English Words You've Heard Mangled

[TheLastFeeder]

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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.

"Both are from the same root language"?!

English is a West Germanic language derived from Proto-Germanic, while french is a Romance language, derived from Latin. Yes there are Latin inflances in English but saying it is the root language is a large exaggeration.

 

[davidmc1158_v1legacy]

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.

Holy crap! I've been out-nitpicked! And out-pedanted! All in a single shot!

Sir, I salute the skill you wield in your pedantic nit-picking! You are truely a master!

(please let him read this as the smart-Alec and friendly joke that it is supposed to be)

Captcha: rum do
What the hell, Captcha? You went back on the sauce?

 

[Woodsey]

When I was little, I pronounced "herb" with a non silent "h".

Unless you're from the Caribbean, that's how you pronounce "herb".

OT: Recently I've seen people fucking up the spelling of medieval in all sorts of ways. Someone recently wrote it as "midi evil".

In terms of pronunciation, get a room full of people to try and pronounce Deus Ex.

 

[SSJBlastoise]

While they're not specific to a group of people, I have a mate who says renember instead of remember which was pretty funny the first time he said it. The best one of his though has to do with Tottenham, his favourite soccer team. He pronounces it Tottleham, I kid you not, I have no idea how he gets that from Tottenham but it is always fun to try and get him to say it.

 

[loc978]

I think the only thing that bugs me is how Americans say aluminium.

Funny thing, that... we also spell it wrong. I say it that way because it's been spelled aluminum my entire life, in chemistry classes, metal shops, even in the military where I dabbled in shaping aircraft aluminum. The first time I heard "aluminium" pronounced (I believe I was 17 or 18... some time around the turn of the millennium), my gut reaction was "Why the fuck did you add another i? Are you stupid?"

It's almost like we speak a different dialect...

That said, I hate chatspeak with all the burning rage of a thousand ancient sun gods. I have a difficult time not killing people who pronounce the acronym "LOL". Oh, and there was also this kid I met online who, I shit you not, used the term "trollface" as a complete statement to indicate lack of seriousness in a previous statement. Out loud. Needless to say, he's on my blocked list in that particular service.

 

[crazyarms33]

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.

My roommate does that all the time! I have started throwing whatever object is handy at him to get him to pronounce it correctly.

OT: I cannot count how many times I have heard the word "library" referred to as a "Liberry". No, no, no, no, NO, NO, NO, NO, N0, NO, NO, NO, NOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Every single time I hear someone butcher it like that it makes me wish a badger would trundle out of the woods and beat them. Also when the word "ask" is pronounced "axe" I die a little inside.

"Hey, can I axe you a question?"

No, no you may not. You may however, go purchase a dictionary and a public speaking book.

 

[MeChaNiZ3D]

Apart from Americanisms that drive me insame ('erb', 'carmel' and 'aluminum' chief among them), I've heard a Chinese lecturer at my university say 'components' and have it sound like 'kahunas' (everything else he says is just as bad, but that is one I remember for its commonality), I've heard people pronounce 'scythe' as 'skaith', Northernlion of Youtube says 'vaguely' as something like 'vaggly', and I myself have trouble deciding whether to pronounce 'route' as 'root' or 'raut' (as in 'out').

Also there's this word 'nesh' that really pisses me off.

What's that meant to be? Or is it every instance of '-ness'?

 

[SL33TBL1ND]

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

Uh... Herb is supposed to have a non-silent H.

 

[Eleuthera]

That said, I hate chatspeak with all the burning rage of a thousand ancient sun gods. I have a difficult time not killing people who pronounce the acronym "LOL".

Here's some bonus brainbreaking: "lol" is the Dutch word for "fun". We actually use that word and have used it for a lot onger then the internet (or text speak) has been around (pronounced similarly to lawl, but with a shorter "o" sound, like in "of").

OT: One of my friends who's quite fluent in English, still has the most horrible accent, and tends to speak all the letters in a word. I actually couldn't help myself and yelled "soared" at him after he kept mangling "Sword" to "swort"

 

[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.

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

Surprise me, if you can see me coming. I'd advise you up the ante at least a little bit though. You fail to represent a good challenge from what you've presented thus far. Get a Metal Gear or something.

Anyway, back on topic: Here's a rather funny one I've heard before, from some Russian dude: he pronounced "pennies" as "penis", so I'm at the cash register and he's giving me my change and he's like "and here's two penis for your change!". Had to stifle laughter there.

 

[mgirl]

Have you ever heard Yahtzee pronounce "inventory", I don't think thats how you're supposed to say it. The worst is in his bioshock review (look it up yourself I'm to lazy to post a link)

Really? I pronounce it the same way. Probably a regional thing, his pronunciation would be considered a correct variation where I live in England anyway.

I've heard the word 'meme' pronounced a number of different ways, usually wrong.

 

[suitepee7]

err, two really piss me off

1) a friend of mine says balcony as bulkony... the fuck is that about
2) people who say tuff instead of tooth. annoying thing, a lot of those people then go on to say TOOTHpaste, not tuffpaste

 

[Grape_Bullion]

Maybe posted before, but I always get a kick out of American "CapillAIRy" and the English "capillary".

 

[APLovecraft]

the way rihanna pronounces yorkshire (york-shurr) on the capital fm advert annoys me to no end "what up YAARKSHEER!"

on another note; in warriors:legends of troy did anybody else get annoyed with the pronunciation of some of the characters names ie:
Odysseus (o-diss-ee-us) becoming (o-diss-ay-us)
&
Zeus (zoos) becoming (zay-us)

did anybody else notice that? have i been pronouncing greek names wrong?
i know they arent english words i was just curious
x

 

[DanielBrown]

I've always pronounce melee and meme as me-lee and me-me due to not having heard the words spoken until much later than I learned them. Saying meilei and meem sounds really wrong to me.

on another note; in warriors:legends of troy did anybody else get annoyed with the pronunciation of some of the characters names ie:
Odysseus (o-diss-ee-us) becoming (o-diss-ay-us)
&
Zeus (zoos) becoming (zay-us)

did anybody else notice that? have i been pronouncing greek names wrong?
i know they arent english words i was just curious
x

Believe most languages/dialects are wrong. In Swedish we say Zeus like Sävs(sounds as stupid as it looks). The ancient Greek way was Zeús.

 

[Eclipse Dragon]

That's cultural differences. In England at least, you pronounce "herb" with the "h".

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

Uh... Herb is supposed to have a non-silent H.

Well then... good to know I got it right the first time.
Darn American schools telling me I was wrong.

 

[necromanzer52]

I know a guy who pronounces mayonaisse as "my-nez". No idea where he got that from, and the first time he said it, it took ages to figure out what he was talking about.
Same guy also used to pronounce subtle as sub-tel. Which was fair enough I suppose, as he'd only seen it written down, and he started saying it properly, once I explained it to him.

 

[SmokingBomber465]

"asked" has been well and truly "axed"

 

[SckizoBoy]

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.

Yeah... got it there... the Viking language influenced modern Danish more or less as much as some High German dialects, while it only had a sort of transient effect on English, because the Vikings never really occupied much of the British Isles, unlike the Normans, who, ironically, were descended from Viking settlers paid to watch the northern coast of the King of France's realm (the Duke of Brittany did his bit by himself).

Holy crap! I've been out-nitpicked! And out-pedanted! All in a single shot!

Sir, I salute the skill you wield in your pedantic nit-picking! You are truely a master!

(please let him read this as the smart-Alec and friendly joke that it is supposed to be)

*flouts pedantic superiority* *supercilious sniff* =P

Anyway, if ever there was a bastard in linguistics, it'd be the English language. Very few major languages that English doesn't have loanwords from or lingual influences.

 

[freaper]

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

Despite years of French in high school (I've forgotten nearly all of it) I still mentally pronounce "Rendezvous" as "Ren-dezz-vuss" instead of "Ron-day-vuu" because that's how I manage to remember how to properly spell it. I pronounce it correctly, though.

On the subject of rendezvous; I once told someone jokingly in a game of counterstrike that I didn't speak French, when he told us to "rendezvous at the bottom of the stairs". He replied with "Rendezvous is not French..." I facepalmed hard that day.

OT: Before hanging out with actual native speakers I used to pronounce the /ch/ in "character" as the /ch/ in charcoal, which to this day, still sounds better in my head (though I don't actually pronounce it like that any longer).