009 12:25 am

     What about the play Macbeth, which many pronounce “Mc-Beth”, instead of the correct pronunciation, “Mac-Beth”

     Or Pumpkin, which is pronounced “Pump-kin” not, “Pun-kin”

324. Kim on January 9, 2009 1:51 am

     I once had a boss who said “subsid-u-ary” instead of “subsid-i-ary”.

     He also emphasized the ‘d’ in “adhesive”, saying “ah-DEE-sive”.

     It drove me bananas.

325. NJMark on January 18, 2009 11:28 pm

     Can people have the courtesy to read the comments before posting, so we don’t have 50 people saying “you forgot nucular/nuclear”?

     Yes, we know already!!

     And Mr. Obama, it’s “country” and “security,” not “countruh” and “securituh.”

326. Kim on January 19, 2009 9:16 pm

     “And Mr. Obama, it’s “country” and “security,” not “countruh” and “securituh.””

     Does that mean we have to call him “Obamy?”

327. Lisa Burgess on January 27, 2009 1:47 am

     Flaccid. When I say it correctly people feel the need to CORRECT me, which is rude.
     It has two acceptable pronunciations :ˈ”flæksɪd,” ˈ”flæsɪd” (the more common)–think of how one says “acceptable” and consider “flaccid” with its double-c and then understand my gripe.
     Empire dresses–”ɒmˈpɪər” is the pronunciation for the adjective referenced here.

328. Sara on January 28, 2009 8:22 pm

     FebRuary is how it is spelled, NOT how it is pronounced, look it up in Merriam-Webster if you don’t believe me. It will also tell you what someone else has, that SherbeRt is an accepted variation.

     There are reasons why words aren’t always pronounced perfectly and that has to do with regional accents. And some of your “mispronunciations” didn’t take into account the fact that they might be words.

     For example, “anyways” is correct! Its root word from Old English is “anywise”. Saying “anyway” is actually a relatively recent pronunciation.

     Also, if you’re nitpicking, at least get it right:

     Pre-vent-a-tive IS a word. From the English Dictionary:

     Preventive and Preventative. The words are often used interchangeably to denote whatever prevents something else happening or occurring, especially when it is undesirable. However, preventative is often applied to an actual object, especially in noun form, while preventive is mostly reserved for an abstract concept, and remains an adjective: Preventive medicine regards vitamin C as an effective preventative against colds.

     If you’re going to put together a post like this, you really need to do research and not just use your pronunciation opinion.

329. jdub on January 29, 2009 1:07 am

     Who cares if it is elitist? The fact is, most misprounounciations are the result of lack of education, either directly or indirectly. It doesn’t matter if its the local dialect or not. OfTen misprounounciations become accepted and cease smacking of low class when they are universally common but until then, it does sound stupid when people say eXpresso and cUpuccio and FUstrated.
     Having said that, I’m not sure your whole list is correct: Medieval, often, vehicle… I will have to look them up.

     Lastly, isn’t “aks” a Ubonics thang?

330. Katie on January 29, 2009 11:29 pm

     Im in New Zealand where the English language has turned to mush anyway, but the one I hate the most here (and there are SO many) is Woman, plural Women. Both here are pronounced WOO MUN.

     Drives me nuts.

     I say WOO MAN and WI MIN.

     Let me know if I am wrong.

331. Kim on January 30, 2009 4:54 pm

     This can drive me cuckoo; dropping the ‘n’ from “government” or “environment”. It’s not “guvver-mint” or “enviyer-mint”!

     Also on my peeve list are pronouncing “Christmas” as “kris-miss”; “Caribbean” as “ka-RIH-bee-an”, “harass” as “HAiR-uss”, and the letter “W” as “dubby-U”.

     However, the current list-topper for me is saying words rhyming with “ail” as “ell”: e.g. “e-mell”, “fell” (for “feel”), “cocktell”, “sellsman”, etc.

     It’s “AYL”, not “ELL”!!

     Okay, my rant ends for now.

332. Anon on January 31, 2009 12:17 pm

     Kim — pretty much all British people say “Cah-RI-be-an” rather than “Carribb-ian.” I think you’ll find that people FROM the Caribbean also pronounce it that way.

     This list gets more snobby and ignorant with every comment… OK, so it annoys you. That doesn’t mean you’re RIGHT, people!

333. mo-z on January 31, 2009 4:35 pm

     I hear TV news people pronounce the name of that city in Nevada as ‘Loss Vegas.’ Shouldn’t it be pronounced ‘Las Vegas’ with an ‘A’ and not with an ‘O’? I wonder if they’re basing the pronunciation on Los Angeles?

334. Parth on February 12, 2009 8:19 am

     education

     I’ve heard many people say /eju-cation/, but the original pronounciation is /ed-u-cation/

     pronounciation

     Many of us say /pro-noun-ciation/ but it’s actually /pr-nun-ciation/.

335. regularfknguy on February 12, 2009 9:55 pm

     <>

     THANK YOU, I was working my way down the list to say just that.
     And I am sorry for those of you who believe that Duck (brand) tape is the same thing as Kleenex or Bandaid. Duck tape is not one of the original brands, and it does not have market share and not many people realize that there is even a duck on the label. Its Duct tape, but if you pronounce the first T, you should buy some rejecT Tape and put it over your mouth.

336. regularfknguy on February 12, 2009 9:56 pm

     Ooops I accidentally HTML’d the original text in my post…
     This was it…
     Socrates

     The word “duct” ends with a T.

     The word “tape” begins with a T.

     When you put the words to together, you get two T’s right next two eachother.

     You do not need to pronounce them both. You can run them together: ductape.

     Add to that the fact that anyone who actually uses duct tape would never be caught saying “ducT-Tape”

337. Geoffrey Nolan on February 14, 2009 1:34 pm

     If standards in grammar and pronunciation are too relaxed then we have an exceedingly difficult time trying to say what we mean and mean what we say. If standards are too strict, creativity and expansion are stifled. Me, I like establishing my street cred with poetic license but then I’m not a banker or physician. ‘Course Robert Madoff was well spoken…hmmm. Mark Twain woulda been a big bore if he hadn’t strayed off the reservation.

     Hey howcome Brits deride us Yanks for saying Nicaragwa but themselves pronounce the name of that country’s capital Managwa and not Manag-U-a?

338. Simon on February 17, 2009 1:05 am

     I think the Anglo Saxon word for “ask” was pronounced “aks”, an example of a word reverting to its original form?

339. Pete on February 18, 2009 4:04 am

     new englander, college grad, “nuther” is my favorite word.

     personal survey results:
     1. ?
     2. anyways is a word.
     3. i say arKipelago
     4. i say artik
     5. i say both. i use the hard c to connote fancy accessories.
     6. it’s ask.
     7. it’s asterisk.
     8. it’s ath-lete
     9. i say barb-dwire.
     10. i say cash.
     11. i say caNidate with a slighlty sharper n than cannibal.
     12. it’s cavalry.
     13. it’s kayos.
     14. i say clothes and close the same.
     15. i say dI-us.
     16. i say dI-late but dI-uhl-ated.
     17. drownded is a fun word, like brung.
     18. i say eh-tsetera.
     19. i say febyooary
     20. i say foley-edge.
     21. i say fortay.
     22. i say both. holl==hall and is just a relaxed version of Hal.
     23. it’s heighT.
     24. it’s haynus.
     25. i say hi-rar-kee or hi-er-ark-ee
     26. it’s illinoy.
     27. never heard “interpretate.”
     28. it’s incident.
     29. i never use irregardless or regardless. i say anyways. i’m willing to accept this one on the flammable/inflammable principle.
     30. i say jool-ry
     31. i say library and libry depending on speed. never liberry.
     32. i say mid-eevuhl and midee-eevuhl, the latter to sound more formal.
     33. i say minuhcher for the adjective and mineeuhchers for the noun. most of the time.
     34. i say mis-chiv-us
     35. i say neesh.
     36. i say or-ee-yent.
     37. i say old-fashioned when speaking cleary.
     38. it’s pik-cher. you might catch me saying pitcher quickly. i cringe at piksher.
     39. i say pruh-sipitation or prss-sipitation.
     40. i say pruh-scription or prss-scription.
     41. never heard ‘preventive’. preventative is the word i use.
     42. it’s pro-nun-ciation
     43. it’s prostate.
     44. i say reel-ter. the ads say reel-tor and sound reel funny.
     45. i say anyways.
     46. i say both sherbet and sherbert, and always wish i has said the other.
     47. never heard ‘spayded’. it’s spade.
     48. i say both tiklish and tick-le-ish
     49. i use the word tract correctly but sometimes the second t is lost.
     50. i say vee-yik-le
     51. i say both words, wintry and wintery, but wintry seems too poetic.

340. stephen lewis on February 19, 2009 3:04 am

     I think that was an excellent article. I learned it all in Mrs. Rhoades ‘ class in 8th grade. She made a “difference” in me saying “differnce”. Born and raised in Dixie- I’ve heard it all. Ever heard this word -”Iapeeonye!” ? It’s actually a warning to all from a three-year-old backed into a corner by aggravating, but loving, siblings. It is pronounced “I-will-pee-on-you” in proper English.

341. Adam on February 21, 2009 5:01 am

     CAUTION! This source does not seem to be trustworthy. For example, the word “height.” Yes, the majority of Americans do pronounce this word with a final -t. This pronunciation is considered standard and acceptable. However, to pronounce it with a final -th is absolutely not incorrect. In fact, it is the older and more conservative pronunciation (preferred). Here, the final -t pronunciation is simply a mispronunciation that occurred for so long that it eventually became accepted alongside the true pronunciation with -th. This sound shift (from -t to -th in this case) is similar to the whine-wine merger (e.g. “which,” where the less common pronunciation wh- is preferable and the more common w- acceptable).
     -Source: English teacher, Linguist

342. Count Ludwig on February 26, 2009 5:16 pm

     If ‘dificile’ is to be pronounced ‘difikilay’ then should ‘et cetera’ be pronounced ‘et ketera’?
     In every romance language: Portuguese, Spanish, French, Romantsch, Italian, Romanian and even the relevant English (e.g. in Roman place names in Britain), an ‘i’ or ‘e’ following a ‘c’ or ‘g’ softens it, whereas ‘o’, ‘u’ and ‘a’ do not. These languages are all independently derived from Latin, and the simplest explanation is that Latin had the same rule.
     So I will continue to believe that Julius Caesar said “veni vidi vitchi” until I see compelling evidence is to the contrary.

343. Ryan on March 1, 2009 11:22 pm

     Count Ludwig, through a diachronic analysis of the Romance languages, and study of ancient scripts, it’s pretty clear that in Classical Latin, C and G always represented velar stops. One major indication is that the Romance languages have “softened” the letters differently. So, which rule did Latin have? The answer is that there was originally only a hard C/G, and they were softened in the various Romance languages through a process called palatalization. To illustrate another major indication of the velar C/G, let’s look at the word Celt. It’s properly pronounced with the velar C, and the Celts were called Κελτοί (Κeltoi) by the Greeks, indicating the proper pronunciation pretty clearly.

344. Sarah on March 31, 2009 5:26 am

     You forgot Tourniquet. American’s say it as TORN-I-KET while the French and English say it TORN-I-KAY.

345. jen b on April 3, 2009 8:34 pm

     Can we add the annoying way some people say EEE-taly for Italy??

346. Mick Grantham on April 17, 2009 6:25 am

     The pronunciation of words with a “u”, or “oo” sound as an “ee” sound makes me cringe. There’s a broadcaster on BBC World called Sue Broom. She pronounces her own name as “Sea Bream” – which is a fish! Recently I heard a broadcaster refer to the appointment of a “security expert” for MI5 as ” the nee kee” ( the new “Q”, Q – as in James Bond movies) and ask the question, “what exactly will the nee kee dee……? ” Anyone else irritated by this sort of thing or am I just far too pedantic?

347. Mick Grantham on April 20, 2009 12:50 am

     What about the use by so many broadcasters of “phenomena” when they mean “phenomenon”?

348. Philip on May 24, 2009 11:14 pm

     Sherbet comes from “sorbet,” but can also be spelled “sherbert,” with the extra r. So…yeah.

349. minky boodle on May 27, 2009 4:21 pm

     actually, the french word “Cache” has an accent over the E, so techinically, it IS pronounced “cash-AY” ;oP

350. joe on June 23, 2009 3:52 am

     Preventative is a correct pronunciation.

     pre⋅ven⋅tive
       /prɪˈvɛntɪv/ [pri-ven-tiv]
     –adjective
     1.Medicine/Medical. of or noting a drug, vaccine, etc., for preventing disease; prophylactic.
     2.serving to prevent or hinder: preventive measures.
     –noun
     3.Medicine/Medical. a drug or other substance for preventing disease.
     4.a preventive agent or measure.
     Also, pre⋅vent⋅a⋅tive  /prɪˈvɛntətɪv/ [pri-ven-tuh-tiv] Show IPA (for defs. 2, 4).

351. thegnu on June 25, 2009 1:25 pm

     I, like some other commentors, take a descriptive view of language. I do think that this list is good for people to be aware of, especially in the case where mispronunciation results in pronunciation of another word. However, I also know that people pronounce February Feb-yoo-ary, and it’s no big deal, since language evolves.

     Plenty of things we say are incorrect by standards 100 years old.

352. Philip Dragonetti on July 8, 2009 1:29 pm

     I just came across your “mispronunciations” list—so I’ll belatedly give you a pet peeve of mine, one that particularly annoys me because I am a classical pianist.

     A pianist (PYA-nist) plays the piano.
     A PEE-nist plays the Peenis.

353. Don on July 13, 2009 6:11 pm

     This refers to a 4-word phrase rather than a single word, but it is very widely misspoken by people referring to or someone or something that is very unimportant to them. “I could care less” meaning I have the ability to care less about the matter.
     What people really mean to say is “I couldn’t care less” meaning I care so little about the matter, that I am incapable of caring less than I do.

354. Lucien on July 25, 2009 9:42 am

     An important name is not yet mentioned. Last name: Christensen, as in Helena, the famous Danish model or a few dozen others with the same name. Most American pronounce “Christiansen”, but the name has 3, not 4 syllables. It’s Chris-ten-sen. It annoys me to no end when it’s pronounced wrong.

355. jo on July 27, 2009 7:53 am

     An interesting debate. As a Native British English speaker I used to find the American way of speaking annoying. I didn’t understand why they couldn’t pronounce everything correctly. Then I grew up!

     American English is different to British English. They are evolving. But, evolution is a good thing. We can understand each other, and that’s what matters.

     I don’t think the article is elitist. For people learning a language these types of articles are very important. I am learning Dutch and I find any information on pronounciation very helpful.

356. Patricia on August 3, 2009 6:06 pm

     People sometimes confuse cache with cachet, but I’d be thrilled if no one ever uttered ‘sherbert’ again.

357. Jenna on August 3, 2009 9:07 pm

     When someone sneezes, most people say “BLESH YOU”. It’s “Bless you”.

358. Cliff Hathcock on August 13, 2009 8:53 pm

     I cringe to hear “strenth” in place of “streNGth.”

359. Kim on August 15, 2009 12:28 am

     “On a personal level, I cringe when I hear someone sound the “t” in often or pronounce pecan with a short “a,” but I have to acknowledge that both these pronunciations are widely accepted alternate pronunciations that can be justified by the spelling.”

     Actually, most Americans pronounce these words that way. You must be from some hick state like North Carolina.

360. Andrew on August 15, 2009 9:05 pm

     As a student of linguistics it saddens me every time I hear or read an argument like this. It is extremely derisive towards other English varieties and assumes that written language is inherently linked with spoken word; which it is most certainly not, just look at all the non-literate societies, and most of the languages in the world are unwritten. Varieties (dialects) develop their own pronunciations based on cultural and historical influences and it is opinions like the one in this article that perpetuate inequalities and discrimination against stigmatized minority groups like AAE speakers.

     Please explore more about the social and psychological aspects of language before pronouncing your judgment.

361. another linguistics student on August 17, 2009 4:06 pm

     if “almost everyone you know” says feb-u-ary instead of feb-ru-ary, perhaps the former is truly the more standard form, at least according to “what is widely agreed upon to be the conventional usage.”

     there are so many things i’d love to comment on, but i’ll focus on number 6: ask vs. aks. the modern switching of the /s/ and /k/ phonemes can be explained by a perfectly natural process called “metathesis” (pronounced, if you care, met-AH-thuh-sis). every language and dialect of a language has a particular syntactical and phonetic structure, and in many dialects, the phoneme structure /sk/ is a very unnatural one. thus the letters are switched to the more natural /ks/.

     however, the original metathesis was actually the switching of /ks/ to the now more standard /sk/. the old english form of “ask” was “acsian” or “axian.” thus, when america was colonized, the pronunciation “aks” was standard. while the word shifted almost solely to “ask” in the northern states by the 1950s or so, it is still common to hear “aks” in southern US states.

     so, if you want to get technical, “aks” speakers are actually closer to the original pronunciation of the english word.

362. carol on August 21, 2009 4:04 pm

     Hi, i find this post very interesting. I have always believed that a public speaker must, at all times, send a clear message and a clear pronunciation of words is a very essential part to make it happen. some pronunciation the writer pointed out, i find weird but yes, some public speakers do need to straighten up their pronunciation of difficult words to avoid miscommunication between the speaker and his or her audience.

363. louie jerome on August 25, 2009 3:01 pm

     I agree with One Nights Stanza and a few others. This is really geared to American English.

364. Mick Grantham on September 7, 2009 7:09 am

     Why have American broadcasters begun to pronounce the definite article “the” before vowel sounds as though it came before a consonant sound e.g. “thu eye”, thu only one”? And, to compound the error, British broadcasters are also doing it!
     I’ve also noticed British broadcasters coming out with “right now”.
     On the positive side, it appears that Sue Broom(e) from BBC World Service is no longer a fish.
     Am I pedantic? Yes, I bloody well am!

365. Jamie on September 8, 2009 12:43 am

     Behemoth. I consistently hear it pronounced BO-HE-MOTH. And a huge one is Muslim. It is pronounced: Muss-lim (like the Puss in Puss-in-Boots) not Muss-lim (like you mussed your hair) or Moz-lem, or Muz-lim.
     And while we’re in that part of the world, it’s EER-AHK (for Iraq) not EYE-RAK or variations thereof. It’s also EER-AHN for Iran.

     Also, golf (the sport) being pronounced as “gulf” like Gulf of Mexico.

366. Kim on September 11, 2009 12:30 am

     When people say “x presso” for espresso.

367. WizeChik on September 11, 2009 12:33 am

     Just a note I’m not the same Kim who commented on August 15 2009. I’ll go by WizeChik then, to differentiate.
     

368. WizeChik on September 11, 2009 1:03 am

     Okay … how about saying “x presso” for espresso?

     Also, when did the word “behaviour” become countable? It used to just be in the psychology field but now so many people are saying that.
     I just always thought of “behaviour” as a collective word for actions and types of conduct.

369. Stylas on September 22, 2009 3:35 pm

     Who cares if people pronounce words differently because of their regional accent!?! – I can’t believe anyone would cringe when they here a T in often – surely it can be pronounced with or without a T.

     People from Newcastle pronounce the L in film so it sounds almost like fil um – is that wrong? Southern English people pronounce castle as car sul whereas northerners pronounce it cas ul. Either way, no one seems to be pronouncing the T but like Joshua (December 2, 2008 7:04 pm) wrote the T was dropped from many words a long time ago.

     I am sure I’ve never heard anyone pronounce the first R in February, just as I’ve never heard anyone pronounce the first D or N in Wednesday.

     I do agree that some of the 50 words are mispronounced e.g. adding an extra syllable to interpret to make it interpretate. This is almost as ridiculous as when Bush said ‘they misunderestimated me’ in Arkansas in 2000.

     The following list is of words that I have heard mispronounced – whatever the accent of the person saying them. (WARNING: If you read on, you may cringe to death):

     Specific pronounced Pacific
     Priority pronounced Piratey
     Use pronounced Nuse
     Chimney pronounced Chimley
     Little pronounced likkle
     Capital pronounced Capikal
     Children pronounced Trildren
     Remember pronounced Renember
     Skeleton pronounced Skellington

370. S. Greenberg on September 25, 2009 8:22 pm

     I don’t think mispronunciations should be avoided at all costs necessarily. Dialects and colloquialisms are part of what makes reading, writing, and the english language fun and interesting. If Mark Twain had avoided mispronunciation, some of the greatest works of American literature would have been lost forever.

     Bottom line is that language is based around the way people talk. When we stress to make our language “correct,” we can sometimes lose part of what it was we were saying in the first place.

     I’m not advocating poor speech by any means. Specifically, it’s really important to have good communication skills in the workplace, or in academics. Conversationally and in the field of creative writing, I say anything goes. when fictional characters sound like real people, writing is just more interesting.

371. Shallan on September 29, 2009 5:25 pm

     I would agree that for the most part, a person’s pronunciation and dialect are derived from the region in which they grew up.
     I am from British Columbia and find that we pronounce words very similar to the way they are pronounced in Britain.
     I generally forgive most mispronunciations, but I’ll never be able to tolerate “axe”. I’m sorry, but that’s just ignorant and anyone who doesn’t know the correct way to pronounce the word “ask” correctly should be sterilized before they pass on that particular trait.
     “Realtor” is also another pet peeve of mine. Sound it out people… it’s “re-al-tor”. It’s terrifying when even the hosts on HGTV (who should know better) pronounce it “re-la-tor”.

372. robb on October 5, 2009 7:25 am

     huhuhu i’ve got half of these wrong.

373. Fiona on October 22, 2009 3:19 pm

     Anyone mentioned ‘specific’?

     I feel my skin itch when people say ‘pacific’ instead of specific!

374. Desi on October 25, 2009 8:31 pm

     some of my peeves include

     than and then
     I don’t understand how people can get them mixed up, they aren’t they same word, and they aren’t said the same!! THAAAN and THEEEN.

     Also, specific and pacific. NO.

     Our and are. Our is not said are.

     Tooken instead of taken. I know adults who say this. I don’t even know what to think when I hear that.

375. stuart on November 3, 2009 6:37 am

     trait – French, the final t is not pronounced, say tray, not trate.

376. Sharon on November 3, 2009 11:33 pm

     I knew some folks in the mountains of Pennsylvannia who used to say “bedroom suit” vs. “bedroom suite” — they knew it was spelled “suite” and still said “suit.” I just couldn’t figure out how that happened.

377. Sharon on November 3, 2009 11:34 pm

     Yep – Pennsylvania…typo…ironic.

378. Richard on November 7, 2009 2:19 am

     For years I would say “seeg” instead of SEG-WAY for the word segue. I am now an example to others.

379. Scott on November 8, 2009 4:05 am

     Excusing bad English by brushing it off as a dialect is highly incorrect. I remember a column in my university newspaper in which the writer (who was Black, by the way) made the following observation: “Jive is a dialect. Ebonics is just bad English.”
     While the word “ask” may have an interesting history, the fact is this: it is spelled A S K. It’s not polysyllabic, nor in any other way does it lend itself to slurring or anything like that.

380. Yankee transplant on November 16, 2009 12:20 am

     All I can say is, Maeve, don’t move to northwest Arkansas. (Though that is one word they do pronounce correctly here.)

     Nearly every word you list is pronounced the “incorrect” way here, on a regular basis, by everyone, as well as a few other pronunciations like “gub-ment” for government.

     I cringe all the time, having had an English teacher for a father, but I’ve also learned to pronounce some of these words colloquially in order to “get along.”

381. Justin on December 3, 2009 2:52 pm

     Irrespective of local dialect and custom, the term REALTOR® has but one pronunciation:
     REAL’ tor

382. yitzk on December 15, 2009 6:40 am

     For the record, though I don’t know if anyone’s mentioned this yet:

     Your description of ‘aegis’ says that we ought pronounce it as ee-jis. But in the original Ancient Greek it begins with an eta (which becomes ae in English for some reason), a long ‘e’ sound. The eta isn’t quite an ei dipthong, it’s more like a short ‘e’ pronounced twice as long. aegis might sound something like eh-gis in the original Greek. There is no ee sound. So, to be fair, pronouncing it ay-jis is actually more accurate than ee-jis. But, hey, to each their own.

383. Monte on December 15, 2009 9:57 pm

     I’m constantly amazed at realtors on HGTV saying they are “real-a-tors”. Reminds me of the old joke “Six munts ago I couldn’t even spell ingenur and now I are one”.

384. Loretta Hocking on December 21, 2009 9:58 pm

     My number one pet hate (word-wise) is when my fellow Australians say, “bought” when they mean, “brought”. (I don’t hear people from other English speaking countries mis-use this word). We also cannot seem to pronounce, “polka dot”. It comes out as, “poker dot”.

     When I have corrected people with the use of bought and brought, I received blank stares. One friend, who is aged in her mid sixties asked me, “what’s the difference?” She honestly thought bought and brought meant the same.

385. Barry on December 24, 2009 6:57 pm

     The pronunciation which annoys me is “schedule” with a hard ‘ch’ – ‘sKedule’ rather than ‘SHedule’

     I do understand both are acceptable, but ‘sKedule’ sounds vulgar and should be banned.

     On a serious note, thought provoking article and comments; interesting to see the different repsonses!

386. Vicki on January 6, 2010 3:15 pm

     The word is “forward”, not “foward.” There’s an “r” in there. I hear it pronounced incorrectly all the time on tv. Especially cable news reporters. It drives me crazy.

387. Mick Grantham on January 20, 2010 1:21 am

     Here I am again going on about the pronunciation of broadcasters, especially American, and it’s spreading to the British. I really want to know why. I live in Thailand and, unfortunately, have to endure the Asian version of CNN with its interminably repeated commercials and trails. Same goes for BBC World. But why oh why do these people insist on using glottal stops, e.g. “a x-ray”, “in the blink of a eye”, “a architect”, and, “thu exact reason”, etc? Does anyone else care? Really, I’d just appreciate “a explanation”, or even that somebody’s noticed.

388. George in Savannah on January 20, 2010 6:18 pm

     A friend once mocked my pronunciation of theater. I said “thee AY ter” instead of “THEE a ter”. What is the difference between theatre and theater and how do you pronounce each?

389. ailaG on January 20, 2010 8:26 pm

     AFAIK, “theatre” is the British spelling, “theater” is the American one.

     If you’re talking about which syllable is longer (like the difference between “shopping” and the composer “Chopin”) I only heard people pronounce “THEE atr”.
     But maybe it’s pronounced that way in another English accent.. There are plenty of different English accents even for native speakers.

     BTW, if you have a Mac, run the application called “Terminal” and type: “say theater”.

390. Nick on January 21, 2010 8:12 pm

     Temperature [Temp-er-uh-cher] not [Temp-uh-cher]

     I hear the Weatherman/Meteorologists say this on the news and it drives me nuts.

391. abby on February 12, 2010 2:37 am

     the reason the medical profession pronounces centimeter “sontimeter” is because it is the French pronunciation. They’re not stupid…it’s medical tradition. A lot of medical words are pronounced differently than phonetics would prescribe.

392. abby on February 12, 2010 3:05 am

     yitzk “But in the original Ancient Greek it begins with an eta (which becomes ae in English for some reason), a long ‘e’ sound. ”

     I haven’t looked the word up in the Greek, but if it begins with eta, you don’t know that it has a long ‘e’ sound. You only know that that is the sound that Erasmus gave to the eta.

     Although no one can know exactly how the ancient Greeks pronounced their language, consider that the New Testament of the Bible was written in Greek, and even though individual Greeks didn’t own their own Bibles in ancient times, the priests read from the Bible, and the Greeks heard it spoken in the churches.

     Because of the continuity of the usage of the language, I would have to suppose that the pronunciation of a Greek word by a modern Greek would be much closer to the original than the pronunciation that Erasmus came up with.

     The eta, in modern Greek, has an “i” sound, like the “i” in “machine,” same as a Spanish “i.” Transliterated, it would be spelled “ita,” not “eta.”

     Despite the Roman or Greek sound of his name, Erasmus was a Dutchman who lived in the 15th/16th centuries.

     He chose an “ay” sound for the “ita” to differentiate it from the several other “i” sounds in Greek, to try to mitigate confusion among scholars. That doesn’t mean it’s correct!

393. PamB on February 18, 2010 2:30 am

     Come to Australia and hear “pitcher” for “picture”, “cock-a-roach” for “cockroach”, “haitch” (constantly) for “aitch”, “filum” for “film” (although now not so often), “Feb-u-ary” for “February” (I do say Feb-roo-ry. English is hard enough to spell without pronunciation making it even more difficult. Standardising language makes it that much easier for kids to learn to spell. In learning another language, you learn a “standard” form – why can’t we accept some standard of English. I think most mis-pronunciation is simply laziness. When corrected, the defence then is, as I’ve read in so many of the comments, “you’re elitist” etc. What rot. Imagine if we approached science or maths with the same attitude!

394. ailaG on February 18, 2010 3:49 pm

     PamB, people will always pronounce words differently in different places. It’s just like how words are different in different countries. It depends on the society and the area itself.

     If, for example, there’s a certain way to pronounce the name of some common type of snow in Alaska, I still won’t use it because it never snows in my country. I’ll use the word snow for every type and I won’t pronounce it like Alaskans may because I won’t hear it said enough times to imitate it.

     People also often try to make common words efficient. So if you can skip a vowel on a common word you probably will. And if that word isn’t so common where I live, I probably won’t.

     And you can’t force it on people.. not even through the education system.

395. Highheels on February 18, 2010 3:58 pm

     My pet peev is when I hear someone say, “It’s in the frigerator” instead of , “it is in the re-frigerator.”

     I am curious about whether it is correct to say, I am going down Maine vs. up Maine when you live in MA.

     I was told a long time ago it was correct to say, down Maine.

396. abby on February 18, 2010 6:50 pm

     Highheels,

     Oops….I’ve almost always said “It’s in the frig (pronounced”fridge”)… even though I have plenty of pet peeves myself, this has never been one of them.

     I’m originally from San Francisco, and although I don’t mind if someone refers to that fair city as San Fran …. it really grates when someone calls it “Frisco.”

397. graham on March 9, 2010 12:44 am

     I have a feeling you grew up in the south, because I hear all these words mispronounced just like this. (Maryland, but a hick part, not a fun part) I bet the list would be different if you lived in New York

398. umber on March 23, 2010 9:33 pm

     Re

     333.mo-z on January 31, 2009 4:35 pm
     I hear TV news people pronounce the name of that city in Nevada as ‘Loss Vegas.’ Shouldn’t it be pronounced ‘Las Vegas’ with an ‘A’ and not with an ‘O’? I wonder if they’re basing the pronunciation on Los Angeles?

     Funny enough, “Loss” Vegas is closer to correct and “LOHS”, rhymes with dose, Angeles would be closer to correct for LA. That is, of course, if you are trying to speak Spanish for some reason. The cities have been in the US for over 160 years so pronouncing them both “loss” is English and fine. We don’t say Amareeyo, Texas, either (Amarillo). Or Lohs Ang-hay-lees, for that matter.

399. al on March 27, 2010 3:38 am

     English don’t pronunciate equally as write… that’s is because all of this errors and explain how can be so many dyslexic people speak english….

     caos ártico en caché medieval

     very funny. seems to bad joke…hahaha

     p.d. if my comment has got grammatic or sintaxis faults…. well, you don’t write three languages isn’t?

400. umber on March 30, 2010 9:14 pm

     Very good topic and list. General observations:

     1. aegis and 5. accessory –Here are two examples where simple knowledge of the rules (which, granted, schools won’t teach anymore) would eliminate the issue. “Ae” when preserved in modern spelling is pronounced like a long e (ee). It’s also EESOP’s Fables, not AYSOP’s. In a CC formation, the first is pronounced as a K. The second is pronounced as either a K or an S depending upon what letter follows it, just like the rule for any other C pronunciation. So, aKSelerate, oKSidentel, suKSess, and, properly, flaKSid. (not flassid). And oKKupy, aKKredit, etc. If the rules were known, a lot of mispronunciation would never exist to begin with. As it is, the “semi-literate” just see something spelled, and guess. OFFen badly (there’s a rule there too. Would you pronounce the F in “soften”?)

     14. clothes – Not so sure on this one. A couple of authorities actually assert CLOHZ, same as close, as correct, not just preferable to pronouncing the TH. The proper pronunciations of asthma and isthmus (definitely AZ-MA and IZ-MUS) might be relevant here as a general rule specific to THs. Merriam and another place CLOHZ first before CLOHTHZ.

     26. Illinois and Arkansas–NOTE: Some unknowledgeable folks may still be trying to pronounce Arkansas as if it had something to do with Kansas. The pronunciation /ar-kan-zuz/ is waaay off base.

     Actually, not so off-base. The RIVER, as opposed to the state, is properly pronounced AR-KANZUS
     in Kansas and Colorado. The river is the Arkansaw in Arkansas.

     35. niche – Sorry, I don’t hear the crying out. This fits well with the “many words of French origin that have been anglicized” and should be pronounced NITCH. Likewise EN-velope and EN-voy, not ON-velope or ON-voy, GILL-a-teen, not GEE-o-teen. (GUEE-o-teen, I guess).

     37. old-fashioned – This adjective is formed from a past-participle: “fashioned.” Don’t leave off the ED. Say /OLD-FASHIOND/, not /old-fashion/.

     Not necessarily. The cocktail, I will agree, is always an old-fashioned. But just like a teenage boy and a teenaged boy are equally annoying and grammatically correct (though spellchecks will often ding the –ED version in this case) it’s fine to describe something as “old fashion” in most cases. Just because something is used as an adjective does not mean it always needs an –ED tag. Yellow-fin tuna, Big-mouth bass, are swimming though not perfect examples.

401. Hollis on April 2, 2010 2:29 am

     Mostly with younger people:
     Ex. Clayton = Cla N (with some weird breath halt in between syllables)
     Milton = Mil N
     cotton= cot n

402. bah on April 8, 2010 1:30 am

     my teacher AL-WAYS says A-WAYS its really annoying to me. wow like nails on a chalkboard

403. Kelly on April 9, 2010 12:04 pm

     Great list (plus great comments that follow it). Note: there is an acceptable spelling “preventative” (in addition to “preventive”) that obviously would allow the pronunciation that you disallow.

     You really should provide the reference for your corrections since not all sources agree.

404. Cecily on April 16, 2010 7:09 am

     Regarding “orientate” and “preventative”, several people have pointed out that they are in Merriam-Webster. More to the point, they are the more normal forms in British English – though we are broad minded enough to accept both.

     Regarding “cache”, whilst I agree with the pronunciation you recommend, it would be helpful to compare it with “cachet”, which IS pronounced “cash-ay”.

     A good one to add would be “clique” which in BrE should be pronounced “cleek”, but is often mispronounced as “click”.

     Finally, I wonder why the list isn’t alphabetical; that would have been far more useful.

405. umber on April 16, 2010 1:34 pm

     I agree that Br vs. Am standards need to be considered. E.g. “orientate” is simply wrong in AE (wouldn’t say “tranportate” either), but is the standard in BE. Likewise the comment above by someone re pronouncing sKedule– which is standared AE– as opposed to BE SHedule. In that case AE is more consistent with sch’s as sk’s (Ams also say skism for schism, but Brits don’t say SHool for school). Brits, OTOH, are much more consistent with enunciating the ILE endings, whereas Ams are lawless– always saying miss’l, but can’t seem to decide between frag’l and fragILE, or jueven’l and juvenILE. I don’t necessarily agree about clique. Yes, the French pronunciation is cleek, but we aren’t speaking French and the word has been in English for a long time. Brits say fillET, rhymes with skillet, after all, not fillAY,– and Ams should too, for that matter.

406. grrrrr on May 21, 2010 2:01 pm

     Orientate is normal in the UK!!!!!!!

407. umber on May 21, 2010 4:40 pm

     If you are referring to me, grrrr that is the same as what I said: ““orientate” is simply wrong in AE (wouldn’t say “tranportate” either), but is the standard in BE.” I assume they speak BE in the UK. A question would be, tho, WHY Brits say this. The verb which creates the word, after all, is “to orient”. Why the unnecessary elongation? Likewise preventative ( or do Brits say “preventate”, too?).

408. Cecily on May 21, 2010 6:55 pm

     @Umber: No, we don’t say “preventate”. LOL

     As to why we Brits add an extra syllable to make “orientate” and “preventative”, I have no idea, but if you’re looking for logic and consistency in language, English may not be the best one to look at.

409. umber on May 26, 2010 2:43 pm

     LOL Cecily. You are right, English isn’t an exemplar of consistency in much of anything. There are rules, tho. More than most people realize. My point is that if people knew them, many of these problems wouldn’t exist. And BE and AE have some different rules, and that’s fine. I would only say, Don’t say ‘orientate’ if you are an American. Just like an Am shouldn’t say aluminium, jewellery, or speciality. If you are a Brit, then fine. No different from spelling, color/colour, center/centre. If you are British and say orientate, it means nothing. If you are American and say orientate, you’re illiterate or you have an affectation.

410. amy on June 3, 2010 2:33 am

     i didn’t read all the comments, so someone may have already suggested these, but I HATE when people say

     “Exspecially” instead of especially
     “Expresso” instead of espresso
     “Supposebly” instead of supposedly

     and you got all the others. good post.

411. Peter on June 3, 2010 9:51 am

     @abby: Although no one can know exactly how the ancient Greeks pronounced their language, consider that the New Testament of the Bible was written in Greek, and even though individual Greeks didn’t own their own Bibles in ancient times, the priests read from the Bible, and the Greeks heard it spoken in the churches.

     Because of the continuity of the usage of the language, I would have to suppose that the pronunciation of a Greek word by a modern Greek would be much closer to the original than the pronunciation that Erasmus came up with.

     That would be a bad supposition. The specific sound shifts in Greek leading from the classical to the modern pronunciations can be traced fairly accurately (by looking at, e.g., the kinds of spelling errors people made, and how Greek words were represented in other languages): the change from a mid open /e/-ish eta to the modern /i/ sound can be dated to around AD150.

     He chose an “ay” sound for the “ita” to differentiate it from the several other “i” sounds in Greek, to try to mitigate confusion among scholars. That doesn’t mean it’s correct!

     That wasn’t the reason; he was trying to reconstruct the pronunciation of ancient Greek as well as he was able…though the common English pronunciation of Greek isn’t actually based on Erasmus at all, but a couple of Cambridge men, John Cheke and Thomas Smith, a couple of decades later…and they didn’t do a bad job, in fact, except that it got caught in up the “Great Vowel Shift”, and the sounds of Greek got shifted too, making English Greek rather weird.

     @Hollis: Ex. Clayton = Cla N (with some weird breath halt in between syllables)

     The “weird breath halt” is called a “glottal stop”, and is normal in some dialects.

     @Cecily: As to why we Brits add an extra syllable to make “orientate” and “preventative”

     Something that fixes is a fixative; something that causes is causative; something that demonstrates is demonstrative; something that evokes is evocative …. Following the obvious rule, something that prevents is preventative. The question is why Americans don’t say “fixive”, “causive”, “evocive”, etc.

412. Cecily on June 3, 2010 9:56 am

     @Peter: I don’t know if your answer to my question is based on fact, but it’s certainly ingenious and plausible. Thanks.

413. Peter on June 3, 2010 9:59 am

     umber: Just like an Am shouldn’t say aluminium

     IUPAC (International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry), which defines the standard names of chemicals, says that “aluminium” is the proper name of that particular element; it was called “aluminium” in American English until the 1920s; and Americans don’t drop the “i” in any other element names: it’s still “helium” not “helum”; “lithium” not “lithum”, “beryllium” not “beryllum”, “titanium” not “titanum”, and so on…I think Americans should start saying and writing “aluminium” correctly again

414. Lexi on June 6, 2010 3:05 pm

     So you might not have meant to do this but this was the most pretentious article I have ever read. You sound really snobby and condescending.

     In today’s society, what is considered “proper English” isn’t used in casual conversation. The English language continues to grow and change. So when people start using different pronunciations, they generally become alternate pronunciations. Most regions have their own way of saying different words. It’s not wrong, it’s just what happens.

     In 100 years, the English language might be unrecognizable from how it is today, in the same way that English 100 years ago is very different.

415. Böb on June 7, 2010 5:59 pm

     Could have missed it but has anyone mentioned “err”, often heard as “ayr”, though I know both are acceptable acc. to Websters.

     Also, there’s TET-ni-cal, sometimes heard for technical, and “BUTT naked” for buck naked.

     These are all pronunciations that are termed sub-standard just as there are massive numbers of substandard usages: for example, the much misused “…for you and I.” Can’t we honestly insist that prepositions call for objective pronoun objects, or is that being too elitist as well?

     I also have a pet peeve about certain proper names like Carnegie. Andrew Carnegie pronounced his name Car-NEGG-ee, and that is how many of us say it. But in NYC and many other places it’s KAAH-nuhg-ee.

416. umber on June 8, 2010 6:59 pm

     Peter, good points. All I can say is the answer is idiom: as far as aluminum goes (and I guess if it “goes” 8 or 9 letters is the question!) I’d say once that spelling became standard in AE, the pronunciation was permanently fixed. Likewise prevent-(at)ive, altho, preventative is not “wrong” in AE, just not preferred by most scources (maybe a false comparison to conservatism vs. conservativism– the last being unacceptable in AE). Orient is, however, a verb that stands on its own (and is simply idiomatic so far as “direction” generally goes, as well, I would guess. Couldn’t we occident or occidentate just as accurately? I’m just guessing at etymology). Two pet peeves of mine I’ve not seen addressed here are species, which should be speSHies by the rules of AE, and is nearly universally mispronounced speSSies anymore. Why it is a speSSial case, at least on this side of the oSSean I don’t know. altho negoSSiating things that are controverSSial are becoming more and more commonplace, too amongst those who only parSSially (?) know the rules. I know that this iSHue may be a different iSSYue for Brits.

417. umber on June 8, 2010 7:15 pm

     Lexi, why should standard pronunciation be treated any differently from standard spelling? Should that be regionalized and personalized, too? Whair aim frum, its oekae tu rite like thiss? Learning standard pronunciations is more “snobbish” than literacy is “elitist”. When writing informally, we make less of formal rules of grammar and of spelling. How r u is typical text-ese nowdays. But when we are writing in a more erudite context or a professional forum, we would not do that– unless we just didnt’ know the proper rules. Why shouldn’t speaking be the same? It’s one thing to speak informally in an informa context, another to not know the difference.

     Bob– I sympathize, tho (informal spelling alert!) in cases likr “butt naked” I don’t think you have pronunciation errors, really, but simply ignorance of what the words ARE. I doubt many think the word buck is pronounced butt. But I’ll bet a lot don’t know what “buck” naked would mean. Likewise, “tow the line”, “anchors away”, “a wolf in cheap clothing”, “if you want to that, it’s your purgative”, cuz it’s a “doggy dog world”, etc.

418. Ryu Darragh on June 10, 2010 6:56 pm

     #51, Wintry has the pronounciation as “Win-try” and this is also not quite right. Its normal pronounciation is “wint-re” with “wint” pronounced like “mint”. The root word is, after all, “wint-er”.

419. umber on June 11, 2010 1:03 pm

     ryu, I’m not sure I know what distinction you are making. Just the matter of where the syllables should be divided as a point of lexicography? What would the substantive difference in pronunciation be between win.try and wint.ry?

420. Skippy on June 23, 2010 1:17 am

     Count me with the prescriptivists on this one! What’s wrong with trying to be more accurate? Good lord.

     Those of you claiming to be offended that this doesn’t take into account your goofy “regional” or “folksy” pronunciations are simply making (poor and transparent) excuses for your lack of education.

     On the other hand, some of you claiming to be university-educated linguists should simply be ashamed of yourselves. Just because your hippie prof told you it’s “politically correct” to automatically accept any and all pronunciations just because some idiot once decided to say it that way doesn’t mean we’re not allowed to point out that it’s wrong! Nobody’s forcing you to pronounce things the way they were intended. You’re free to sound like a moron if you want. Just don’t throw a hissy fit just because someone has the gall to point out some common mistakes and wants to help you improve.

     Seriously, people! Just bite the bullet and accept that you’re not only wrong, but most likely inbred. And be sure raise your hand before you speak.

421. umber on June 23, 2010 2:15 pm

     By inbred, you mean like royalty, right? I agree. As an American, I notice that royals mispronounce practically everything! LOL

422. Kim on June 23, 2010 7:48 pm

     Oh, Skippy and umber; you’re just proving each other’s point! What does it accomplish?

     On another note, something which drives me nuts is when I hear “I miss not being with you.”
     Does that mean it would be better if I left?

423. umber on June 24, 2010 2:32 pm

     Kim

     Good one. I could care less, irregardless, LOL. I wasn’t trying to make a point with Skippy???

     But I do agree that there is nothing wrong at all in asking for a proper, standard pronunciation of the language in more “formal” contexts. Regional pronunciations and accents are just that– non-standard. They aren’t “wrong” but they shouldn’t be used by educated people in formal settings if they want to be taken seriously. E.g., THEE-AY-ter, as opposed to THE-ater. And most of what is raised here are not regional variations, but just lazy or ignorant mispeaking. E.g.,”Nucular” is not a regional-variant pronunciation; it is simply wrong. There is no context, except the comical, where it is acceptable.

424. umber on June 30, 2010 2:24 pm

     Interesting bit from Elster, who is somewhat of a maven re American English pronunciation, relative to the original 50 List:

     Niche NICH.

     “French no longer,” says Holt (1937). “Rhyme it with ditch.”

     OED 2 (1989) traces niche back to 1611. Since at least the mid-18th century the anglicized NICH has been preferred in cultivated speech. Walker (1791) preferred NICH, and it is the only pronunciation countenanced by Worcester (1860), Funk & Wagnalls Standard (1897), the Century (1914), OED 1 (1928), Webster 2 (1934), American College (1952), and RHWC (1997). Orthoepists who prefer NICH include Ayres (1894), Phyfe (1926), Vizetelly (1929), Opdycke (1939), Kenyon and Knott (1949), Lass & Lass (1976), WNW Guide (1984), and the NBC Handbook (1984). Need I say more?

     Yes. This word’s long history has yielded two alternative pronunciations, NEESH and NISH. The latter is eccentric, the former is pseudo-French, and both are best avoided. NISH, which arose sometime in the 19th century, was stigmatized by Ayres and Opdycke and ignored by other authorities. Webster 3 (1961) lists it, labeling it infrequent, but it does not appear in any current dictionaries. WNW 3 (1997) calls NEESH British (OED 2 does list it after NICH), but I have heard many un-British speakers use it—for example, Ed Koch, the former New York City mayor turned TV judge.* American Heritage 3 (1992) sanctions NEESH as an alternative, but careful speakers would be wise to heed M-W 10 (1993), which gives priority to NICH and labels NEESH with an obelus [÷], indicating that it “is considered by some to be objectionable.” I would argue that those “some” are in fact many, and those many are cultivated speakers who defend their traditional NICH.

425. umber on June 30, 2010 2:27 pm

     Also, (Elster) citing other authorities on the OF-TEN vs OF-EN question. Well researched:

     Often AWF-in or AHF-in. Do not pronounce the t.

     Before I give you my two cents on the t in often, let’s take a look at what various authorities have said about it since the late 18th century.

     John Walker (1791), whose Critical Pronouncing Dictionary was one of the most respected and popular references both in England and America well into the 19th century, declared that “in often and soften the t is silent.”

     “The sounding of the t,” proclaims the legendary H.W. Fowler in Modern English Usage (1926), “which as the OED says is ‘not recognized by the dictionaries,’ is practised by two oddly consorted classes—the academic speakers who affect a more precise enunciation than their neighbours…& the uneasy half-literates who like to prove that they can spell….”

     “The t in glisten is silent, even as it is in castle and often,” says Frank H. Vizetelly (1929), editor of Funk & Wagnalls New Standard (1913), “yet one occasionally hears pedants and provincials pronounce them [GLIS-ten] and [AWF-ten]. No pronouncing dictionary with a reputation to lose ever sounds the t in these words.”

     “You don’t want a t in here any more than in soften,” advises Alfred H. Holt (1937).

     Webster 2 (1934), which sanctions only AWF-in, notes that “the pronunciation [AWF-tin], until recently generally considered as more or less illiterate, is not uncommon among the educated in some sections, and is often used in singing.”

     According to Random House II (1987),

     OFTEN was pronounced with a t- sound until the 17th century, when a pronunciation without the (t) came to predominate in the speech of the educated, in both North America and Great Britain, and the earlier pronunciation fell into disfavor. Common use of a spelling pronunciation has since restored the (t) for many speakers, and today [AWF-in] and [AWF-tin]…exist side by side. Although it is still sometimes criticized, OFTEN with a (t) is now so widely heard from educated speakers that it has become fully standard once again.
     “Nowadays,” says R.W. Burchfield (1996), editor of the OED 2 (1989), “many standard speakers use both [AWF-in] and [AWF-tin], but the former pronunciation is the more common of the two.

     What is going on here? After two hundred years of censure, has the t in often scratched and clawed its way back into acceptability? I would caution those who might be consoled by the comments of Random House II and Burchfield to heed the admonitions of the past and avoid pronouncing the t. Current dictionaries, including Random House II, do not give priority to AWF-tin, and it is much less common in educated speech and far more often disapproved of by cultivated speakers—particularly teachers of English, drama, and speech—than Random House II makes it appear. In 1932 the English lexicographer Henry Cecil Wyld called AWF-tin “vulgar” and “sham-refined,” and today the bad odor of class-conscious affectation still clings to it as persistently as ever. As if that were not enough, analogy is entirely unsupportive: no one pronounces the t in soften, listen, fasten, moisten, hasten, chaste, christen, and Christmas—so, once and for all, let’s do away with the eccentric AWF-tin.

426. Kimberly on July 2, 2010 6:50 pm

     I so frequently hear “the thing is, is”.
     Why say ‘is’ twice? Isn’t it enough to say “the thing is”, then what that thing is?
     “The thing is, I want to move.”
     What’s the extra ‘is’ for?

427. Howard Hartig on July 3, 2010 12:06 am

     1.) Chipotle is chip-ot-lee, not chip-ol-tee!

428. Howard Hartig on July 3, 2010 12:09 am

     Chipotle is chip-ot-lee, not chip-ol-tee.
     Iron is I-ron, not I-orn.
     Mascarpone is mas-car-pone, not mar-sca-pone.

429. Howard Hartig on July 3, 2010 12:13 am

     Chipotle is chip-ot-lee, not chip-ol-tee.
     Iron is I-ron, not I-orn.
     Mascarpone is mas-car-pone, not mar-sca-pone.
     Mirror is mirr-or, not mirrrrrrrrrrrrr…and, finally is three syllables, not fine-ly!

430. umber on July 3, 2010 6:01 pm

     HH, coming from the Sw I am especially bugged by the CHIPOLTEE metathesis, too. Likewise SEPLICHER instead of SEP-UL- CHER for sepulchre, and KUMBER-BUN for KUMMER-BUND, I just put these down to semi-literacy. If attention was paid to how the word is spelled, it would, in these cases, fix the issue. Never mind BAD MITTON for BAT MINTON or, the ominpresent NUKYULAR.

     I have to disagree, tho, re IRON. While irorny is EYE-RON- EE, iron is indeed EYE-ERN (I earn). Spelling is not always the best guide (e.g. the OFF- EN issue above).

431. umber on July 3, 2010 6:02 pm

     Clarification: meant SEP-UL-KER. for sepulchre,

432. abby on July 7, 2010 8:21 pm

     Kimberly, re: “What’s the extra ‘is’ for?”

     The first time I ever heard this was from ex-president Clinton when he was testifying during his impeachment trial.

433. abby on July 7, 2010 8:24 pm

     umber: re: “If attention was paid to how the word is spelled,”

     Your sentence is conditional (“if”). It should read “If attention WERE paid…” not “WAS paid.”

434. umber on July 7, 2010 9:47 pm

     True. In my defense, I am a long-time advocate of abolishing the subjunctive altogether. Likewise 86ing the who/whom horror. AND I promise I PRONOUNCE were and was correctly. Would it were so with all.

435. hz on July 12, 2010 3:45 am

     JD – whilst many have an issue with this article, they all successfully made their points with thoughtful rebuttals and legitimate concerns.

     In your case I guess you used expletives and a personal attack on the author because you had nothing intelligent to say…

436. Peter on July 23, 2010 11:33 am

     As if that were not enough, analogy is entirely unsupportive: no one pronounces the t in soften, listen, fasten, moisten, hasten, chaste, christen, and Christmas—so, once and for all, let’s do away with the eccentric AWF-tin.

     Umm…I pronounce “chaste” with a /t/….how you you pronounce it??

437. venqax on July 23, 2010 12:32 pm

     Good point, Peter. I suspect chasten was what was intended.

438. Jennie Olson on July 23, 2010 6:17 pm

     I am in the medical field. I have another mispronunciation that bothers me….larynx, pronounced (LAR INKS) is often mispronounced lair niks.

439. Mikhael on August 5, 2010 5:36 am

     I’m not sure where everyone is getting these pronunciations for aegis. In English “ay-gis” is probably best because of how many vowels become lengthened for convenience at the start of a word. Someone was saying about the “ae” in English having the same sound as a “ee”. There is no rule for this. In Old English the “ae” was between a short “a” and short “e”. In modern English “ae” can sound “ay” “eh” or “ee”; “ay” is easiest for “aegis”.

     The Greek word is αιγίς, which in modern Greek is pronounced “eh-YIS” or maybe “eh-GHIS” if you really want that “g” sound. The αι diphthong in modern Demotic is pronounced like “ε” which in all forms are Greek is pronounced like a short “e” by itself.

     In ancient Greek the αι is pronounced like a long “i” (“eye”), so the word would sound like “ai-GHIS”.

     There is no eta (long “e” in modern or long “a” in several ancient dialects) in this word.

440. Tony Hearn on August 7, 2010 10:31 am

     I know this is an old posting, but coming across it and re-reading raises some interesting and important issues and reflections that I’d like to share.

     Maeve must have known she was attempting an afternoon’s stroll through a minefield!

     The court of acceptability in English comprises its users. We have no standardizing academy.

     By virtue of its transnational nature we do not have one national standard. Maeve was wise to state her American standpoint. Nonetheless, we do have ad hoc ‘standard’ dialects and in some cases accents too, though these shift with time and fashion. Here in Britain we have traditionally looked to the BBC as a safe guide, though it reflects southern English more often than northern. That said, perhaps a majority of speakers ignore it! Spoken language, therefore, is most governed by acceptability within the social group (from national level down to peer group) or circumstance. This is to some extent reflected in the foregoing postings. There do, even so, seem to be some words the pronunciations of which occasion more or less censure; where, I assume, the members of a majority of the likely social fora and strata find the pronunciation unacceptable. This can be at a national or transnational level. The more general the rejection, the more reason we have to consider such a pronunciation as ‘wrong’, i.e., not conforming to the accepted pattern, or just idiosyncratic.

     English as much as any language is replete with accent and dialect, and for that matter register – governing levels of formality. Most of us fight for what we know, not because it is ‘right’ but because it is familiar and part of our group identity.

     Our dictionaries are no more than descriptive. They record what we say and write. In using then as a court of appeal we do well to remember this.

     The abusive responses of a minority of correspondents while reflecting rudeness and ignorance, also show the limitations of attempts to be prescriptive, as well as the need for education to encourage people to be sensitive to the language they use and how they use it.

     With all this in mind, might I indulge you and your readers a little more with a few reflections on the 50 words, without, I hope, covering afresh ground already well-trodden in the foregoing posts?

     1. aegis: what you say should go for other words with the Latin-derived ‘ae’ pronounced as ‘ee’. Thus larvae (plural of larva): say ‘larv-ee’

     6. ask – The S comes before the K. Say /ASK/ not /aks/.

     Though note that ‘aks’ is widespread and ancient in a number of dialects.

     13. chaos – The spelling ch can represent three different sounds in English: /tch/ as in church, /k/ as in Christmas, and /sh/ as in chef. The first sound is heard in words of English origin and is the most common. The second sound of ch, /k/, is heard in words of Greek origin. The third and least common of the three ch sounds is heard in words adopted from modern French. Chaos is a Greek word. Say /KAY-OS/, not /tchay-os/.

     So also: lichen (say ‘liken’ not litchen’)

     14. clothes – Notice the TH spelling and sound. Say /KLOTHZ/, not /kloz/.

     Here we differ. The ‘t’ has surely been silent in this word for a long time. Poetry and rhyme consistently reflects this. remember your nursery rhyme Sing a Song of Sixpence? ‘ The maid was in the garden, hanging out the clothes, When down came a blackbird and pecked off her nose.’ The reintroduction of the ‘t’ is under the influence of the spelling.

     15. daïs – A daïs is a raised platform. The pronunciation fault is to reverse the vowel sounds. The word is often misspelled as well as mispronounced. Say /DAY-IS/ not /dī-is/.

     And what about ‘naïve’, with or without its diaerisis? NA-EEVE, not ‘NAVE’, please.

     17. drowned – This is the past participle form of the verb drown. Notice that there is no D on drown. Don’t add one when using the word in its past form. Say /DROWND/, not /drown-ded/.

     Though this is widespread in dialect, and therefore non-standard and not per se substandard.

     19. February – Just about everyone I know drops the first r in February. The spelling calls for /FEB-ROO-AR-Y/, not /feb-u-ar-y/.

     If just about everyone you know says it, that points to widespread acceptability!

     21. forte – English has two words spelled this way. One comes from Italian and the other from French. The Italian word, a musical term meaning “loud,” is pronounced with two syllables: /FOR-TAY/. The French word, an adjective meaning “strength” or “strong point,” is pronounced with one syllable: /FORT/.

     British English dictionaries allow both pronunciations in the second instance, and ‘FOR-TAY is by far the more common pronunciation here.

     22. Halloween – The word for the holiday Americans celebrate with such enthusiasm on October 31 derives from “Hallowed Evening,” meaning “evening that has been made holy.” The word “hallow” comes from Old English halig, meaning “holy.” Notice the a in the first syllable and say /HAL-O-WEEN/, not /hol-lo-ween/.

     Agreed. And it is as often spelt ‘Hallowe’en’ here in Britain.

     23. height – The word ends in a /T/ sound, not a /TH/ sound. Say /HITE/, not /hith/.

     Again this reflects non-standard dialect (both in America and Britain) rather than error.

     24. heinous – People unfamiliar with the TV show Law and Order: S.V.U. may not know that heinous has two syllables. (The show begins with this sentence: “In the criminal justice system, sexually based offenses are considered especially heinous.”) Say /HAY-NUS/, not /heen-i-us/.

     ‘HAY-NUS’ is regarded as an error here in Britain. ‘HEE-NUS’ is normal.

     31. library – Notice where the R comes in the word. Say /LI-BRAR-Y/, not /li-ber-ry/.

     Much the same problem as with February!

     32. medieval – The word has four syllables. The first E may be pronounced either short [med] or long [meed]. Say /MED-EE-EEVAL/ or /MEE-DEE-EEVAL/, not /meed-eval/.

     This must be predominantly an American problem. And here in Britain MEEDI- is not an option.

     35. niche – The word is from the French and, though many words of French origin have been anglicized in standard usage, this is one that cries out to retain a long “e” sound and a /SH/ sound for the che. Say /NEESH/, not /nitch/.

     Then there’s ‘trait’ (TRAY or TRAIT?) .

     To which I’d add ‘route’ and ‘router’. OW? OO? OO is usual here in Britain We say ROWT for rout, ROOT (as in French) for ‘route’, and disagree among ourselves about ‘router’, though to be consistent we should say ROOTER! There is a preference for ROWTER for the carpentry tool and ROOTER for the computer device, but not unanimously.

     50. vehicle – Although there is an H in the word, to pronounce it is to sound hicky. Say /VEE-IKL/, not /vee-Hikl/.

     The ‘h’ is always silent in Britain.

441. venqax on August 10, 2010 7:31 pm

     Mikhael, I have to reiterate and go with Tony Hearn on aegis as with the ae in general.

     1. aegis: what you say should go for other words with the Latin-derived ‘ae’ pronounced as ‘ee’. Thus larvae (plural of larva): say ‘larv-ee’.

     Likewise the plural vertaBREE not vertaBRAY which irritates the stuffing out of me.

442. venqax on August 10, 2010 8:51 pm

     Tony Hearn, mostly agree. E.g.
     14. clothes – I agree that pronouncing the TH is at least suspect. KLOHZ has an old and strong case.

     Disagree on 35. niche. Have to go with Elster’s cite, at least for Americans: “French no longer,” says Holt (1937). “Rhyme it with ditch.”

     19. February – Disagree here too. Dropping the R just seems lazy to me, and all the CAREFUL speakers I know– a few– do very consciously pronounce it. I think this is one in particularsomething of a shibboleth (sp) in the US for educated vs. semi-literate speakers. Even more so than OFTEN which is pronounced without the T by the “illuminated”. LOL Looks like it’s different in the UK.

443. LB on August 26, 2010 6:36 pm

     I have always said February with 4 syllables. I cannot believe so many say that incorrectly. It sounds like hickville talk to me to say it “FebUary’ – sorry, but that is just WRONG. Pronounce it correctly people.

444. LB on August 26, 2010 6:38 pm

     Oh please, the mispronunciation of foliage drives me nuts too.

445. venqax on August 28, 2010 11:53 pm

     I think everyone pronounces February with 4 syllables, don’t they? The question is the R in the send one. I’m ambivalent about foliage being 3 or 2 syllables. FOHL-EE-IJ is argued for by many, but FOH-LIJ
     seems like a normal elision– just like VEJ-TAB’L, and INT-REST. VEJ-ET-ABL and IN-TER-EST sound affected. Maybe why I never liked Paul Harvey.

446. hz on August 29, 2010 8:43 pm

     Response to LB: “I have always said February with 4 syllables….”

     LB even incorrectly pronounced FebUary, the word still has four syllables.

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