When I asked readers for their top grammar peeves, some of these peeves had to do with pronunciation, so this blog post will be about those. We all know about Febuary and liberry . . . so check these out:
Wait! Is your top pronunciation peeve, people who pronounce pronunciation as pronounciation (and spell it that way too)????
My top pronunciation peeve is this one that 99 percent of my students say: mischeevious, with the accent on the second syllable (instead of the first) and the last syllable pronounced as -eeus rather than just -us. And many adults say it that way too! Drives me nuts. But enough about me. Here are some of your pronunciation peeves:
1. acrost — instead of across. I have heard this one more than once!
2. CONtribute with the accent on the first syllable rather than the second. I must say I had never noticed this one until I heard it on the radio just today.
3. idear — instead of idea. But isn’t that just an accent problem? (Hello, Bostonians!)
4. perspective — instead of prospective in a newspaper, so obviously this one is just a confusion between two words. OK, not really pronunciation.
5. phertographer — instead of photographer. Hey, look at that pherto!
6. heighth — instead of height. Width ends in -th, but height doesn’t!
7. ta — instead of to. Send it ta me, will ya?
8. realator — instead of realtor. Two syllables, not three.
9. reprize — instead of reprise (repreeze). It is reprisal (reprizal) but not reprize.
10. tempature — instead of temperature . . . especially if said by a meteorologist.
11. dropped gs at the end of words. Well, that is a pretty common one! I don’t know if I’m comin’ or goin’.
12. often pronounced with the t. I like the t silent! That is one of mine!
Then, there is jew-lery instead of jewel-ry (new branch of Judaism?) (I am Jewish; I can make a joke!)
If you have some other ones, I would love to hear about them. Stay tuned for more peeves next blog. I got some pretty interesting ones from y’all!
I am currently cringing every time I am subjected to two commercials with blatant mispronunciations.
#1 Chime commercial in which this girl likes getting her “pee-jeck” up to two days early.
#2 Chase bank commercial about a husband and wife who started a raw honey business. Their Chase business account allows them to “take car payments”.
Thanks for letting me vent.
You are very welcome! Thanks for the comments!
My pet peeve is when a news commentator says “you get the pitcher,” instead of “you get the “picture.”
Heard that one! Thanks!
Here’s one for you…and that is when people don’t realize that some people are named JohnsTon, not Johnson.
I know it can be spelled either way. But is it pronounced differently, or is the T silent. I always thought the T was silent.
Fern a ture instead of Furniture .
Tempature instead of Temperature
Realator rather than Realtor
Also, It drives me crazy when people don’t pronounce the “T” sound.
Buh in instead of BuTTon
In poor in instead of Important
Good ones! Thanks for the comment!
InfRastructure…… Many tv people say infastructure.
Asked. …..Saying axed sounds generally uneducated.
Tv people in a story saying a nother as (two words long).
when the correct word is another (one word, short a)
Nuclear …. .so many incorrect pronunciations.
Sandwich….. NOT sammich
Arggghhh…..store boughten
Thanks for the comment. Some good ones in there!
I hear almost everyone pronounce the word “infastructure”. One of my favorite pet peeves.
Yes. I hear that one!
Did you hear about the realator that competes in triathalons? Also biathalons.
Thanks for that comment!
Absolutely, especially bothers me when politicos, professionas who should know better pronounce it as intrastructure
HGTV Peeves….
Hardwoods (for hardwood floors)…there is NO “s”!!
Foyer (pronounced as foi-yer instead of foi-ay (French word, that’s how it should be pronounced).
I can’t watch decorating shows anymore because these make me so crazy! Don’t even get me started on “Wayne’s-coating” ugh!
Ha! Thanks so much for the comment. It’s everywhere!!
Jewelry is no longer a spoken word: your (yer, yore, etc.) Example pronunciation for jewelry, is one that I hear quite often(off I ten🙄) what I hear most of the time, sounds something like… Joo-ree. Ugh🙄
Three in a row, that jerk me; almost (oh-most) in the same manner that; hearing Rocky drinking from the toilet bowl, snaps my head around! Those three mispronunciations are, the following words:
Realtor, nuclear, literature. The mispronunciations follow respectively as; real-uh-ter, new-que-ler,
lit-uh-cher. The last can be found at the list berry with the aid of a lie-berry-un if necessary. The list just goes on and on. More… “I mean, I could drain the full 91% my Kindle Fire’s battery charge that remains. Just watch a television ‘reality’ show for examples: just listen too the common person engage in conversation with any other ‘adult’ to get good examples of bad examples, actual butchery of the English language, while spoken by folk born and raised in any American town. Naw am sayin’ yo? The list of words would be far to long too poudem alls heeya! Now I’ve just got to focus on suh mmm (sump-pmm) else before I get myself sucked into the early grade school written language skills; examples: lack of grammar skills in general, limited vocabulary, limited knowledge of word (definitions, antonyms, synonyms, improper verb tense/use, sentence form/structure in general. All of those and there are even nothers that I am just skipping. I still think back to my 10th grade media class, wherein I had first heard why most television commercials seem, so,… stupid. After extensive research; the marketing companies had learned that the intelligence of the “average American” consumer was no higher than that of a 8-10 year old (a 5th grade) student. So the psychology in all parts of the advertising (colors, jingles, geared towards base/primitive emotions, seemingly unrelated images/ideas like: pets, a sunny day on the beach, happy nuclear and extended family groups, things that make a person smile/feel comfortable,sounds of nature, docile wildlife, warm colors, repetition of product images/logos/names, even the number of times to show those was very specific, and all within the alloted time for each commercial spot was studied, to find what/how/why those things were to be so effective. Even the right times of the day to show their product/service was learned.
I really haven’t noticed any dramatic changes in the marketing tactics from the ’70s til today. The only great change is how companies try to appear to be the customers’ friend/family before any troubles may appear, then swoop in to save customers in their time of need. Changes in society and what is expected from companies, both large and small seems to have influenced advertising in general. OK, TV commercials interrupting my viewing pleasure sidetracked me and I let myself ramble on a tangent. I mean, I’m going to stop typing and switch over to Kindle to enjoy an entertaining and funny LitRPG that I only started yesterday
Thank you for the comment!
It is a relief to see that tem-pet-ure is cringe worthy for others as well.
I’m surprised to not have seen “nome sayin'” being listed here instead of the unnecessary, “know what I’m saying.”
Unnecessary because it’s usually preceded by some simple concept such as, “I went outside, nome sayin’?” Yes we understand that you are saying “you went outside.” This isn’t quantum mechanics.
Thank you for the comment!
I just watched the weather channel and heard “tempature” 20 times in 5 minutes. I’m still cringing. You would think meteorologist would know the difference. I have many other pet peeves but I’ll hold them for another time.
After posting about “tempature” I went to a local blog and saw: “There’s 530 people doing …”
I learned about matching number in grade school 70 years ago but today it’s common to see mixed number.
It might be common, but it is still wrong. It should be there are 530….
Join the club!
Two that really annoy me are “infastructure” instead of “infrastructure,” mentioned above, and “interm” instead of “interim.”
Thanks for the comment! I agree!
Number 12 seems to be more of a false affectation, in my opinion. Another like No. 3, which I’m guilty of is: “”I “saw-ritt” yesterday””. Alliding the end consonant with the next vowel. Number 11 alludes to local dialects; particularly Yankees, ie drivin’, runnin’, eatin’, etc. BLESS you for jewelry’s dignity! Are you aware of the hated (and spoken by educators themselves!!) MISS-CHEE-VEE-USS????? SUCH an affectation for the wrong reason; possibly it sounds “cuter” than the true “mischievous” MISS-CHUH-VUSS. Three syllables, not four! Don’t get me started on horticulturists (!) mispronouncing Bougainvillea!
it bothers me when newscasters, legislators and professional techs mis-pronounce “infrastructure,” also, but the common mistake that I hear is using a T instead of an “f” saying, “Intrastructure or interastructure.”
Absolutely, especially bothers me when politicos, professionas who should know better pronounce it as intrastructure
Yes, that is a bad one!
I especially agree with the comments about temperature. By the way, I hear lots of people pronounce especially as exspecially. Drives me nuts. How about hunnerd instead of hundred, infastructure instead of infrastructure, or pertect instead of protect? En route is so often mispronounced as “N ROWT.” Then there are the malapropisms – the one that bugs me the most is people who say “flush it out” instead of “flesh it out.”
Thanks for the comment! Those are some good ones! My net book will contain confused words and malapropisms…flush it out is a good addition!
Some questions for you Grammar Diva: Is the phrase: “I wonder why . . ” considered to be redundant?
And number two: How do you handle ‘words’ that are explained away as being Ebonics. The one that I keep stumbling over is “Axe” in place of “Ask.” “He axed me to go.” “I axed Mom for a cookie.” Seems to me that No one should be Axing their Mom! 🙂 My long term life partner was a Realtor! It was So interesting to watch him squirm if someone said” “Relator!” It made his skin crawl! 🙂 BTW: GW Bush’s ‘people’ ought to have guided him regarding his use of “nucular.’ He tried to dismiss it as a colloquialism. Didn’t they realize how uneducated and foolish this error made him seem? Maybe THEY didn’t get it either! 🙂 Adding insult to injury . . . he used the word incorrectly, and then stubbornly tries to defend it! I SO wish President Obama’s people would stop him from using ‘Is is.” “The reason is, is that we don’t know yet.” Isn’t that ALSO redundant? Wouldn’t it be sufficient to say: “The reason is, we don’t know yet.” Makes my head spin! He also cannot seem to break the habit of saying “You O” as a slang pronunciation of “You Know.” (He could drop both, and likely get by just fine!) I know it’s not a grammar infraction, but I cringe every time I hear anyone start a phrase or sentence with “LOOK!” . . . it seems arrogant and bossy! Is this the language usage complaint department? 🙂
Yes! This is the language usage complaint department! I don’t think “I wonder why” is redundant, since it is different from “I wonder if” in meaning. Ask should be ask and asterick should be asterisk. I don’t really know if you would call ebonics a dialect like some of the Southern dialects. I would think so. Relator, nucular, jewlery: all wrong. “Is is” (and looks what it spells!!!!!) is in today’s blog post. I haven’t heard Obama say You O, and I am glad! Look! I can’t stand when someone is explaining something to you and keeps saying “Okay” as if you are some kind of moron and don’t understand!
My personal pet peeve pronounciation is fermiliar – It’s Familiar .. not fermiliar! I hear it all the time! 🙂
So do I!
Just found this blog and had fun reading. I have many pet peeves and guilty of several.
Born and raised in southern OH then moved to GA, I have experienced many types of ear-grating pronunciations.
Personally, I’ve worked very hard to take the “r” out of wash, which my boys pointed out to me when they were in grade school.
One of my biggest peeves is “birfday”, I want to ask them how they spell it on their birthday cake. Living in the south has been an experience. One of the funniest newscasts I heard was during a hurricane and the radio announcer told all to watch out for flying “deb ris”. I have a friend that watches a “tu ti torial” for instruction.
I do tend to rattle on, but I will continue to watch this blog. Is there one for written peeves like: to, two, and too and there, they’re, and their? These drive me crazier than the spoken words.
Thanks for the comment! Yes, I have heard birfday! Yes, I did a post on grammar pet peeves a couple of weeks ago, and I will do another. The whole blog is kind of like that!
I think it is because of the WH….you are supposed to blow a little, I think.
Lots of interesting comments. Some mispronunciations appear to be due to regional accents. Wash is an excellent example. Though born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area, I tend to say ‘warsh’ … can’t seem to help it. A combination of midwestern born teachers and several elementary school classmates with (formerly) midwestern parents (thereby having a similar accent) seems to have imprinted the imaginary “r” in wash which I’ve failed to eradicate despite a nagging former wife and others who’ve attempted to retrain me.
I noticed several references to the OED. While the OED has a well deserved reputation as being the most comprehensive English language dictionary, I prefer to use the Merriam-Webstere unabridged as my guide to _American_ English pronunciation. No insult intended toward the British … but we are in the U.S. not Great Britain.
Now getting to pet peeves: The one that grates on my nerves the most is the name of an expensive automobile brand, “Porsche.” Note that this is a German name. In the U.S. it is commonly pronounced as a single syllable, with an assumed silent final “e.” However, in German, the final “e” is _not_ silent. It is a 2 syllable word pronounced the same as the name of Shakespeare’s heroine of The Merchant of Venice (Portia) or “pour – sha.” I have heard network news broadcasters make this error — and possibly 75% of the U.S. population does the same. But it still grates on my nerves. (Perhaps this was due to my parents having studied a variety of European languages in college. My mother (in particular) was always careful to coach me with pronouncing non-English words. On this same general topic, the “Mercedes” automobile name can be pronounced with two different emphasis patterns: Mer – SAID – es or MER – say – dees. In the Hitchcock movie, North by Northwest, the director had an exchange between two characters: “Did you borrow Laura’s Mer SAID es? No, I did not borrow Laura’s MER say dees. That covered the bases.
Coming from California, (and having taken 4 years of Spanish in high school), I make an effort to get somewhat accurate pronunciations of the numerous place names that can bedevil the English speaker. It was a bit of a shock when visiting Colorado to hear TV newsies talk about “Lye mun” a town located east of Denver. Since it was spelled Limon, I assumed the Spanish pronunciation, “Lea moan.” Of course, there is also the small city on the Mississippi River in southern Illinois, pronounced “Kay Row” (like the syrup, Karo), but it is spelled Cairo, like the largest city in Egypt.
The other jarring linguistic errors that grate on my ears are misconstrued “sayings.”
“He’s from the wrong side of the tracts.” I presume that a modern, suburban kid might think this is a reference to housing tracts rather than a reference to the railroad tracks, that often separated a “better” side of (small) towns from the “poorer” side of the town.
A long road to hoe. I don’t know why or how someone might “hoe” a road. The farm workers I’ve observed in the Salinas Valley tended to do their hoeing in rows.
There are, of course, many more such idioms. The error often occurs due to the poor listening by a child who then attempts to make sense out of a “saying” by inserting her/her idea of what they thought they heard.
This is reflected in the song “Mairzy Doats” where one line reads:
Mairzy doats and dozy doats and liddle lamzy divey
This is actually meant to read: Mares eat oats and does eat oats and little lambs eat ivy.
Great comments, as always, Pete! I am proud to announce that I have always pronounced Porsche with two syllables (like Portia), although I can neither spell it or afford one! If you want trouble pronouncing places, go to Massachusetts! Worcester is pronounced Wister. Leominster is pronounced Leminster. Leicester is pronounced Lester. Haverhill is pronounced Havril. When natives say Chelmsford, they leave out both the l and the r. And Peabody is really Peabutty.
I get grumpy when I watch the news and weather. There are too many mispronunciations to list — the latest one driving me crazy is “tempature.” These mistakes don’t make me laugh, they actually make me angry most of the time.
Thank you for the huge belly laugh from “Mairzy Doats” — I laughed so hard I almost fell off my chair. My mother used to sing this song to me when I was a child — correctly I might add. When we wanted to have a laugh, we would sing it together as “Mairzy Doats.” To this day I sing “Mairzy Doats” to my dog.
ek cetera or ick cetera instead of et cetera.
That’s a common one!
I’ve come to believe these are products of initial language learning in the immediate family, followed by regional speech habits of pronunciation that reinforce them as the child grows. As a retiree, I’m thinking due to what I hear from other older folks I meet, that precise teaching through schooling and possibly college, can “re-program” most of these regional glitches, but as age advances, I’ve heard folks with post-graduate degrees lapse on things like lay and lie!
Lay and lie is more of a grammar/usage thing than pronunciation, but it is true that much of the “mispronunciation” is regional….but not all of it!
1. “drownding”
2. forte. NOT for-tay unless you are talking about music.
Oh, yes….drowned
I added the site, not because of my peeves, but of my interests.
Only the first two entries have been sketchily outlined (is that a pleonasm?)
As I was trained to speak British English (or the King’s English, though the monarch was a Queen at the time…), I was taught to pronounce the following words with the stress on the SECOND syllable: irREfragable [ɪˈrɛfrəgəb(ə)l].
According to the OED the following are to be pronounced as such: irrefragable, irrefutable, irreparable, irrevitable, irrevocable, and irrevoluble. And maybe some more, which I forgot.
Nowadays the following may be pronounced with ‘shifted’ stress: irrefutable, irrespirable.
Since I gather that most of you are non-British English speakers, it may not be much of a peeve, but since I learnt (= learned) it the British way, the variant pronunciation will always grate on my ears…
Wow! Others nailed words that also have annoyed me that I didn’t think of until I read their comments. However, this one just occurred to me: “versatile.” It is correctly pronounced as vur-suh-tl. Of course, the mispronunciation is with a “tile” ending. And slightly twisting the topic of this post a bit is the nonexistent word “irregardless.”
Yes, versatile is a common one! I have them in my bathroom: one black tile and one white tile….versa-tile!
Ouch! Don’t quit your other jobs, Arlene! (Actually, I did chuckle.)
Also, I think you need another moderator to replace the one who let your versa-tiles be included. 🙂
I live in Ottawa and people around here have terrible grammar which really grates on my nerves. I “seen” that … instead of I’ve seen that or I saw that. That to me is like fingers down a chalkboard!
I heard that a lot in my childhood near Boston…”I seen…”
Draw instead of drawer as in ‘I keep cutlery in the kitchen draw’ makes me shudder.
I often hear it (with a ‘t’ please) !
All the musicians in a top big band were furious that one guy was playing out-of-tune, so the player next to him lashed out with what sounded like “Mang-ee-rang-ee-bang!” I don’t know how, but they all understood it.
Translation: “Man, you’re ruining the band.”. (I never said musicians were literate.)
Mine is “warsh” instead of wash. Uhhhhh!
This is such a fun topic — we could go on and on! I have a friend who says Silicone Valley instead of Silicon (that conjures up interesting images), and referred to flamenco dancers as flamingo dancers. I hardly knew what to say. 🙂
Oh, yes! I think we all think it is flamingo dancers when we are young! And Silicone Valley is a good one!
I hate it when people pronounce “forte” as if it had two syllables when it means “strength” or “talent.” It is a French word, and there is no accent on the e, and should therefore be pronounced “fort.” I think people confuse it for the Italian word spelled the same way, which is used in music to mean “loud,” and which does have two syllables.
Btw, I realize the two-syllable pronunciation is acceptable now (because we’ve been doing it wrong for so long), but I still cringe when I hear it.
“supposably” or “supposivly” for supposedly. AUGH!!
I am with you there, Otto!
I needed to make a correction to my comment, but there seems to be no way to edit.
Looks good to me but I guess you can comment again to fix it????
This one is like finger nails on a chalk board to me…”I Could Care!” or “I Could Care Less!” Sure, I get it. You do care!
Also, Itlee for Italy.
And I-talian with a long I!
Here are a few that set my teeth on edge as if they are running their nails across the blackboard. Makes my head spin.
There’s: DI-DENT, as in “I di-dent do it! Let’s face it, folks, they really DID do it.
How about hearing “I’m a REAL-A-TOR” from a real estate agent’s lips? Have they ever heard anyone walking around saying that they’ are a DOK-UH-TOR”?
It getting to seem normal for our officials to call it a NUC-U-LAR PROGRAM. They can’t straighten out one word; is it any wonder they can’t straighten out the country?
Help!
Thank you! Good ones!
I have encountered “idear” in the Appalachian region as well as in the New England region. I’m a telephone triage nurse and one of the funnier ones I encountered was “di-rear” (as in “diarrhea). Needless to say, the speaker was unclear in the pronunciation of the other words she used and my confusion did little but increase. My (unfortunate?) response was, “Excuse me ma’am, but what did you say you did to your rear?” Needless to say, I attracted the attention of every one of my colleagues–seven of them!) After five years, I’m still smiling about the unintended humor of this situation.
I’ve found mispronunciations among the populations of every region of the country, but many of the ones you mentioned I found among people of largely rural areas or among youngish Americans. Without a doubt, however, the Appalachian accent has been the most interesting to decipher. (I was also a Navy wife of 26 years and privileged to have lived in every region of the United States.)
Great comment! Thanks! Ha!
I’m with you on the pronunciation of “often.” However, I just looked at dictionary.com, which offered the following as correct for pronouncing that word: aw-fuh n, of-uh n; awf-tuh n.” I pronounce it the first way, I can’t figure out how to say the second example, and pronouncing the “t” is permitted in the third!
Then I looked the word up in merriam-webster.com and, again, the “t” was allowed in one of the pronunciation guides. However, in both online dictionaries, the vocal pronunciation provided kept the “t” silent. Go figure!
Something just occurred to me while writing this comment. I wonder why, with regard to dictionaries and other reference books, we say we will look something UP? As you can see, I ponder the major issues in life.
I thought so! I thought that both ways to pronounce often were acceptable. But I don’t know about that third way either! As for looking something up, up has the longest entry in the dictionary. There is a piece of writing about all the things we use up with. For example: Your house burns down, but it also burns up. You look something up. You charge something up. Gather things up. Cook things up, etc.
“Look up” is a separable phrasal verb. Without the “on,” it’s not the whole verb. So it’s different from just the verb “look.” And separable because we can insert “it” and retain the meaning.
As a guess, this is a borrowed word; I can easily see a parallel in German where the word might be “auf-[something.] Yep — just checked it: one way to say “look up” is “aufsehen.” So that is my guess . . .
Just my bit of pedantry for the day . . . but serioiusly, I was interested too!
Kindeegarten, instead of kindergarten.
The principal of my son’s elementary school (years ago) used this word, grating on my nerves time and time again. And he had a PhD.
Was he trying to be funny or had he turned back into a toddler!
I first heard the mispronunciation of homage about ten years ago and got in a huge argument with a colleague who insisted it is pronounced oh-mazh, accent on the last syllable. I had to pull out the OED that of course included the British pronunciation without the silent h, which I predicted before looking it up. In the past few years I have been hearing it mispronounced more and more on television and radio. Drives me nuts!
Second big one for me is niche, mispronounced neesh. Aaaaaaargh!
Thanks for letting me vent.
Annie
You are most welcome. I think those people think they are French words and are trying to pronounce them with a French accent!
This one IS French, Arlene! OED give [nɪtʃ] or [niːʃ] as pronunciation. If you take the original Italian word, ‘nicchia’, you would have to pronounce it as [nik], from [‘nikija]. Sorry, but I do not know how to use the ‘spelling-pronunciation’ you use, but I will stick to the IPA, being international…
Hate to split hairs, but the word is derived from the French ‘nicher’ (to make a nest), so it is not mispronounced when people articulate the word as ‘neesh’. Dictionaries agree that both are correct.
One of the WORST for me is ‘FOILAGE’ for foliage. AHHHHHHH!
Thanks for the info. I agree on Foilage!
The absolute worst, which helps me identify someone’s political views all the way to the presidency:
nucular instead of nuclear.
You said it, Lenore!
A huge pet peeve of mine is using ‘picher’ for ‘picture’ – as in ‘let me take a pitcher of you.’ And one that really drives me crazy is ‘nother’. As in ‘that’s a whole nother story.’ The word is another, not nother. It should be ‘that’s another story’ or ‘that’s a whole other story.’ It’s like fingernails on a chalkboard, as someone else mentioned above, when I hear these. Also, I ‘seen’ you coming. Should be I ‘saw’ you coming. We have senior officers who say ‘I seen’ and it just makes me cringe to know that these people are getting paid big bucks but they can’t form a grammatically correct sentence. YIKES!
Agree with you on all of them. They have all been in the blog except pitcher for picture — and that is a pretty common blooper!