English Words You've Heard Mangled
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alright, let me see if my wee american brain can handle this...samuraiweasel said:
i'm gonna guess the c is silent? so that would make the i also not matter...
less-ter?
The amount of Britishness in this thread is making me want to throw some tea in the ocean...
OT:
Gauss.
No one seems to have any clue as to whether it's "Gow-s" or "Gaw-s"
I've had fucking English teachers say it opposing ways.
However, since Gow-s sounds retarded, I always say it Gaw's
OT:
Gauss.
No one seems to have any clue as to whether it's "Gow-s" or "Gaw-s"
I've had fucking English teachers say it opposing ways.
However, since Gow-s sounds retarded, I always say it Gaw's
I like the part where everyone in this thread would rage on the olde English for their pronunciation and spelling. That said, it's 'creek' not 'crick' you south-west American hillbillies*
*Disclaimer: I hail from these parts so it's cool if I say that term**
**Disclaimer: Fellow south-west Americans please don't disown me. ;-;
*Disclaimer: I hail from these parts so it's cool if I say that term**
**Disclaimer: Fellow south-west Americans please don't disown me. ;-;
Do you mean as in they are all related in one way or another to latin? I don't think you mean they are similar in grammar and pronunciation, because french pronunciation is much different than English, and Spanish grammar is a bit different than English.IndomitableSam said:If you can speak English, you can speak French. Both are from the same root language, anyway. Spanish, Italian, and a couple dozen other languages. All similar. I don't know more than a word or two of Spanish or Italian, but I can guess at how they're supposed to be pronounced. I also haven't taken French since about the 8th grade, but I can still pronounce some words properly.T0ad 0f Truth said:IndomitableSam said:Yeah but Foy-eh and aluminium sound stupidDevetta said:
How does foy-er sound better than foih-eh? It sounds like someone from Boston saying "Fire". It's a french word for entry room. If you can't say it properly, call it an entrance room. Or something.
It's sort of both, as it happens. Technically it WAS a *mostly* Germanic language until the Norman Conquest, (centuries of Roman rule notwithstanding) but a few centuries of Anglo-French diaglossia (the use of two separate languages for different purposes and with different implicit statuses) warped it a lot. Even now you can detect that diaglossia in the division between "posh" words and their "vulgar" alternatives: the former are from Greek, Latin or French, whilst the latter are Germanic. Although there are Celtic words as well as words of other origins.davidmc1158 said:
Also, note I said "Germanic" not "German". Anglo-Saxons and their ilk may have come from modern-day Germany, Holland and Scandinavia but they did not speak "German".
Good man! Now try this one: "Loughborough is in Leicestershire."gmaverick019 said:
It's called "English", not American. Also, you have a British guy as your Avatar.Sir Thomas Sean Connery said:
Getting back on topic, the oddest mangling I can remember recently was someone describing an acquaintance on the phone as "self-deployed". Presumably she's an independent Private Military contractor...
You know the word "Chimera"?
For years I thought it was pronounced "Chai-murr-ah" (no, I don't know how I got that either). Then one day while playing WoW with 3 friends, one corrected me and claimed it was pronounced "Chee-mu-rah". Then another one cut into the conversation and told us it was "Shim-mur-ah". Finally the last friend stated that it was "Chee-Meir-ah". Then we spent the next half an hour arguing about it.
I still don't know how you pronounce it properly. :/
For years I thought it was pronounced "Chai-murr-ah" (no, I don't know how I got that either). Then one day while playing WoW with 3 friends, one corrected me and claimed it was pronounced "Chee-mu-rah". Then another one cut into the conversation and told us it was "Shim-mur-ah". Finally the last friend stated that it was "Chee-Meir-ah". Then we spent the next half an hour arguing about it.
I still don't know how you pronounce it properly. :/
Dem, dat, dese and dose.Eoghan Kelly said:
OP: My boyfriend makes fun of me for saying nuc-u-lar all the time. I know how it's supposed to sound but it just kind of comes out.
I also remember a person working in GameStop pronouncing Deus Ex as " Jew sex" but that's not English.
Anonymity. I can read the word, but I cannot say it. In my head it sounds right but speaking it comes out very horrible. Something along the lines of anonominity. I know theres only one "n" and am otherwise perfectly able to pronounce every other word that wanders out my mouth. I even can speak languages other than English with near perfect pronunciation but that damn word gets mangled by my mouth...
It might be a latent form of the stutter I used to have as a kid and worked VERY hard on to break.
It might be a latent form of the stutter I used to have as a kid and worked VERY hard on to break.
As a native New Englander (born in Connecticut, living in Vermont), I hear a lot of mangled words. Some people around here throw an extra r in a word where it doesn't belong, like "arnt" (aunt), "grarge" (garage), and farther instead of father. And then there's "hamburg" instead of hamburger. But the one word that really gets me must be a Vermont thing: "dooryard" instead of driveway. Don't ask. Just don't.
Yeah right in one but im just amazed at the way people pronounce things here ( i moved here from india but have an american accent thanks to school)gmaverick019 said:
My friend referred to "turrets" as "Tourettes" for the longest time. It was extremely annoying.
because it literally is SPELLED that way here, and in other countries also, it keeps consistent with "alumina" (it's source word) for the oxides, such as lanthanum.R4ptur3 said:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humphry_Davy
he even listed it as "aluminum" in his book, which marks back all the way to 1812.
i'm not trying to say "aluminum is right, aluminium is wrong", i'm just saying that its properly accepted that both were right.
I believe it's pronounced "Kai-mer-ah." Kai being pronounced like Kai from digimon.Kitty4President said:
OT: What really gets me is when people pronounced "skeletal" as "skel-ee-tle" as if there was a double e and the "tal" is pronounced like the end of "beetle." What's even more perplexing is that people who pronounce it this way never pronounce "skeleton" with the double e sound.
Also, I live in Northern Ireland, which is often pronounced as "Norn Iron," iron is also pronounced "eye-ern." These don't annoy me so much though, since I grew up here.