Pronunciations that drive you mad

Solair

dpe wrote: »

"Bah-th" if you're southern/posh, "Bath" (flat 'a') if you're northern. "Barth" if you're actually from Bath.

When I was living in London a guy I know with a cockney accent explained to an American we were working with that he was going home to have a "barf" before we went out.

Being Californian she responded by suggesting that he visit a therapist as bulimia is a really serious illness!

A British friend of mine was also very confused in Texas. She asked for the 'fitting room' and the response was 'mam, we don't have a fishing department. You need to try a sports store"

"could I have some wah tah" also lead to confusion in bars. "we ain't got that drink here in Texas" ohhh you mean waaREeer"

murpho999

dpe wrote: »

Am I missing something? They both said "puh-jo".

FTGFOP wrote: »

I think people are hearing Rs that aren't there in the English pronunciation of Peugeot. Which is probably why some people drink Larger in Ireland. (Over-compensating for their non-rhotacism.)

I can definitely hear 'r's as to me they are saying 'per-joh'.

Statistician

The problem with reading pronunciation threads is that I start getting confused and can no longer pronounce words. Even words that I used to be able to pronounce correctly.

So how do you pronounce 'scone'? I'm sure I used to be able to pronounce it correctly.

Jimoslimos

Statistician wrote: »

So how do you pronounce 'scone'? I'm sure I used to be able to pronounce it correctly.

How about "horrible, dry, heavy foodstuff that is neither cake nor bread"?

snubbleste

Lootenent instead of Leftenant in the word Lieutenant
Buuke instead of Book
Birthsday

Solair

Jimoslimos wrote: »

How about "horrible, dry, heavy foodstuff that is neither cake nor bread"?

They're nice if baked correctly! They absolutely have to be fresh baked and they have no self life. A few hours old and they're gross!

A Spanish friend of mine called them Irish Stone Cakes.

mickstupp

For all intensive purposes, there is no F in lieutenant, said the man with the umberella, who is clearly bias, and tries to rhyme cook, look, hook and book with puke.

fenris

edna kenny - treaty = tree ahhhh tae - if he wants people to vote for something he could at least learn to pronounce the word!

@rti-shm@rti

Pacific = Specific

So irritating, especially when said over and over again.

Can't believe that we're 11 pages in and noone has mentioned pernament instead of permanent. Another annoying one, one colleague repeated it to a client over and over again on a conference call we were on. Was going out of my mind wanting to correct him!

@rti-shm@rti

mickstupp wrote: »

For all intensive intents and purposes, there is no F in lieutenant, said the man with the umberella, who is clearly bias, and tries to rhyme cook, look, hook and book with puke.

FYP

LordSutch

Thigh-land.

Correctly pronounced as Tieland.

grindle

snubbleste wrote: »

Lootenent instead of Leftenant in the word Lieutenant

It's Lyootenent.
Just because English words get improperly pronounced doesn't mean we should let them do the same to French words.
Lieu=Lyoo.

I hate (despise) when someone talks about people's pronunciation, but says proNOUNciation.
Most people do this, with the last famous case being Enda Kenny prattling on about the Queen's Irish pronunciation.
Geebag.

murpho999

snubbleste wrote: »

Lootenent instead of Leftenant in the word Lieutenant
Buuke instead of Book
Birthsday

Can you not see though that there is no "left" in Lieutenant?

It's a mispronunciation that has now become standard.

Also, why do TV presenters now say 'sikth' for 'sixth'?

FTGFOP

murpho999 wrote: »

I can definitely hear 'r's as to me they are saying 'per-joh'.

They would pronounce per-joh and pugh-joh more or less identically so can you really be sure they're putting an R in there?

paul71

I hate the use of

"I could of" instead of "I could've"

I have even seen this become a very common error in written English.

LordSutch

grindle wrote: »

It's Lyootenent.
Just because English words get improperly pronounced doesn't mean we should let them do the same to French words.
Lieu=Lyoo.

Sorry to disappoint you, but Lieutenant is correctly pronounced 'Leftenant' in Ireland. This is a fact.

dpe

FTGFOP wrote: »

They would pronounce per-joh and pugh-joh more or less identically so can you really be sure they're putting an R in there?

Um, no, "pugh" is pronounced "pew" (Pugh is actually a Welsh surname). So "per-joh" and "pugh-joh" are rather different. There is a very soft "r" sound in the English pronunciation, but its barely there, a breath rather than a hard consonant, sort of "puh(r)-joh". Its pretty difficult to write phonetically, but the point is in English and French the the opening syllable of Peugeot is a uh or uhr sound, NOT, a "you" sound like you get in Irish-English.

grindle

LordSutch wrote: »

Sorry to disappoint you but Lieutenant is incorrectly pronounced 'Leftenant' by people over the age of thirty in Ireland. This is a fact.

FYP.
Who'd've thought American TV would have given us a single linguistic benefit?
Yet here it is.
Lyoooooooooootenent.

dpe

grindle wrote: »

It's Lyootenent.
Just because English words get improperly pronounced doesn't mean we should let them do the same to French words.
Lieu=Lyoo.

Actually both versions are French. The British version is (probably) derived from old French where the "luw" sound was pronounced "luf", which subsequently became "lef". It is weird though and is undoubtedly a bit English class snobbery.

TheChevron

People who say pelanty instead of penalty.

Chris Waddle commentating on a Premier league match:

"That was a definite pelanty"

fishy fishy

im just glad that we won't be hearing much more about that french fella,
ZARCOOOZEEEEEEEEEEEEE

It's Sarkozy, for goodness sake.

Why do we insist on calling him ZarCooozeeeeeeeeeeeeee with a french accent - we're IRISH. We don't do French accents. Sounds so stupid.

mickstupp

@rti-shm@rti wrote: »

FYP

Slightly missed my point there...

joolsveer

Weelin instead of Whelan

fishy fishy

mickstupp wrote: »

For all intensive purposes, there is no F in lieutenant, said the man with the umberella, who is clearly bias, and tries to rhyme cook, look, hook and book with puke.

intensive purposes :D:D:D:D
nice one.

@rti-shm@rti

mickstupp wrote: »

Slightly missed my point there...

Ah....the bank holiday has killed off a few too many brain cells!

fishy fishy

mickstupp wrote: »

Slightly missed my point there...

not really, though it was quite funny, especially with the umberella.

joolsveer

Gorilla for guerilla.

Ellis Dee

The King of Moo wrote: »

--- and, even though it's fairly common here, "th" pronounced as "t."

On the other hand, I can't wait to hear people from the Midlands refer to the new king, now Bigears, as "Charles the Turd" when the aul Windsor wan kicks the bucket. :)

Expect elocution lessons to become a new growth industry among the wannabe West Brits in Tullamore, Athlone, Mullingar, Portlaoise and places like that.:D:D

Solair

The azoo!



And pronouncing xavier as ex zavier.

missbelle

Katgurl wrote: »

SolpHadeine

Used to be guilty of that one, till I realised there was no H in it
I would also say umberella sometimes :P

I'm in fits of giggles at some of the mispronunciations and how irritating it is

Hate when people drop the "t" in words, eg toma-o, potayo - stop swallowing your words :rolleyes:

Gbear

dpe wrote: »

Actually both versions are French. The British version is (probably) derived from old French where the "luw" sound was pronounced "luf", which subsequently became "lef". It is weird though and is undoubtedly a bit English class snobbery.

I don't see how it would need to have been derived from old French when it seems to make perfect sense in "new" French.


I took it to mean Lieu tenant or directly translated to "place holder".

Pronouncing lieutenant as "leftenant" makes as much sense as pronouncing "Cat" as "Sausage".

Conversely, how do Americans pronounce Colonel as "Curnel"?

Again, I've heard "Colonel" pronounced in french as it's spelt. I've some vague suspicion that they were invented by the Napoleonic French army but that could be totally wrong.

Solair wrote: »

The azoo!



And pronouncing xavier as ex zavier.

Assuming the name is entirely Spanish, it should probably be pronounced "Chabier"

Professional Griefer

Taw-let instead of toilet.

maebee

Pherekydes wrote: »

Eck setera.

Anything with a 'th' by Ian Guider.

..

He is dreadful to listen to. Last week I heard him say "turty tree", a few times in the same report. I had to switch off. I think I'll write to Newstalk and ask them to send him to elocution lessons.

minotour

Orientated instead of oriented, drives me mad.

The Agogo

"pressurized" instead of pressured (into doing something)
- same goes for burglarized instead of burgled

Also, people who say "he could of been here" instead of "could have"
Sometimes, people write "being" as "been" as if it was a two syllable word (be-en)

The worse offence must go to the pronunciation of the word sixth as sikth.

I'd love to find the first idiot who pronounced it that way.

On another note, living in London, you'd nearly want to kill people to pronounce their Rs properly. "Can I 'ave a buuguuu and fries and a banarnar milkshyke?"

minotour

just thought of another one, yer man on Newstalk in the morning, Chris dontknowwho or something, says "sattterday", really draws out those T's, annoys the piss outta me.

maebee

Hubby just reminded me of the notice we saw in Superquinn in Finglas a few years ago:

For sail, communion fail.

The word Communion was spelled correctly

grindle

The Agogo wrote: »

Also, people who say "he could of been here" instead of "could have"

I've seen this written, and know it's wrong when it is, but I think they mean "could've".

The King of Moo

maebee wrote: »

Hubby just reminded me of the notice we saw in Superquinn in Finglas a few years ago:

For sail, communion fail.

The word Communion was spelled correctly

Communion veil sale fail.

dpe

minotour wrote: »

Orientated instead of oriented, drives me mad.

They're both valid.

dpe

Gbear wrote: »

I don't see how it would need to have been derived from old French when it seems to make perfect sense in "new" French.


I took it to mean Lieu tenant or directly translated to "place holder".

Pronouncing lieutenant as "leftenant" makes as much sense as pronouncing "Cat" as "Sausage".

Read the Wiki entry - it explains it better than I seem to be doing.

minotour

dpe wrote: »

They're both valid.

dont care, it just sounds stupid, why elongate a word unnecessarily? thus it drives me mad, as per the title.

Abi

not yet wrote: »

Forehead pronounced forit. Our your for it i.e your getting it pronounced for et.

I remember the first time I heard it being pronounced this way, and having asked him to repeat it several times because I couldn't understand him, I got him to spell it. I couldn't believe it. This is the same fúcking twat that told me when I used 'audacity' in a sentence that I had made the word up.

I don't want to live on this planet anymore..

languagenerd

snubbleste wrote: »

Buuke instead of Book

Can't believe it took ten pages for that one ^^ to be mentioned! Had a teacher in school who constantly said it, it drove me mental. Also "cuke" for cook. Never heard "luke" for "look", mind.

Also:
Random "d"'s being thrown in with "r"s. (eg. Giz a shot a your hair curlders, would yih?). Same teacher I mentioned above used to add a d to the middle of my name. *blood boils* :P

Was once at a quiz where one of the questions was "What country is chorizo from?". He pronounced it Shoriiitzo, like a skanger nickname :pac:

languagenerd

Gbear wrote: »

Assuming the name is entirely Spanish, it should probably be pronounced "Chabier"

That's Catalan. Spanish - Javier, pronounced ~Habier. (The Spanish J is pretty hard to write in English phonology, it's a back-of-the-throat sound. k-Habier, maybe.)

Sea Filly

Secsual.

kitty9

anything Niall Quinn says

Sea Filly

Wibbs wrote: »

adding aitches where they don't exist out of a fear of dropping them where they do. HeightH a good example, throatH instead of throat another.

I say heightH. I'm not trying to be posh, it's just never been any other way for me.

Isn't it haitch, rather than aitch?

EDIT: Pronouncing it 'haitch' is Hiberno-English, apparently.

bb1234567

A guy I know says wednesday like weddinsday which irritates me...
also samwidge instead of sandwich.
annie-way instead of anyway said like eny-way.
artic instead of arctic.
Feb-u-ary instead of feb-ru-ary
lie-berry instead of library
minature instead of miniature
sherbert instead of sherbet
and the worst of all when people pronounce clothes like 'cloze'
I better stop now:pac:

Susie_Q

My colleague cannot say the word 'drowned', she insists upon 'drownded'. Similarly, she says 'kilt' instead of 'killed'. She is 45 years old.

She also cannot pronounce the name of the Indian town where she has been living for the last 7 months. Granted, it's four syllables but it's not bloody difficult!