What are some word mispronunciations that drive you crazy?

This is not a word mispronunciation but a misspelling that drives me nuts:

you’re vs your

Argh!

coolwhip

flur for flour or flower get’s me every time…

February. Not Feburary.
Supposidly, Not Subposibly.
Library. Not Libary.

i hate when people say “peels” for pills. my mom does that >:/
and i dunno, for i dont know,
but what reeeeeeeally gets to me is when people add ”-adge” to the end of words.
like lets go get some drinkagde, or some grubadge, its so annoying!!!

Strenth for Strength and Lenth for Length. Also, although the dictionary states it’s an acceptable alternate pronunciation, often shouldn’t be have the “t” pronounced. Very low-brow.

Thank you for the Old timers rant! I had people in my nursing class say this and I had to refrain from hitting them! Not really, but I’m just naturally overly dramtic

My mom says balls-mick instead of balsamic! I forbid her to say it around me. She also says Libary.

Oh and my grandma always says she is going to “warsh” some clothes or she’d like to go to Warshington, D.C. Makes me insane!

I can’t STAND it when people pronounce “poinsettia” like “pointsetta”. Hello, there’s no “t” after the “n”. Secondly, since when you can omit the “i” like that? Other plants named after people (this one’s named after Poinsett) follow the same pattern: Hardenbergia, Macadamia, no one seems to have problems saying those…

(The dictionary does approve of “poinsetta” with the silent “i” and without the extra “t”, but I hate that too…)

“Poinsettia” seems to be one of the most difficult to pronounce words in the English language. It was on a scavenger hunt I was in. I was saying “poinsettia”, another friend said “pointsetta”, and another said “pointsettia”. Why is it so hard? :P

I also hate “heighth” for “height”. My calculus teacher last year said that…

I knew a girl that would say “sim-u-ler” instead if similar. And “supposably” will put me right over the edge. Also “nuke-u-ler” or “nuke-a ler”. My ex husband would say “suhpeeny” instead of “subpeona.” He would also say “tack” instead of “tact”. The fact that he did it on purpose is on the list of why we’re no longer together. I have to admit though, that if I’m not careful, I will slip and say “prencil” instead of pretzel. That’s how I said it as a child and to this day I have trouble with it.
Also, I used to work in a clinic and women would come in and ask for a mammiogram, and when I worked for Cingular, people would call and want to discuss their “singulair” account. Grrrrrr.
Call down to maintenance and see if they’ve gotten that swinging trap door installed yet.

None of them really annoy me except ‘axe’ for ‘ask’, the rest are just funny.

@wonderingwhy

flur for flour or flower get’s me every time…

Want to know what get apostrophe ess me every time? Pots calling kettles black.

Fillet – I always say it like Filay instead of fill-it.
Cafe = cafay not caf
Route = r-out not root
Axe for ask always annoys me too @Blackberry

My SO always says “From on now…” instead of “From now on”. I can’t help but correct him every time. He just rolls his eyes now.

@Rachienz- Fillet is pronounced that way (with the “t”) in the UK.

@AstroChuck On a simular note, how about “Acrosst” and “Heighth”?

What about pronouncing “Fluther” wrong?

I have a friend who says ‘draws’ for ‘drawers’.

Actually, I just try to keep from laughing when she says it. It doesn’t ‘bother’ me per se.

I find it very trying when people leave the first r out of frustrated. I had a friend who was fustrated with things and it drove me nuts!

Biggest pet peeve: “Of” for “have”, as in “should’ve”. It is not “should of” for God’s sake!

It kills me when people say ath-el-ete instead of athlete.

@SuperMouse A girl in one of my classes would say everyday “This class just fustrate me so bad!” I had to bite my tongue of to keep my mouth shut.

nu cu lar. it just makes me want to punch everything as hard as I can

oh and ‘nuffink’ for nothing

acrost for across

When people put an uh at the end of words like cool, fool or tool.

Lately I’ve been hearing “anti-climatic” instead of “anti-climactic”. What, watching the movie was against the climate? Arg.

People who pronounce the “b” in “subtle”.

Idea’r the extra r in Idea and veh(eh)icle…and Glaszier for glacier

Anyone who says nucular should be summarily shot.

@dalepetrie

Sargeant: Simpson, because of your many years as a nuclear technician, we’re putting you on a nuclear sub.
Homer: Nucular, it’s pronounced “nucular”.
Sargeant: Oh, whatever…
Homer: Nucular.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vlHEJtflcmo

I love that, because that episode was made way before George W. Bush was president.

I don’t like it when people axe me questions, or if I have a pin to write with.
Regionally, there’s a tendency to shift some stresses from the middle syllable to the first one, not following any rule that I’ve heard of. Thus we have in-surance, e-quator, and some others. This even applies to names: not far from here is the Ft. Leonard Wood, which (in the more rural parts of Missouri) is invariably pronounced “Ft. Lennerd-wood”.

@DominicX
“Nucular” has been around for a very, very long time, probably since the 40s.

How could I forget the whole “excape”, “exspecially”, “excetera”, “expresso” thing?

That one just really annoys me because it’s not hard at all to say it properly.

@DominicX – yeah, I remember that one. Nucular bothered me well before I’d ever heard of W, but I definitely thought he should have been disqualified from any job where he had access to nuclear weapons…a prerequisite for anything should be that if you can’t pronounce it, you’re not qualified.

The funniest thing ever said to me was ‘I’ve just seen a lovely CRUTCH bag that I am going to buy’.
I still laugh when I think about it now.

From seeing too many commercials: Joolery for jewelry, real-a-tor for realtor

@partyparty Hehehehehe. I need a place to stash my crutches. @DominicX , god yes. I hear it when I’m in Starbucks sometimes. There is no X in espresso. Or escape. Grrrrrr.

Escape ≠ Excape (It makes me grit my teeth)

Here we have many mispronunciations of English words (due to mixing with other languages) which have become accepted standards of the vernacular. While everyone can understand what you’re saying, you normally would only hear such pronunciations among the common man on the streets (i.e. low-class). They don’t irritate me per se, except for one or two, but rather, I’ve come to view them with a sort of warm fondness which makes me think of this country.

Warning, the following may make your eyes pop.

Film ≠ Fleem
You would not believe how many people around here pronounce “film” as “fleem”. This is one of those which makes me close my eyes and sigh inwardly.

Girl ≠ Ger
Here, if you wanna call to a girl, you’d say, “Ger ger! Come here” Same thing goes for boys, “Boy boy! Come here!”

Teacher ≠ Tcher
Corrupted form of teacher, something you’d expect to hear among students in neighbourhood schools (stereotypically filled with students who don’t have studies at the top of their priorities list)

Government ≠ Gahmen
Quite amusing, in my opinion.

Zero ≠ Jilo
This is another one which makes me wanna pull my ears off. Going to the local grocery store recently, I was asking whether they had Diet Coke. No, I was told. But they had Coke Light and Coke Jilo (sigh…)

It’s another stereotype (which I’ve personally encountered) that the less-educated can’t pronounce the letter “r”. Thus, “radio” become “ladio”. “Rock music” becomes “lock music”. “Fried Rice” becomes “flied lice” (my Nigerian friend doubled up in laughter when he heard that one).

Of course, there are many other ways in which English is changed and adapted to local context here, but for me to expound on them would be to answer beyond the scope of this question. So perhaps another time. =P

Oh, and I just remembered another time! I was playing the piano in the school hall during recess a few years back and my friend was with me. He was standing there while I was playing and after a while, he asked me, “Can you play a loolahbee?”

My eyes immediately furrowed and my hands stopped. I loudly asked, “What?!”
“A loolahbee”, he repeated.

I was stunned and sat there for a few seconds, trying to play around with the syllables in my head. That was when it hit me. He was asking me if I could play a lullaby. I don’t think I can ever forget what he said, it’s just so weird and so unexpected.

My friend once said ‘I’m absolutely ravishing, but I don’t know what to have to eat’ LOL

If everybody pronounced everything correctly there would be no different accents and dialects.

@Saturated_Brain – Reminds me of a time when a friend pronounced lettuce as “luh-TOOSS”

Not so much a “mispronunciation”, but I want to severely bitch slap anyone who says “a whole nother”.

I’m from Baltimore.
I feel like that says it all. Although I love the city (lived here off and on my entire life), there are MANY things we say incorrectly. Wuh-der (water) is the first thing that comes to mind.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baltimorese
http://www.baltimorehon.com/

@dalepetrie GOD YES!

@jenandcolin-My daughter and her family live in Maryland and thanks to that my grandkids are calling crayons crowns. What is wrong with you guys out there? Why can’t you speak proper English as we do here in NorCal?

@AstroChuck I am going to admit it…I have said crowns for crayons up until I was 18 and my friends could not figure out what I was talking about. I had no idea that I was pronouncing it wrong. I was extremely embarrassed and I still slip up and say it since I have for all of my life. My brother and I say crowns, my sister says crans and my parents pronounce it correctly. I have no idea what went wrong!

@jenandcolin You live in Balmore, hun? ;)
I’m a native Marylander.

My dad always called crayons “krills”. I just realized not long ago that he was actually saying Crayolas. We tell him he is Dutchy. Which in this area means you kind of have a little German accent.

When I was a teenager, my mom and I always laughed at my dad, becayse he says “warsh”, “iggs” and “pellow” for wash, eggs and pillow, in case that wasn’t clear.

Some times we’d harass him, tell him something like, “you’d better warsh your pellow, I spilled iggs all over it.”

My mom says worsh. If I ask her who is on the $1 she will tell me Worshington. She grew up in California too. Weird.

Going in the opposite direction, I like to give a mental thumbs-up to people who say “catsup” instead of “ketchup”.

@AstroChuck i don’t know where people get that “r” in Washington or wash…but it makes my skin crawl!!!

‘draw’ instead of ‘drawer’
‘Never BEING used’ instead of ‘been’
‘I just BROUGHT this instead of ‘bought’

Oh yeah, here’s one that really gets me: when people pronounce “McDonalds” like “Mick Donalds”. It’s not an “i” sound, it’s a schwa sound, like the “e” in “paper”.

I flinch whenever I hear someone ask for a cup of expresso, and I simply cannot abide people saying “focayshia” instead of “focaccia”, or “chabadda” instead of “ciabatta. Or any of the rest of the abuses that imported Italian words are made to suffer.

@Nullo

Would that include people pronouncing “Bruschetta” like “bru-sheh-tuh” even though it should be “bru-skeh-tuh?”

@DominicX
It would indeed. And when people say “biscotti” “b’scoddy” when referring to a single cookie