There is No 'X' in 'Espresso': Words Butchered by Americans

[ feed | comment feed | cloud | sort:  alpha / order added ]

Register or login to add tags.

(close)

Wait, our kind host on this page says: "I'm talking about adding letters that aren't even in the word or skipping ones that aren't silent (syncope and apocope). I mean, c'mon."

But if you skip saying letters that aren't silent -- is this a koan?

Grew up in PA, ptero.

I'm American, too, and I always hear buoy pronounced to rhyme with phooey. Reesetee, I think you're right about regional variations, and I have to ask -- did you grow up in Pennsylvania, or are you a transplant?

Yes, chained_bear... shudder, shudder, shudder. Egads! I better get back to my cartooning work. I'm losing it.

Jmp: I say "boy" for "buoy," and I'm American. I wonder whether that's a regional thing? Actually, I wonder whether many of these pronunciation differences are regional rather than national.

My radio announcer was Australian. Conclusion: we mangle with the best of them. And all this on a day where a medical survey showed that Australians have surpassed Americans in levels of obesity.
Doctor interviewed on TV news: "If there was a Fat Olympics, we'd be favourites for the gold medal."

I'm sooooo proud *glowing*.

I'm with you c_b! (but maybe this list is about Americans specifically).

Can we just say that people mispronounce things all the time, and not make it something that's distinctively American?

P.S. frogapplause, did you mean "shudder," by any chance?

Statistics pronounced as "stuh-sti-sticks" (said often by someone I knew who did NOT have a fluency disorder).

I've heard "specific" pronounced as "pacific" (wince, shutter).

That's it. I'm burning my Mickey Mouse ears.

How about 'buoy'? We Brits rhyme it with boy, whereas Americans rhyme with phooey.

I heard a radio announcer say escalate twice yesterday with a pronunciation that resembled eskewlate. Nasty.

Oh yeah, and the misspelling two below. *Dictionary

Sorry about the misspelling below. *Debateable

Another word would be roof, although it is debateble. It is listed in the dicionary as both "rufe" and "roof (oo as in book)." Which do ya'lls (ha) use? I use roof, not rufe.

I hate to say this, but it isn't that Americans butcher these words--it's that lots of people don't pronounce things right, regardless of where they live or grew up. I have a lot of these words on my own "GAH!"-type list. And I would imagine a lot of the people who are posting here and complaining about those who mispronounce things, are American themselves.

I'm not trying to argue or anything--just wanted to point that out. It makes me sad to witness discussions about British and American English that don't compare the two so much as complain that one of them is wrong. To use a phrase I hate (in keeping with the style of this page!), "it's all good." :)

awesome list

how bout caramel

How about escape? I can't stand when people say "excape."

Also, hover. It only has one "o," not two.

To billifer: I could never pronounce it like that. Sounds too much like "dur," which as we all know is a bastardization of "duh." Kinda defeats the purpose of an intellectual word like "dour." :-)

Another word for this list: associate. People insist on turning that "c" into an "sh."

This was one that was recently featured on the KPBS show A Way With Words: dour. The correct pronunciation, which I didn't realize until hearing the show, is not (IPA) /daʊɹ/ ("sour") but actually /dʊɹ/ ("sure").

there was that great bit on the Simpsons when Lisa flipped on Marge for insisting on saying "foilage" for "foliage."

Excellent link! There, too, I find myself busted for "salmon." Dang dang dang.

That list is spun gold! I'm heretofore pimping it in the list description. And, of course, you've just created another hour or two of pleasure reading for me. Hooray for PBS.

I've never been able to get my tongue around the word vehement, no matter how many times I hear it.

I like this list. I even like the URL. Beastly.

Or, what's even worse, the egregious 'inner-resting'.

interesting (intresting)?

facsimile

Fak-sim-uh-lee, NOT fax-a-mile.

Seanahan, what I love about jaguar is that there's the correct way, the American way, *and* the UK way (jag-yoo-er).

I pronounce both Porsche and Jaguar the "American" way, because people look at me so strangely when I say them correctly.

Okay, we're one-for-one. ;-)

So, she sheepishly admits, I had to look it up and--gack--I've been pronouncing Porsche incorrectly all these years and thinking it was the "POR-sha" people who were being pretentious!

I'm never ordering fish for dinner again. And that color -- it's pinkish.

Oh, as long as we're on the car/road theme, how about Porsche?

Also, probably? ('probly')

I could probably live with jagwire because I'm first generation Yankee and it makes up for all of the Southerners who pronounce "ire" words as "ahr" (for example, squire is pronounced squahr, which of course rhymes with square. :) I could probably go with sment too since it counteracts all of my relatives who pronounce it CEEment. :)

But ashfalt is unforgiveable. And that's definitely going on the list. In fact, maybe we need a list of the words with their mispronunciations spelled phoenetically (e.g., ashfalt, febbuary, reelator, and so on).

But, uselessness, I think you are the odd one out when it comes to salmon, though. Both the pronunciation guides for m-w and dictionary.com have the 'l' as silent.

This reminds me ... pronunciation is often mispronounced as pronounciation.

Thanks for the suggestions!

Words my dad can't pronounce, and I don't think he's alone:
jaguar -- he says "jagwire"
cement -- he says "sment"
asphalt -- he says "ashfalt"
salmon -- he says "sammin"

Not sure about the last one actually, maybe that's how it's really pronounced, but I try to include an "l" sound when I say it. Maybe I'm the weird one. :-)

I'll second asterisk, which I usually hear as Asterix. (No Obelix, though.)

I would like to propose the addition of asterisk, which I often hear pronounced "asterik".

For the record, the spelling "Aluminum" predates the spelling "Aluminium". Therefore it is the British who are screwing up
butchering the language.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aluminium#Spelling

Great list. Though butchering language -- and some of these words -- is an international pastime. This page talks in particular about "ask" being mispronounced through the ages (google "ax"), and this amazon review claims that Chaucer wrote "ask" as "aks".

Great list. Don't forget how "aluminium" was reduced to "aluminum."

Wonderful! Thanks, kad and angharad, for the additions and the pointer to Kaichi's list.

I often hear "supposably" instead of "supposedly." Then there's Oregon. How most of America can mispronounce the name of one of our own states is beyond me.

I love this list, by the way :)

Some of my peeves: realtor, athlete, library, tsunami.
You might also take a look at
http://wordie.org/people/Kaichi?wl=173