Mis-pronunciations that incite people

[StormWolf01]

Ok so we all know that language, spoken words, changes hugely from area to area. How one word that is spelled one single way, can be pronounced differently. And those hearing it, get upset.

 

This thread is NOT to throw shade. This thread is just to calmly, rationally discuss pronunciation of different words that might trigger people. If you can't post in the thread, in the spirit of just conversing with others, not trying to aggravate or troll them, please take the advice of

"If that angers you, or you feel like you need to respond poorly, then just click the X at the top of the window, and close the page."

 

There's the obvious big one. This one is more a variant of what side of the big water you live on.

"Aluminum".

 

Aunt. "Awnt" and "Ant".

 

To show the good nature of this, here's a story.

I started school at 5 years old in kindergarten. The teacher asked a question that I answered, and then proceeded to lecture me for it.

Teacher: What is something that we do with water?

Me: Wash my face.

Teacher: No! You Wash your face.

Me: Looking at her like I have no idea what she's going on about. I just said that.

Teacher: No! You said you worsh your face. You wash your face!

Teacher: it is "Wash" . It is not "worsh".

 

Me in 6th grade, walking past that teacher in the hall.

Hey, lets go "Worsh" our hands so we can go "et" some lunch! :devil:

[SnowFox35]

"Gif" was only just recently brought up while I was talking to my friends over Discord. It was a voice call, of course -- otherwise pronunciation would not be an issue.

 

I pronounce it "jif" and so does my family. My friend mentioned the word because of the funny gifs we were sending, and she sent me one. For a large portion of the conversation, I thought she was referring to sending "gifts" (my error in hearing, not an error of pronunciation, as it is subjective like you determined in your opening post), and so I began replying to address Christmas and shopping and essays, and then the entire talk had fractures, confusion, and miscommunication.

 

It got sorted out, but sometimes all it takes is one small misunderstanding for a group conversation to veer another direction unpredictably.

 

On the other hand, I have seen some heated arguments online about the "proper" pronunciation of this word. I suppose that when people run out of things to debate or argue about, they always loop back around to the ol' reliable topics. It is easy that way.

[Pagafyr]

Once upon a time years and years ago.

 

Arguments about anything got filled with cussing and threats. Artists temperament was considered normal. And the hositilities were ignored.

 

Then one day a Moderator had got a Flash of inspiration.

 

The arguments with non-modders cussing at modders, or artist arguing heatedly over their work was comon.

 

And the threads loaded with cussing, curses, and art critics causing artists to loose their fire on the unskilled and non mod makers for their lousy opinions. The day came when the posts were given a special title.

 

Flame Wars!

Now-a-days the people with the Ban Hammer are quick to ban one poster, or all, and even close the thread when that happens.

[Guest deleted34304850]

when people use "axe" for "ask". It doesn't trigger me, it just makes me think, "You're a f*#@ing idiot.".

[HeyYou]

when people use "axe" for "ask". It doesn't trigger me, it just makes me think, "You're a f***ing idiot.".

Slang.... and cultural at that. The curse of the 'evolution' of language.....

 

Remember the scene in the Movie Airplane? When the stewardess had to translate 'the brotha's' jive talk? Doubt we could get away with a scene like that today.

[Pagafyr]

 

when people use "axe" for "ask". It doesn't trigger me, it just makes me think, "You're a f***ing idiot.".

Slang.... and cultural at that. The curse of the 'evolution' of language.....

 

Remember the scene in the Movie Airplane? When the stewardess had to translate 'the brotha's' jive talk? Doubt we could get away with a scene like that today.

 

 

Or the part in Airplane where the one guy says "surely" and the other guy says, Don't call me Shirley!

[RexDarvog]

People pronouncing words differently don't really bother me unless it's my name.

I once said my five letter name directly into the face of a person I've only just met and they immediately mispronounced it by adding an S at the end, and just about everyone I've ever met in life has mispronounced like that since I was born. No idea why they do, nobody mispronounces the name of the city that also includes my name in the title but they can never seem to grasp what my name actually is.

It was one reason why I wanted everyone to call me Rex, another reason was because I thought it was funny to deceive people.



Also, I pronounced GIF with a hard G, as in gift.

[JimboUK]

 

 

There's the obvious big one. This one is more a variant of what side of the big water you live on.

"Aluminum".

 

 

 

I don't have a problem with American pronunciations of words, what really annoys me is someone with an English accent using them, I have no idea why it annoys me so much but it really does.

[ScytheBearer]

I have found that the people who most commonly mispronounce words do so because they have never heard the word spoken. These people tend to encounter new words by reading them versus hearing them in conversation. I also find people who read a lot are more interesting, so I don't mind if they mispronounce a word or two here and there. I'll suffer the well read and erudite over the unread bombast, any day.

[Pagafyr]

When I first got to surf the Internet words in local U. S. dot coms in their titles for their business seemed humorous. English. After class I bought a book at the college library while I was taking the class for English Literature. It's title is "Word Origins".

 

A person sent me a Bulletin board note. It was, You should whiff. I thought he meant a wife. You know, get married. When I typed I spelled it wife. He wrote back, sorry I spelled it wrong. It's wif; not whiff. Wif in your tongue means: to gamble.

 

Yeah! Anyone want to wif that I can't find a word that sounds like, but is spelled differently and means different meanings in their own mother tongue. Just joking! I only wif with close friends.