How can a person hear a word over and over yet pronounce it wrong?

I’ve heard: nu-cu-lear for nuclear and wed-nes-day for Wednesday.

I hear mispronunciations all the time. Some of them are regionalisms. Some of them are the result of confusing two similar-sounding words: adverse, averse. Some of them are old habits or even learned errors: supposably, flustrated. And some, I think, are due to hearing the word but seldom or never reading it. Television contributes a lot to that. Also the opposite: reading the word but never hearing it.

A boyfriend of my youth made me laugh aloud in church by whispering that a couple in front of us looked bed-raggled.

Hearing a word over and over would be effective only if (a) the person were paying attention, (b) the person caught on that his/her own pronunciation was incorrect, and (c) the person gave a damn.

My husband used to deliberately mispronounce certain words. He did it as some sort of joke. It drove me nuts.

There’s a local sports radio guy here who skips the ‘ng’ sound in words like length and strength such that they become ‘lenth’ and ‘strenth’ and it is like fingernails on a chalkboard to me. I’ve had someone tell me that it’s a Baltimore thing, but I’ve lived near Baltimore since my family moved here when I was 10 and I’ve never heard anyone else do that. And he doesn’t really have any other parts of a Baltimore accent.

@Entropy I actually can’t imagine how one would put an “ng” sound into those words!

@Entropy, maybe it has more to do with where his mother came from

@janbb, like so many other things—not hard if you’re used to it.

Define ‘wrong’.

There are plenty of words (and particularly place names) that are pronounced differently in Georgia than they are up North and to the west.

That doesn’t make them ‘wrong’ per se but it makes them sound different to you uncultured heathens who aren’t in the south.

Two words I can think of off the bat which people often mispronounce are “February” they will say “Feb-you-ary.” Another one is “lackadaisical” – they will say “lax-a-daisical.” There is a word, “lax” and there is “lackadaisical” and people often think “lax” is a shortened version of “lackadaisical.”

Wrong, @elbanditoroso, in that he’s heard the judge properly say the word a thousand times. It’s not a Wisconsin thing
It’s a Darrell Brooks thing.

@janbb You don’t pronounce them: leng-th and streng-th?? There’s a subtle ggg (as in go) that comes into play. When I hear it pronounced lenth and strenth I assume the person is uneducated.

@Dutchess_III As described so very well by @Jeruba,

“Hearing a word over and over would be effective only if (a) the person were paying attention, (b) the person caught on that his/her own pronunciation was incorrect, and© the person gave a damn.”

@smudges I can see what you mean but I guess I’m uneducated then!

^^ Lol Bu…bu…but…you’re very educated! I dunno, maybe it’s a regional thing.

@smudges My husband used to make fun of me for saying “din’t” instead of “didn’t” so maybe it is regional or maybe I’m just a lazy educated person!

I pronounce “strength” and “length” the way @janbb does. I have an education, so call me lazy.

@jca2 You can be in my club!

@janbb The Lazy, Educated Club!

@janbb I say ‘gonna’ a lot, much to my mom’s dismay when she was raising me. My sister, on the other hand, enunciates so well that it almost sounds forced. But then…she’s a teacher. lol

<sniff sniff> I wanna be in your club, too. :`|

That right there, what @janbb said, is the answer, @Dutchess_III. He has probably pronounced it “substain” his whole life, and I doubt he can even hear the difference.
@janbb, whom we know to be educated, can’t put the “ng” sound into such common words as “length” and “strength” without thinking hard about it, I can’t pronounce them without the “ng” sound.

Brooks would have to concentrate to even hear the difference, at his age, let alone shift the pronunciation.

@canidmajor Too true!

I have a strong Bronx accent and I (and others from that area) have a certain way of pronouncing words like “water” and “dog” ( like “dawg”) and “coffee” (caw-fee). Others from upstate say “watter” and “dog” (rhyming with “log”).

To add, I say “wit” instead of “with.” Regional.

I’d love to hear you @jca2, sounds like a cool accent and I like it when I hear it on tv.

Of course, now I’m walking around my house going “lenGth” “lenGth”! Good thing I live alone.

Now after that visual, @janbb, I can hear you saying “Len-gah-tha”. :-)

Is this why I never got invited to college reunions?

@janbb People who hear you talking about “length and strength” may think you’re reading from your email spam folder. ;)

^^ haha

How do you guys pronounce the word “mature”?
I always pronounce “mature” as “machure.” Out of the blue, when I was a teenager, my mom started pronouncing it as “ma ture”. I didn’t know what to do. It sounded so wrong and so pretentious.

A friend told me she took Public Speaking in college, and the professor told them to listen to the way the nightly news anchors pronounce words, and that’s the proper way to pronounce. The word “mature” I hear all the time at the beginning of movies, where they say ”“This movie is intended for mature audiences.” “Mature” is pronounced “ma-chur.”

Thanks @jca2.

Both of my folks were born into poverty with all the attendant ignorance that comes with.
My dad graduated with an EE degree so he was getting ready to move in professional circles. He worked mightily to overcome the speaking habits he learned as a kid growing up in Texas.
Mom did the same tho she came.from the Pacific Northwest.
They were very particular about our speaking habits.

@Dutchess_III Awww…bless them. Good folks. {hugs}

He’s just sticking to how he grew up hearing it probably. Maybe he thinks other people pronounce it incorrectly. Why do some Black people say aks instead of ask when 99% of the people on TV and probably 99% of the white, Hispanic, and Asian people around them say ask? They most likely know how to spell it if they are literate.

Remember how Hillary Clinton was criticized for altering her accent and pronunciation when she was in the Midwest, South, and Northeast. That’s actually normal. Usually, people conform to the region to some extent. She spent many years in all three.

Pronouncing something very differently from how it’s spelled can be because the person doesn’t know how it’s spelled, which was mentioned above, or just their dialect. Or, if English is their second language certain sounds are very hard to say as an adult. Like my inlaws can’t pronounce TH well.

My husband can’t pronounce sill. I don’t get it. He can say will, thrill, bill, but not sill.

A woman I knew in Tennessee named Jenny one day was asking me if I had a pin. Eventually, I realized she meant pen. She admitted she knew that some people say pen. I asked her, “so do you pronounce your name Jinny, I’ve been calling you Jenny?” I asked because I simply wanted to pronounce her name as she preferred. She said, “no, I spell it J E N N Y.” So, I asked, “then why do you say pin for pen?” It just seemed so inconsistent to me. She smiled and realized how inconsistent it was.

Just a week ago a friend of mine wrote a pet peeve of hers is people mispronouncing mischievous. She wrote there is no i after the v. Lol. I’m not even sure which way I say it. They both sound ok to me.

My mouth/brain still manages to mispronounce things that my brain legit knows how to pronounce—I swear! Just lots of brain farts.

@JLeslie I agree with your friend about being annoyed at how people mispronounce mischievous. It sounds so stupid when they say “mis-chee-vee-ous.”

@Dutchess_III I came from the opposite side. My mother grew up stupidly rich in Connecticut and would have rather died than have any of her children sound like they grew up in New Jersey, so she was on our case constantly about every word out of our mouths. As a result, I have virtually no dialect and I sound very boring. I love the differences in pronunciation that I hear, language and its variations by region and culture is so interesting!

Many times it is medical in nature and they can’t control it.
Usually, a nerve or brain disorder has made it difficult to control the tongue, lips, larynx, or vocal cords, which make speech. Dysarthria, which is difficulty pronouncing words, is sometimes confused with aphasia, which is difficulty producing language

I was thinking about the word sustain mentioned in the OP. I can see how someone who really thinks it’s substain might stick to that. They probably relate it to substance or maybe they use the word substanence, which I don’t think is even a word is it? I hear it though. I think it’s used instead of sustenance. I really think that’s most likely from lack of literacy in the community, if not currently, then in previous generations and so now it’s commonly said incorrectly.

My husband says curve instead of curb. As in the curb on a road. I assume he heard it wrong originally, or learned the word on a curved road, and it made sense to him as curve, so since it made sense he was reluctant to change it. Plus V and B are pronounced the same in most Spanish speaking countries. Maybe his teacher said it wrong. I’ve corrected him a few times, so I think if he was going to write it, he would check the spelling and definition.

He also says brink instead of brim. As in the brim of a cup. Lol. So cute. Maybe he has that right now. Logically, he knew brink meant an edge, and that beyond the brink is a steep fall.

@jca2 At least it’s a word not used often. “Ask” is said constantly. People should be able to switch to the standard pronunciation depending on who they are with. Probably, some people do switch in and out of the dialect.

I agree with you about people saying “aks” instead of “ask” and I can’t understand why they do it, because those same people will properly pronounce the “sk” in “desk” so if they don’t say “deks” why do they say “aks?” I hear educated people saying “aks” so it must be cultural.

A good friend started, out of the blue, pronouncing “penk-win” for “penguin.” That’s not a word we use often and I think it was when we were watching an animal documentary or maybe discussing wrapping paper. I haven’t heard her use the word recently, since it’s not a commonly used word for us, so I’m not sure if she continued her weird pronounciation. I corrected her at the time she did it. She types for a living so I know she knows the spelling and was not mistaking that it’s a “q” instead of a “g.”

Well, @jca2, that all begs the question of how @janbb pronounces “penguin, since she has e pressed difficulty with the “ng” in another context.
How about it, Little Penguin? :-D

@canidmajor No problem at all but that’s a totally different thing. The “ng” in penguin is followed by vowels and the four make a reasonable “gw” while the ng in strength is followed by two consonants making it awkward to sound. And I woke up in the middle of the night saying “Leng-th” – thank you all very much. Bunch of snobs! I have no problem with “thing-a-ma-jig” either.

@jca2: ”She types for a living so I know she knows the spelling and was not mistaking that it’s a “q” instead of a “g.”“ Because things in English are so phonetic!
“Laughter” and “daughter” come to mind. :-D

This thread shall forever after be known as the “Penguin Strength Length” thread.

^^ Yes

@janbb That’s why the grinny face.

@canidmajor No prob. I got the humor. My answer was tongue in beak! (tonGuh)

Not ton-gew???

@RocketGuy That is the word that came to mind for me too. President Bush tried but it always came out noo-coo-ler. When I was young I had a boss who said pacifically rather than specifically. In fact, there were about 20 of these idiotic utterings to which I was subjected during my time in that position.

Another common word which is often mispronounced now (maybe due to being shortcutted on texts) is “probably” which some people will mispronounce “prolly.”

How about pecan? My dad grew up in Texas and pronounced it “peakin” pie. I call call it that too even though I actually know.how to pronounce pecan

Pe-cahn, Pe-can

@jca2 I haven’t heard that. I’ll have to keep my ears open for it.

@Dutchess_III At least the word pecan is simply pronunciation of the letters that actually appear in the word. Some of the other examples are adding, subtracting, or changing the order of the letters.