English words you have mispronounced for a long time

[Gumby]

It is amazing how quickly young children can learn languages. Before she retired, the young wife taught child development and early childhood education. As part of the curriculum, she and her class of high school juniors ran a preschool for 3 and 4 year old children. It was a regular occurrence for her to get new preschoolers who did not speak English at all when they started. She would ask the parents of the new child to make her a cheat sheet in their language of common phrases, such as "please sit down", "listen to the teacher" "do you need to use the bathroom" etc. and teach her how to pronounce them properly, but aside from that, they did everything in the preschool in English. Within a few months, the children were chattering away quite happily in their new second language. Among others, I recall she had students who initially spoke only Urdu, Polish, Korean, Japanese, Portuguese and Spanish.

 

[scrabbler1]

Gruntled is actually a word although perhaps archaic

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/gruntle

Classic of course are the many misheard lyrics of "Rock the Casbah" by the Clash ("lock the cashbox", "knock the catbox", "block the taskbar" etc.)

Gruntle is a verb and acceptable in Scrabble play.

 

[target2019]

Valentimes Day. It's a Philly thing.

 

[scrabbler1]

Where I grew up in Brooklyn, many people still used some of the stereotypical pronunciations:

Toilet = terlet
Oil = erl
Boil = berl

My mother made sure to correct me whenever I slipped and used one of those, but I still come out with a New York pronunciation like kawfee for coffee when I'm tired.

In a Statistics class while in college at NYU, the professor pronounced the Greek letter "theta" as "THAY-ter." It became somewhat annoying after listening to that for several weeks.

Unrelated to that, can anyone here from the Pacific northwestern USA confirm that the correct way to say the state just north of California is "ORE-gon" (like "organ") and not "or-e-GONE"?

 

[target2019]

Lol. Oreygun.
https://www.up.edu/portland/oregon-pronunciation-guide.html

 

[ProspectiveBum]

Unrelated to that, can anyone here from the Pacific northwestern USA confirm that the correct way to say the state just north of California is "ORE-gon" (like "organ") and not "or-e-GONE"?

Im in California, and have always heard it pronounced ORE-uh-gan. Never heard the accent on the last syllable. The only time I’ve heard the ending pronounced GONE is on TV if someone is playing up a southern accent (e.g. Foghorn Leghorn).

 

[CRLLS]

Where I grew up in Brooklyn, many people still used some of the stereotypical pronunciations:

Toilet = terlet
Oil = erl
Boil = berl

My mother made sure to correct me whenever I slipped and used one of those, but I still come out with a New York pronunciation like kawfee for coffee when I'm tired.

I left Long Island at the ripe old age of 10. The lady down the street put erl in her car but called the kid, who was named Earl, Oil. I also got a giggle from others when I moved to the Midwest and I used the word "won't" I pronounced it woont (as in moon). Locally, they say w-oh-nt.

 

[Montecfo]

Most annoying mispronunciations I hear are:

-Reel-A-Tor (realtor, this one seems almost universal)
-Eks-specually (especially, the younger one is the more likely to misuse)
-Acrost (across, another one in wide misuse)

I know that pronouncing the T in "often" is becoming popular with the young. But curiously, not the ones in Sof-ten or Lis-ten. To me they should all be silent or failing that all be pronounced. This hastens my concern.

The truly annoying part is these mispronunciations can become "correct" as they grow in use.

It is whelming if not overwhelming.

 

[scrabbler1]

I still hear people pronounce picture (pick-chure) as pitcher.

 

[NW-Bound]

Gruntled is actually a word although perhaps archaic

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/gruntle

Very interesting, the original meaning of the word "gruntle" and its new made-up meaning.

 

[REWahoo]

Where I grew up the following three words were pronounced identically: all, awl, oil

 

[braumeister]

You can always tell a New Yorker by noticing the inclusion of certain Yiddish words and phrasings in their vocabulary. Nothing whatever to do with their religion. A tendency to answer a question with a question is another good indicator.

 

[N02L84ER]

I grew up hearing warsh instead of wash.

 

[SecondCor521]

Unrelated to that, can anyone here from the Pacific northwestern USA confirm that the correct way to say the state just north of California is "ORE-gon" (like "organ") and not "or-e-GONE"?

I'm from Idaho. It's pronounced ORE-eh-gən around here. The last syllable might even be a little more clipped sometimes: ORE-eh-g'n.

Oh, and if any national broadcasters are reading this thread, it's nə-VA-də where the middle syllable rhymes with hat, not hot.

 

[Marita40]

Mary, merry, and marry are pronounced exactly the same to me. Upper Midwest upbringing.

 

[GalaxyBoy]

I grew up hearing warsh instead of wash.

You warsh it then you wrench it.

 

[NW-Bound]

Regional accents aside, it is fascinating to me that a native English speaker would mispronounce the words "misled" and "whodunit".

I would understand that a non-native speaker may make these mistakes. I myself originally learned English by reading/writing much more than by listening/speaking. I often knew how to spell a word without knowing how to pronounce it. Perhaps many native speakers also learn more by reading than conversing.

And then there are people who are the opposite, who write "would of" instead of "would have". Foreigners who learn English in school tend not make the above kind of phonetic mistakes, because they learn to write a word at the same time they learn its pronunciation.

 

[Gumby]

In a story that I'm sure is familiar to other immigrants, Americans have never been able to pronounce my name properly. Not even my own family (aside from my mother, who was not American) could do it, although my young wife comes the closest. When I leave my given name with restaurant hostesses, for example, they always think it is something else, so I mostly use my surname, which is almost impossible to mistake.

 

[Marita40]

Another song from my youth that had some incomprehensible lyrics. I always thought the second verse mentioned Foster Grant sunglasses. I had to google for the lyrics.

 

[Winemaker]

In the CDB song, I thought the lunatic dog liked to lay in the shade, never heard of a blue tick.

 

[Music Lover]

I wonder if this is a Canadian thing too...? A friend of mine in Canada: "I have relatives in 'Ore-Gone'. Maybe that's the way the people in OR say it too; not sure.

It could just be that I probably saw it in writing before hearing it spoken.

 

[NW-Bound]

Oh man! Forget about lyrics of songs. I rarely could comprehend any. If I cared enough, I would look it up.

I am glad that it is not just me who doesn't understand much of what was being sung. I could barely recognize it as English.

 

[MichaelB]

In a story that I'm sure is familiar to other immigrants, Americans have never been able to pronounce my name properly. Not even my own family (aside from my mother, who was not American) could do it, although my young wife comes the closest. When I leave my given name with restaurant hostesses, for example, they always think it is something else, so I mostly use my surname, which is almost impossible to mistake.

Sounds familiar to me. My name isn’t easy to pronounce in Spanish and not everyone made an honest effort, especially in the public sector, which bothered DW to no end. Some of our family members took issue with the names we gave our first two children, insisting we should choose names more compatible with the languages and culture of both parents.

 

[SecondCor521]

Regional accents aside, it is fascinating to me that a native English speaker would mispronounce the words "misled" and "whodunit".

I would understand that a non-native speaker may make these mistakes. I myself originally learned English by reading/writing much more than by listening/speaking. I often knew how to spell a word without knowing how to pronounce it. Perhaps many native speakers also learn more by reading than conversing.

I'm a native English speaker, but I and my son both were early and voracious readers, so we both picked up a lot of new vocabulary words visually. This can lead to both the "misled" and "recipe" form of mistakes. I can also clearly remember learning how to read phonetic spellings in the dictionary so I could know how to pronounce new words that I came across in books.

 

[Gumby]

My family who live in Missouri can't even agree among themselves on how to pronounce the name of their state.