Mispronunciation that bother you

[jp the roadgeek]

Tortilla as tor-TEE-la
People who put the emphasis on "New" in New Haven (any city in CT that has a "New" as its first word puts the emphasis on the 2nd)
Escape as "excape"
Restaurateur as "restauranteur
Comfortable as "comfterble"
Worcester as "Warchester"

[Scott5114]

Comfortable as "comfterble"

That's how it's pronounced. What are you doing, making it rhyme with "convertible"? Com-fer-tahb-lay?

[bwana39]

I'm surprised (and annoyed) at how many people can't pronounce "Nevada" correctly.

The county in Arkansas (which in itself can be questioned the same way) say their county a Nă vād ă.

[CNGL-Leudimin]

This thread is meaningless for me, since Spanish pronounciations are pretty much straightforward (The opposite, however, isn't true). However I despise those Spanish place names whose pronounciations are butchered, e.g. it's written Buena Vista, Colorado, so pronounciation should be that, not as if it was written "Biuna Vista".

[Scott5114]

...I despise those Spanish place names whose pronounciations are butchered...

You'll be unhappy to know that the first word of "Los Angeles" and "Las Vegas" are pronounced exactly the same by most Americans.

[DTComposer]

...I despise those Spanish place names whose pronounciations are butchered...

You'll be unhappy to know that the first word of "Los Angeles" and "Las Vegas" are pronounced exactly the same by most Americans.

While the other "Los" cities in California (Los Gatos, Los Altos, Los Alamitos, Los Banos) are pronounced "more" correctly - "lohs".

[1995hoo]

Then you have the Brits, who pronounce the final "e" in "Los Angeles" as a long "e"—"Los Angelease" ("lease" pronounced like the word spelled that way).


(Edited to fix punctuation after the forum shutdown)

[kurumi]

Mispronunciation that bother you

Ironically, the noun and verb disagree on whether the sentence is plural or not

[Molandfreak]

I'm surprised (and annoyed) at how many people can't pronounce "Nevada" correctly.

It always strikes me as extremely pretentious when East Coasters in particular use the argument "that's how it's pronounced in Spanish, so why should it be anything else?"  when justifying pronouncing Nevada or Colorado differently from the local consensus. Do they also pronounce Texas, New Mexico, or Montana like the Spanish words? How about pronouncing Detroit "Deh-twah?"

I mean I get it, it sucks that Americans bastardize the pronunciation of foreign words so frequently, but who are you to tell someone who was born and raised in these places that they should be pronounced like a language they may or may not have a connection with?

[Molandfreak]

Aks instead of ask.

I mean, isn't that just AAVE?

[US 89]

I'm surprised (and annoyed) at how many people can't pronounce "Nevada" correctly.

It always strikes me as extremely pretentious when East Coasters in particular use the argument “that’s how it’s pronounced in Spanish, so why should it be anything else?” when justifying pronouncing Nevada or Colorado differently from the local consensus. Do they also pronounce Texas, New Mexico, or Montana like the Spanish words? How about pronouncing Detroit “Deh-twah?”

I agree with this 1000%. If I go to the northeast and mispronounce a place like Worcester, MA incorrectly, I'm going to be corrected very quickly - and rightly so. But apparently it's offensive for places off the coasts to defend their own pronunciations. As someone from Utah, I will defend the proper pronunciation of neighboring Nevada (while obviously trying not to be annoying about it). But the reaction from eastern people is almost always something along the lines of "oh you're so silly" with zero effort to fix it. I'm willing to be patient with people, but that sort of reaction is simply rude IMO.

I also routinely get made fun of among my Florida/Georgia/east coast friends for my apparently weird pronunciation of Colorado. I don't even hear a difference between what comes out of my mouth and how they think it should be pronounced. I guess because I don't have an overemphasized "ahhhh" sound coming from the back of my mouth, I'm wrong?

[kphoger]

In grade school I was taught to include the first "s" in the first syllable:  wis-CON-sin.  However I believe in the native pronunciation it's correctly attached to the second syllable"  wi-SKON-cin.

I'm trying to figure out what the difference is, and I just can't.

If you put the "s" in the first syllable rather than the second, the "c" comes out a lot harder.

Putting the "s" and "c" in the same syllable produces a very noticeable "SKUH" sound to my ear, whereas separating them is more of a "HISS-KUH".  One of those where I know it when I hear it, I guess.

I can't tell one bit of difference.  In fact, it doesn't matter which syllable I 'decide' to put the letter 's' in:  I still end up pronouncing it exactly the same either way.  What are you guys doing?  Pausing between syllables or something?  All the letters just flow together when I say the word, no matter how I conceptualize the syllabic structure.  I'm honestly in the dark here.  And keep in mind that I'm a bit of a language nerd, so this is really baffling me.

And in fact, we've done this with words before. Spanish cañon became English canyon. That's good! It's the same word, just changed to follow our rules! And nobody has any problem knowing how canyon is pronounced.

Is this a good time for me to point out that the English word canyon is not pronounced the same as the Spanish word cañón?  Both vowels are pronounced differently, and the stress is on the wrong syllable.

Another classic state capital mispronunciation is "dez moynz."

And yet ... Des Plaines, IL ...

This thread is meaningless for me, since Spanish pronounciations are pretty much straightforward (The opposite, however, isn't true).

So it doesn't bother you when people pronounce cabeza to rhyme with fresa?

It always strikes me as extremely pretentious when East Coasters in particular use the argument "that's how it's pronounced in Spanish, so why should it be anything else?"  when justifying pronouncing Nevada or Colorado differently from the local consensus. Do they also pronounce Texas, New Mexico, or Montana like the Spanish words? How about pronouncing Detroit "Deh-twah?"

I agree with this 1000%. If I go to the northeast and mispronounce a place like Worcester, MA incorrectly, I'm going to be corrected very quickly - and rightly so. But apparently it's offensive for places off the coasts to defend their own pronunciations. As someone from Utah, I will defend the proper pronunciation of neighboring Nevada (while obviously trying not to be annoying about it). But the reaction from eastern people is almost always something along the lines of "oh you're so silly" with zero effort to fix it. I'm willing to be patient with people, but that sort of reaction is simply rude IMO.

How do these people pronounce Cape Canaveral?

Actually, what I'm interested in is how Mexican-Americans pronounce the Spanish-origin names of certain Texas towns, as compared to how white Texans pronounce them.



Now let's talk about the word Parmesan.  I'll continue pronouncing it 'wrong' till the day I die.

[JayhawkCO]

The worst one for me is British soccer commentators almost intentionally mispronouncing Martínez as "MAH(R)-tih-nez".

I get that British English doesn't use the same vowels as Spanish (or American English for that matter), but how hard is it to get the stress right in a very common last name? And they've clearly heard the name from others before, but yet they can't seem to be bothered to even try.

[hbelkins]

Mispronunciation that bother you

Ironically, the noun and verb disagree on whether the sentence is plural or not

Yes, I noticed the typo pretty quick, but haven't fixed it yet.

[gonealookin]

In grade school I was taught to include the first "s" in the first syllable:  wis-CON-sin.  However I believe in the native pronunciation it's correctly attached to the second syllable"  wi-SKON-cin.

I'm trying to figure out what the difference is, and I just can't.

If you put the "s" in the first syllable rather than the second, the "c" comes out a lot harder.

Putting the "s" and "c" in the same syllable produces a very noticeable "SKUH" sound to my ear, whereas separating them is more of a "HISS-KUH".  One of those where I know it when I hear it, I guess.

I can't tell one bit of difference.  In fact, it doesn't matter which syllable I 'decide' to put the letter 's' in:  I still end up pronouncing it exactly the same either way.  What are you guys doing?  Pausing between syllables or something?  All the letters just flow together when I say the word, no matter how I conceptualize the syllabic structure.  I'm honestly in the dark here.  And keep in mind that I'm a bit of a language nerd, so this is really baffling me

I guess this is too hard to articulate in print, I'd need to have you listen to it.  To my ear there's a pretty significant difference in starting the second syllable with the "s" sound vs. starting it with the "hard c"/"k" sound.

[Big John]

In World Cup matches where the announcer pronounces Tunisia with 4 syllables.

[JayhawkCO]

In World Cup matches where the announcer pronounces Tunisia with 4 syllables.

Less egregious since Tunisia is pronounced with 4 syllables in their own language. We're the ones that kind of bastardize it.

[index]

"Govur-mint" and "env-eye-ur-mint" (ignoring the midword "n" in both cases—"government" and "environment") are two I hear fairly often.

"Nucular" is another.

"Artic" and "Antartic"/"Antartica" are ones I hear less often.

The difference between words like "government" and "environment" and other words in this thread is that "goverment" and "enviurment" are listed as acceptable pronunciations in a few major dictionaries. If there's words like "often" where a letter, in this case the 't' can be silent or not silent, it just depends on personal preference, I suppose the same could be valid for this.

[roadman65]

"Govur-mint" and "env-eye-ur-mint" (ignoring the midword "n" in both cases–"government" and "environment") are two I hear fairly often.

"Nucular" is another.

"Artic" and "Antartic"/"Antartica" are ones I hear less often.

The difference between words like "government" and "environment" and other words in this thread is that "goverment" and "enviurment" are listed as acceptable pronunciations in a few major dictionaries. If there's words like "often" where a letter, in this case the 't' can be silent or not silent, it just depends on personal preference, I suppose the same could be valid for this.

Where I come from its enviorment and until I looked it up,I was shocked to learn it had a middle n in the word as I have never heard anyone pronounce it as it's spelled.

Government I was taught in broadcasting school to not leave out silent letters but when saying envelope to pronounce the e at the beginning as an "O"  and say onvelope.

[CtrlAltDel]

The only ones that really bother me are my last name, which is inevitably mangled by anyone who doesn't have it, and the French word femme, since I teach French and this is by far the most mispronounced word. (For the record, its "fahm.")

[US 89]

Their own fault they spell it with an E.

[roadman65]

In Wichita. The Arkansas River is pronounced not like the state it's named for but the state that Wichita is in with the prefix "are."

Basically Kansas is in the name Arkansas and if my friend who used to live there is correct, Arkansas says their state name incorrectly. Then again do people fro Arkansas claim Kansas pronounces their state name wrong?

[Scott5114]

Kansas is named after the Kanza people, now known as the Kaw Nation.

Arkansas is named after the word arcansa, which was an Algonquian word referring to the Quapaw people. Then it got Frenched up.

So despite the two states being spelled the same their names actually have nothing to do with each other. (You could maybe make an argument that Arkansas should be renamed "Quapaw", though.)

[SSOWorld]

Cayro? c'mon Illinois, no wonder it's becoming a ghost town
LANK-aster? seriously?

[kphoger]

Now let's talk about the word Parmesan.  I'll continue pronouncing it 'wrong' till the day I die.

Wow, no debate at all on this one?