- Pregnancy
- Baby & Toddler
- Parents
- Getting Pregnant
- Baby Names
- Product Reviews
-
Registry
- Community
-
More
Want a personalized experience?
Download the free app
Austin Babies
For the language peeve ladies
Saw this on FB this morning and thought of all of you on the peeves post:
This discussion has been closed.
Re: For the language peeve ladies
i've seen that one written in work emails. i can see how it's easily mistaken since they do sound a lot alike, but if you look at the actual words and what they mean in context to what you're trying to say, it doesn't make sense at all.
ETA: I can't belive they left expeshully off the list.
Love this!
For the most part I'm educated and able to clearly convey my thoughts. It drives me bananas when some words are mispronounced (hello, salmon) but I'm also a hypocrite. I was a very advanced/ avid reader growing up. I remember reading Stephen King in 6th grade. (Who knew Jurassic Park was so violent?) Unfortunately I learned a lot of big words and pronounced them in my head. And those are the words that still come out of my mouth today.
So embarrassing.
I have a coworker that confessed that she sometimes looks up words I say for their meaning only to realize as she spells them out that they're words she already knows that I butchered. Whoops.
Awesome. I will admit that, for the longest time, I though segue should be segue way.
Oops.
And I had a friend who thought cul-de-sac was "coda sack." I still love that one.
I totally pronounce the "t" in "often." I had no idea you weren't supposed to.
My mind = blown.
The Rssn thought the saying "Get outta Dodge" was "Get out and dodge" and totally tried to make fun of me for saying it the "wrong" (um...RIGHT) way. That was a funny conversation.
He also says things like "stuck between a rock and a black sheep."
I love being married to a foreigner.
::Linguist (with a specialty in language change) piping in::
FCB, don't feel embarrassed. The reason we don't speak Shakespearean English is that change via speech errors is an intrinsic quality of any living language. The only languages that do not undergo change via "mispronunciations" are dead languages, such as Latin. Even Hebrew, since its revival, has undergone major changes in the last 60 years.
Switching sounds is one of the most common speech errors, and it is responsible for the now-correct and socially acceptable pronunciation of some of our favorite words: 'horse' (hros), 'third' (thrid), and my all-time favorite example...'ask,' which has co-existed with 'ax' since the 8th century, during which 'ax' was used in written form without any stigma. 'Ask,' for various reasons, has won out as the more prestigious form.
And English is spelled so wonky because those spellings represent original pronunciations. Including 'salmon' and 'folk.'
My point is just that everything that comes out of our mouths is the result of some Joe or Sally's mispronunciation in the days of yore. And in a century or two from now there will be language lovers, such as us, who will be bemoaning the mispronunciation of the by-then socially prestigious "nucyular" as "nucyula," or whatever. So it goes.
And yet, strong opinions about correct pronunciations in English have been around since at least the 15th century (during which there were treatises bemoaning the erosion of English because people weren't pronouncing final 'e's in words like 'like').
It's an indicator of the health of literacy. Carry on.
/pedantry
This reminds me of my H. He has tried to translate some Romanian sayings for me and the just don't translate well. I can't think of any particular ones right now, though. I fail.
Huh. I blame Bobby Brown/ Britney Spears for my prerogative mispronounciation.
I have also always mispronounced prerogative!
And, I named my cat Sherbert, knowing the correct spelling and pronunciation of the word "sherbet."
Rarely Updated Blog
I think often is BS -- I've never heard that the t is silent in all my life.
I also would have sworn that "snuck" is a word.
And my confession: I was college-educated before I realized that the aww-ree I read and the ah-rye I spoke were one and the same. I blame it on reading a lot. In the same vein, my Mom said it took until the cartoons came out for her to realize that she was pronouncing Yosemite Sam in her comics incorrectly.
6-yr-old Elena and 4-yr-old Julia.
My Blog! All about my girls and quilting
Mine too! Who knew?! It's there, so I say it! I've never heard of a silent "t". Wow, I learned something today. Hope no one I've said it to went and made fun of me later.
I get all cranky at people who say "sherbeRt". Hello, McFly?
No you may not!
When 3 Became 4