on a lighter note… people who shouldn’t be allowed to do stuff
and other observations about pronunciation and the time i bounced a check…
1. people who can’t pronounce cities or names of events where weather might occur should not be allowed to be weather girls (or boys). there is no “t” in Wimbledon.
2. people who pronounce Taco Bueno as “Taco Boy-no” should not be allowed to eat there.
3. people who pronounce Miami as “Mia-muh” live in Texas.
4. people who can’t pronounce Russian, Finnish or Czech names should not be allowed to call hockey games. say it with me, people: “Let-ih-nin”, not “Lay-tinnin”.
5. people who bounce checks to the State Board of Public Accountancy should not be allowed to be CPAs. uh, oops.
6. people who pronounce “hurricane” as “hurri-cun” live in Utah.
7. people who call me “Sir Kisser” … hmm, nevermind, only my classmate Kenric ever called me that, and i thought it was kinda cool. i wonder whatever happened to Kenric.
8. people who pronounce “buttocks” as “butt-tox” are Forrest Gump.
9. people who pronounce “jaguar” as “jag-you-ahhhh” live in England and really should reconsider that pronunciation.
add yer own in the comments, musees.
A southerner writing about pronunciation, hmmmm. What is weird is last night; I decided to start pronouncing Miami - mia- muh. Anyways I decided that everyone pronounces Texas wrong and it should revert to the Mexican way of saying it Tee-haas. Since it is a Spanish word and there is no X sound in the Spanish language.
June 22nd, 2004 at 2:53 pmum, that would be teh-haas. not tee. :)
June 22nd, 2004 at 3:15 pmPeople who pronounce “often” with a “t” should be smacked. It’s silent!! Also, it’s a “moot” point, not “mute” point!! Whew! I feel better!
June 22nd, 2004 at 3:56 pm*smack* - i pronounce the t in often. i didn’t always, but for some reason i started. probably because i couldn’t stand to see the t ignored like that.
ouch, that hurt, but i’m glad you feel better, jonag. :)
June 22nd, 2004 at 4:19 pmI hate it when people…
…say “utilize” instead of “use,” because they think it makes them smarter to use those extra letters.
…use passive voice. Passive voice produces grammatical errors. Get to the point, if you want someone to listen to you without falling asleep.
…confuse “to” and “too,” then claim it was a typo. Also see “there,” “they’re, and “their,” or “its” and “it’s.” If you can’t use the language, don’t mess with mine.
…write “alot” instead of “a lot.” That’s illiterate.
…use “since” instead of “because.” “Since” indicates the passage of time, “because” establishes causality. Note the difference in the following sentences. “I have been awake since 7:00 this morning.” “I woke up because I am a light sleeper.” It makes no sense to say “I woke up since I am a light sleeper,” or “I have been awake because 7:00 this morning.”
…use “may” instead of “might.” May implies permission, might implies possibility.
…say “whenever,” when they can just as easily say “when.” Simplify, simplify, simplify!
Oh, I guess I have a lot of these… So when I utilize alot of big words, since their easy to write, I may get your attention whenever my messages have been posted on your board.
June 22nd, 2004 at 4:36 pmOkay, that was grammar-cop stuff, not really pronunciation. But I had to get it out, because it was eating my soul.
June 22nd, 2004 at 4:37 pmMy grandparents live to this day in “Mia-muh” Oklahoma, so it’s not just a Texas thing.
June 22nd, 2004 at 4:55 pmok…. on the pronunciation thing… birFday (along the same lines of thinking, they shouldn’t be allowed to have them) LiBARY… oh barry, don’t lie… Crick?? don’t you get those in your neck? It’s not a flowing stream of water..that would be a CREEK.
And just to add to words that annoy… why do people have to throw MOIST into any conversation? Moist. OR.. Ointment. How ’bout you just rub some MOIST OINTMENT on that? anyone else hear nails on a chalk board with that one???
June 22nd, 2004 at 6:17 pmMy husband says Happy ValenTIMEs Day. Kind of bugs me but oh well, he’s perfect in every other way.
Sarahk, It rhymes with “soften”. See, no “t” sound.
June 22nd, 2004 at 9:02 pmIt drove Pinwheels crazy in Charleston, SC to have people say they were fustrated instead of frustrated.
I, too, am guilty of the “t” in often. I always considered myself grammatically savvy. You learn something new every day.
June 22nd, 2004 at 9:21 pmTexas has it’s share of oft(take that silent T types)butchered words.Sometimes the butchering is done by the natives-but that MAKES it the correct way to say it. Mexia: non- native mex-e-uh,native muh-hay-uh Bexar:non-native bex-ar,native bare.
June 22nd, 2004 at 9:54 pmSpeight:non-native spigot,native spate.
I sure am glad I was born in God’s country,Texis, not Texus.
One of the songs sang at my church home away from home when I’m at college tries to rhyme the words “Lord” and “Word”. It just ain’t gonna happen.
June 22nd, 2004 at 11:42 pmyes, I was going to mention that Mia-muh is the town in Oklahoma and Mia-mee is in Florida. Okies WILL correct you if you don’t pronounce it correctly, even in a job interview.(or so I’ve been told)
June 23rd, 2004 at 12:42 amand how about Feb-you-ary? and my Grama on my mom’s side says Hu-wy-ya for Hawaii.
jonag, sometimes i say soften with the “t” too, but only now and then. :)
moist and ointment - yeah, that could make a person uncomfortable.
June 23rd, 2004 at 6:38 amPacific instead of specific: “I pacifically asked her to smack the next kid who said fustrated.” Argh.
June 23rd, 2004 at 6:38 amThe one I HATE the most is the singular “cent” when used with a number value greater than one. “How much is that (coke/soda)?” “Fifty cent.”
Aaaaarrrgggghhhhh!
This might be a regional thing, though.
June 23rd, 2004 at 8:47 amno, that’s not regional, Greywolf. thanks for adding your two cent.
June 23rd, 2004 at 9:12 amnow THAT was funny…. two cent. And I must admit that the ValentiMes Day thing.. that poor, poor man.
June 23rd, 2004 at 12:11 pmOn the same BASIC issue…. can we all concur that those who don’t know the difference between YOUR and YOU’RE shouldn’t be allowed to type??
I don’t know about barring people from typing because of their grammar. I have alway excelled at spelling and I’ve homeschooled my kids for over 7 years now and I still find myself typing “there” instead of “their” when I comment on blogs. I think it’s because I hurry and my brain goes on auto-type without editing. Anyway, if we didn’t allow bad grammar sometimes, we’d have no Frank J.
June 23rd, 2004 at 5:13 pmLet me put in my two cent. alot of you will probly go nuk-a-ler, but I don’t think we should make a big deal about it. Sometimes we just say words wrongly.
June 23rd, 2004 at 7:51 pmPS. When did people stop using adverbs and adjectives? “that boy can RUN”, “that girl can PLAY”. So!? So can everyone else. Are you saying “That boy can run FAST”? “That girl plays well”?
fustrated instead of frustrated
axe instead of ask
new-que-ler instead of nuclear (sorry, Rightwingduck, the need to expunge my soul of this irritant was too great to omit it.) ;-)
sim-ewe-lar instead of similar
irregardless instead of regardless (argh!!!)
Wow…that really felt good. My grammar-nazi soul has been cleansed! Thanks, Sarahk!
June 24th, 2004 at 12:00 amOooooooooo yeah!! The “irregardless” one!! Can’t stand that one! Or how about “I could care less”. Wrong!! It’s “I couldN”T care less”. Whew! This HAS been a very cleansing topic! Thanks!!
June 24th, 2004 at 12:04 amthe your/you’re and other homonyms thing is one of my pet peeves, but for people typing on limited time and without editors, it’s understandable. for me, it’s so nailed into my skull to subconsciously think about the correct word before typing, but for people not quite so obsessive about grammar, etc., it’s just not something they think about. me, i re-read everything i write before i post it, but that’s only because i ALWAYS leave sentences hanging open where i’ve written half the sentence and moved on to something else. if i didn’t re-read, everyone would say, “huh?” even more than normal.
i’m not sure i could live in a world where there was no Frank J; i don’t know how i made it through the first 3 years of my life. ;)
rightwingduck, don’t you mean nuke-a-lur? and what i’m saying is that girl plays that boy who runs fast really well.
June 24th, 2004 at 12:05 amI have it……….. UNTHAW…. “can you grab that hamburger out to unthaw it?”….. aren’t we re-freezing?
June 24th, 2004 at 2:17 amOfTen is just fine. Check out this link, which states:
June 24th, 2004 at 7:26 amIt still bugs me.
June 24th, 2004 at 10:06 amPeople who actually think about English in today’s world…I gotta (have to) love it ;)…even my beloved President can’t say nuclear (he says nu ka lar)…but you have left out realtor (real a tor just kills me) and supposedly (supposebly is awful)…now about Texas…we pronounce it that way because we won it fair and square in a war and we don’t have to pronounce it Tejas…which brings me to the point that there are only two kinds of people…people who are from Texas and people who wish they were…which brings up “Don’t ask a man where he is from. If he is from Texas you will know it. If he isn’t don’t embarrass him.”…and what is with people who use all those leading dots….?
June 24th, 2004 at 11:23 amSpeaking of Texas, I always here “Don’t mess with Texas” or what. If I mess with Texas, what is Texas going to do about it.
June 24th, 2004 at 12:06 pmoops, i meant nuke-ya-lar, not nuke-a-lar, RWD.
pam, yes, irregardless drives me crazy, as do sim-u-lar, and “let me axe you a quarshton.”
jonag, i’ve been meaning to rant about “i could care less”.
unthaw, lillian? eek!
Bikey, i know actual realtors who say real a tor, and they should have to find a different profession too… and i love ellipses… leading dots rock.
jason, if you mess with texas, the dept of transportation TXDOT will sue you, because they made it up to get people to stop littering and don’t like other people using their slogan. but until they learn to spell y’all correctly, i’ll say don’t mess with texas. and we will… um… i’ll get back to you on that.
June 24th, 2004 at 12:54 pmThe Big Hair’s pet peeve is the word ‘herb,’ as in ‘herbs and spices.’
It drives her nuts when someone doesn’t say ‘erb.
I put all mine into one sentence:
“Juss doe-n axe dems wha dey fikkin fer breffess.”
June 28th, 2004 at 8:36 am“Often” has more than one accepted pronunciation: http://www.thefreedictionary.com/often
Some of these comments are really just embarrasing attempts at elitism. I believe becoming so irked by such mundane details is less oral fixation and more anal retentiveness.
Texas can and IS spelled, as well as pronounced “Tejas” by plenty of people. It is only partially informed to mention the “x” in Texas and the lack of “x” in Spanish. Ever notice Mexico has an “x” in it? The “x” is a nod to MeXico’s pre-Columbian roots. Plenty of proper nouns used by Mexicans have the “x” in them, such as Xochiitl. With all of this insistance on proper pronuciation, I feel compelled to mention the “j” isn’t an English “h” sound, as it is guttural and *sim-mew-lur* to a scottish “ch.”
A good friend of mine likes to quote ol’ Walt Whitman’s, “Do I contradict myself? Very well then… I contain multitudes.” Yea, I contain multitudes.
[laughing and making pun]
Unproofed Tejana,
September 14th, 2005 at 3:10 pmOh my, I have found the website where I could go nuts on all the grammar I get so disgusted with. At another time I will return and put my 2 cents in, Thank You
April 22nd, 2006 at 1:44 am