English Words You've Heard Mangled

[Atomic Spy Crab]

Oh, these are fun. One I've heard a few times is where some people pronounce "Turret" as "Turrent". I swear, the next time I see that I'm going to behead the person who fucking says or writes that. Fucking seriously.

Turrent

Okay, so which kind of sword do you want me to use? Pick one:

The scimitar

Gotcha. I'll be there whenever I feel like it.

I await your arrival, be aware though I have my 3 50cal mounted turrents and daedric artifacts.

 

[an annoyed writer]

Oh, these are fun. One I've heard a few times is where some people pronounce "Turret" as "Turrent". I swear, the next time I see that I'm going to behead the person who fucking says or writes that. Fucking seriously.

Turrent

Okay, so which kind of sword do you want me to use? Pick one:

The scimitar

Gotcha. I'll be there whenever I feel like it.

I await your arrival, be aware though I have my 3 50cal mounted turrents and daedric artifacts.

Congratulations. You just bumped yourself up a notch in my queue of important things to Murder, immolate, annihilate, eviscerate, destroy, and/or kill. You're now slightly more important than the mutant rodents downstairs. I hope that makes you happy.

 

[Headdrivehardscrew]

I have severe issues with not being supposed to go berserk at people that say 'eggsettera' or 'exetera' for, well, et cetera. There is no x and there are no eggs in et cetera.

I have little patience with people that go ahead and use the word 'malware' and then pronounce it as 'male war'. That's just all sorts of wrong.

 

[Vegosiux]

When I was little, I pronounced "herb" with a non silent "h".
To this day the word "h'ordeuvres" makes my brain hurt.

That's cultural differences. In England at least, you pronounce "herb" with the "h". I now present the great Mr Izzard to serve my point:

BECAUSE THERE'S A FUCKIN' "H" IN IT.

Thank you. Just stop cheating at Scrabble, you damn Brits will you...

But really, when the original, BRITISH pronunciation of a word is considered "mangled", I haven't a clue what to think.

 

[cikame]

As a British person i hear other British people brutally murder the language on a daily basis.
The only example i can think of right now is a friend of mine who says chicking instead of chicken.

 

[Samantha Burt]

If I wouldn't get a low-content warning, I'd simply put "nuclear" and have done. Although, it makes me want to punch someone where I hear people say "expresso". *groans*

 

[Tropicaz]

I can only think of 2 off the top of my head. One I only hear every now and then, and it's "Taw-lit" for Toilet

The one that really, really gets me though is Yoghurt. It seems that Yoh-gurt, which is an Americanism has become the main pronunciation nearly everywhere, even in the UK. The correct pronunciation is Yog-urt.

I don't know why it irks me so much, but I can't stand hearing everyone say Yoh-gurt

In the NorthEast we definately say Yogurt properly. Non of this Yoh-gurt for us.

When I was little, I pronounced "herb" with a non silent "h".
To this day the word "h'ordeuvres" makes my brain hurt.

I'm pretty sure you say herbs with a 'h'. I never understood why americans say erbs.


Edit: OT, I just remember when I was a youngster I used to say Chimley instead of Chimney. That's about the only mangling I can think of.`

 

[Chairman Miaow]

I can only think of 2 off the top of my head. One I only hear every now and then, and it's "Taw-lit" for Toilet

The one that really, really gets me though is Yoghurt. It seems that Yoh-gurt, which is an Americanism has become the main pronunciation nearly everywhere, even in the UK. The correct pronunciation is Yog-urt.

I don't know why it irks me so much, but I can't stand hearing everyone say Yoh-gurt

I haven't heard' anybody in England say it as yoh-gurt, but it is now spelt as "Yogurt" in all stores, except the one where I work, because I fix it.

 

[Atomic Spy Crab]

Oh, these are fun. One I've heard a few times is where some people pronounce "Turret" as "Turrent". I swear, the next time I see that I'm going to behead the person who fucking says or writes that. Fucking seriously.

Turrent

Okay, so which kind of sword do you want me to use? Pick one:

The scimitar

Gotcha. I'll be there whenever I feel like it.

I await your arrival, be aware though I have my 3 50cal mounted turrents and daedric artifacts.

Congratulations. You just bumped yourself up a notch in my queue of important things to Murder, immolate, annihilate, eviscerate, destroy, and/or kill. You're now slightly more important than the mutant rodents downstairs. I hope that makes you happy.

I'll give you the same choice you gave me, which gun do you want me to shoot you with?
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_L1vQH-KJXJE/S-k2QPm-2UI/AAAAAAAAAzw/tqipFjZuN7k/s1600/MarauderGuns_labeled.jpg

 

[Wyes]

The thing about the mis-pronounciation of "aluminium" is that its an element from the periodic table. It's name IS aluminium. You don't call Uranium Uranum do you?

Much as I am loathe to do it, I do have to defend the US on this one. From what I've heard, originally the element was called aluminum (as in, from alumina), but it was changed to be more in line with the other elements.

I have a friend who'd never heard someone say 'cuckoo', and so she pronounces it cuck-oo, instead of cook-oo. I mean really, who pronounces words how they're spelt? She would also pronounce array as AH-ray instead of a-RAY.

Really though, do you know anybody who pronounces the 't' in exactly?

Okay, so which kind of sword do you want me to use? Pick one:

But that's such a poor collection of swords! It doesn't have half of the fun ones.

 

[Lonewolfm16]

When I was little, I pronounced "herb" with a non silent "h".
To this day the word "h'ordeuvres" makes my brain hurt.

My dad still calls them "Whore-De-Vores" as a joke.

Dat french spelling just doesn't translate well to English does it? XD

[sub][sub][sub] At least its not Welsh or Gaelic. That shit may as well be written in Hieroglyphs![/sub][/sub][/sub]

Actually this reminds me of a joke, from a website about retelling cultural myths. He describes creating Welsh names as follows.
"Step one: pick exactly one vowel
Step two: pick seven or eight consonants worth at least 4 points each in scrabble
Step three: Add a w
You know what
Fuck it
Add twelve of those little fuckers
Step four: wonder where you went wrong in your life". Bettermyths.com if anyone is curious about the source.

 

[Vegosiux]

Actually, on topic, I'll just invoke Blackadder for some of the best word mangling.

"Antidisestablishmentarianism".

*two weeks later*

Anti-distinctly-minty...

 

[mitchell271]

Literally any French word that's used in English. Voìla, Au Revoire, Bon Appetit, etc. Being bilingual, I want to slap someone when I hear that and say, "No! It's pronounced *insert word*!"
Oh, and espresso. There is no "x" in espresso so it isn't expresso. It's one of my biggest pet-peeves.

 

[Sir Pootis]

My mother can not pronounce "Specifically", instead always saying "Pacificly".

 

[Lonewolfm16]

Actually, English is descended from German, not French. Different roots. The reason English is so messed up is that a few busybodies in the 1700s decided that English needed a standard set of grammar rules. Unfortunately, they chose the rules for French grammar to develop the English rules from, not the Germanic rules whic actually would have made sense given that English is Germanic in origin! /pedantic nitpicking

Actually, English is derived from both French and German (and more)... being ruled by Romans, Angles, Saxons, Normans, Scots, Dutch, Hanoverians... and Saxons once again rather does that to a language. It would be a fair point that English is a 'West Germanic' language at its core, but it's thoroughly infiltrated with Romance vocabulary and lingual conventions that it doesn't really make much of a difference. The thing is, you can't really say that English is 'descended from German' as that would depend on your definition of 'German'. Hochdeutsch as we know it has only been prevalent for about a hundred and fifty years in what we now know as Germany. Before that, vernacular, regional and colloquial German had as little bearing on Prussian German as Spanish did to French (similar, but by no means mutually intelligible). Directly, English is associated best with Frisian, Scots and (predictably) Middle English. Lingual evolution is best looked south (i.e. Latin/Greek) rather than east (i.e. the pre-cursors to Allemannic German and the various Low/High German dialects).

Oddly, in all of this, the Danes are left out, since Angeln (the ultimate root of the label 'English') is in modern-day lower-Schleswig! Yet Danish is obviously non-Anglo-Frisian, ironically.

Any idea why there is so little Danish influence on the English language? Considering there was a series of Danish kings of England I would expect significantly more. Then again they were invaded by the Danes former allies, the french-speaking Normans before they got too good a grip on it.

 

[AgentSanta]

I've got a friend who calls Marauders in Starcraft II "Mar-O-dors"

 

[Tahaneira]

At least its not Welsh or Gaelic. That shit may as well be written in Hieroglyphs!

It is my firm belief that the written ciphers for those languages were invented for the sole purpose of reducing foreigners to tears.

Not many examples around me, but for a very long time I would pronounce 'ludicrous' as 'lucridious.' Honestly, I have no idea where that came from.

 

[mrhappy1489]

Foyer.

Americans, it's foy-eh (basically, I won't get into french intonations)... not foi-er. It's french. Foy-eh. Every time someone says foi-er, I get angry. Say it with me: Foy-eh. Or maybe Foih-eh would be more appropriate.

Is it wrong that I read foy-eh in a Boston accent? I live in Australian, so there is any number of words being pronounced incorrectly. Being some sort of go between for slang from the UK and the US means that we get the worst of both worlds.

 

[OtherSideofSky]

Foyer.

Americans, it's foy-eh (basically, I won't get into french intonations)... not foi-er. It's french. Foy-eh. Every time someone says foi-er, I get angry. Say it with me: Foy-eh. Or maybe Foih-eh would be more appropriate.

In English, 'foy-er' is actually the correct pronunciation (http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/foyer). Borrowed words aren't just words of one language that speakers of another happen to be using; they change and develop differently to suit their new linguistic environment. In other words, an English-speaker saying 'foy-er' isn't mispronouncing the French 'foy-eh', they are using an English word which is based on a French word (which the French used to spell differently, and which is based on a Latin word, so you'd better start saying 'focarium' if you want to act all high and mighty).

Seriously, people, I don't go to Japan and insist that they say 'swet-er' instead of 'say-tah' just because the word entered Japanese through English.

 

[mrhappy1489]

-snip-

-snip-

Yeah but Foy-eh and aluminium sound stupid

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.

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.

Yeah but French, Spanish, Italian etc, are all romance languages, as opposed to English, Dutch, German etc, which are germanic languages. Sure if you trace it all the way back to latin we have similarities, but all in all the languages themselves still quite different. It's not like they're neighbours or anything, we share a couple of words, even the French ones that the Normans brought over were mangled quite sufficiently by the old english speaking Saxons.