English words you have mispronounced for a long time

[KCGeezer]

Now you have me confused. "Another thing" is NOT preceded by "and" in the expression we have been discussing. And did you mean to write "think" there?

Sorry, stream of consciousness, non-sequitur, or maybe just a bad joke. I was thinking about ‘discussions’ my DM had with me when she was worked up about something.

 

[Gumby]

And speaking of eggcorns, one I have to admit to using for years is “baited breath.” I even insisted it was spelled incorrectly as “bated breath.”

Easy to spell the correct way if you remember that it is a contracted form of the word "abated" (i.e. - paused or lessened)

 

[Major Tom]

I do love the discussion. I consider the charge that I have excess logic to be illogical, by definition.

Are you related to Leonard Nimoy, by any chance?

Yes, this has been fun.

 

[Out-to-Lunch]

Easy to spell the correct way if you remember that it is a contracted form of the word "abated" (i.e. - paused or lessened)

And occasionally I will see a real pedant spell it as 'bated breath. A bridge too far for me!

 

[CaptTom]

And speaking of eggcorns, one I have to admit to using for years is “baited breath.”

I never knew why one's breath would be "baited," but also never bothered to look it up. You've shattered my blissful ignorance. Now I'm going to notice every time I see it. Just what I need; something else to be pedantic about!

 

[MichealKnight]

British Dude

So years ago at an airport, waiting for an international flight I start talking to a British fellow about this and that. While we're walking ion the plane I tell him that I've always liked the British accent.

He says "what do you mean....I speak English, you're the one with the accent"l

LOL

 

[braumeister]

I speak English, you're the one with the accent"l

Two countries separated by a common language.
-- George Bernard Shaw

 

[Montecfo]

Are you related to Leonard Nimoy, by any chance?

Yes, this has been fun.

Thanks for the laugh!!

 

[Qs Laptop]

Kind of off topic, but can someone explain why "dived" is used instead of "dove", as in "he dived into the water."

 

[braumeister]

There is no reasonable explanation; it's just an irregular verb.

 

[GalaxyBoy]

Does "anal-retentive" have a hyphen?

 

[MichaelB]

Kind of off topic, but can someone explain why "dived" is used instead of "dove", as in "he dived into the water."

Doves soar while dives fall? Just guessing.

 

[CardsFan]

I was thinking about misheard song lyrics and found this fun list:
Misheard Rock Lyrics

I will keep looking at this site, it looks like fun, but this one makes no sense, since the song was released in 1975:

All By Myself -
Eric Carmen

MISHEARD LYRICS
Obama self, don't wanna be
Obama self anymore

CORRECT LYRICS
All by myself, don't wanna be,
all by myself anymore

 

[Koolau]

Old joke:

Lady on a bus in Honolulu asks an apparently local man "Do you say Hawaii or HaVaii?" The man answers "I say HaVaii." The woman says "Thank you" and the man replies "You're velcome."

 

[leftcoastjayhawk]

I was always confused why Gracie Slick was singing about Uboats chasing rabbits. I always assumed that it was some kind of drug addled lyrics with a deeper meaning cause, you know, that Uboats stay in water, and rabbits live on land...


And I always worry about getting the accent on the right sy LLAH ble...

 

[donothing]

mispronounced

How about the Nueces river in Texas. Pronounced new aces. Also hear it pronounced new s'es

 

[Joggernot]

The one I vividly remember in my early 20s was the word “facade”, which I pronounced with a hard c as in “arcade”. Embarrassing!

It's all in the spelling. Facade is pronounced with a hard c. Façade is how to spell the pronunciation you all are talking about. Don't be embarrassed by their failure to spell it correctly.

 

[Chuckanut]

Maybe somebody can explain why we drive on a parkway and park on a driveway.

 

[Perryinva]

I’ve heard some of these, but not too many that were not intentional. Where I grew up in Westchester, you indeed warshed your hands and got a towel from the draws. I found it amusing as a teen that the R was added to wash while ER was deleted from drawers. DW constantly says “acrosst” the room. The one that drives me crazy is when she says “intense purposes”.

But I must admit I have never heard “another think coming”. It has ALWAYS been and made sense as “another thing”.

I am guilty of Reverend Blue Jeans, and it was actually KoQ where I learned it wasn’t.

My father was an Italian immigrant and we always got a chuckle out of some of his words. He left southern rural Italy at 15 and apparently his dialect is awful. When I learned Italian, his pronunciation was often a problem. His educated uncle from Milan was visiting the US many years ago, and he spoke perfect English. We died laughing when he told my father he could not understand how someone living in the US for 40 years had such a terrible Italian accent that he was as hard to understand in Italian as English.

A carpenter and home builder, we often had to fetch his tools & materials when we worked for him as teens. He called a reciprocating saw a “sawsaw”, which we always assumed was because it sawed quickly. He owned a Milwaukee brand. My brother & I were walking through Home Depot in our 20s, while doing a project on his house many years ago, and he suddenly stopped and said “OMG” & started laughing hysterically I had no idea why until I saw where he was pointing and staring at us was a Sawzall brand of saws. The mystery solved after all those years. It was even years later that I found out that the adjustable “bricktin” tool that I used to fetch bricks for the masons was actually a brick tong.

 

[Koolau]

Maybe somebody can explain why we drive on a parkway and park on a driveway.

Where is George Carlin when we need him?

 

[ksr]

When I was a kid I was fascinated by koala bears. But I had never heard the pronunciation, only seen the word, so I thought they were “cola bears”. I had posters of cola bears, stuffed animal cola bears, etc. for at least a couple of years before I ever heard the correct pronunciation.

 

[KCGeezer]

This guy can, but I couldn’t get the idea that it was a Monty Python set up out of my head.

 

[Koogie]

Another point to add to this think/thing discussion: On the western side of the Atlantic, "think" is not a noun!

Au contraire, mon ami.

p.s. Y'ALL (yawl ? yoll ? ) ain't the only ones on this side of the Pond...

 

[38Chevy454]

Y'all is singular, Y'alls is plural. Note the grammatically correct "s" at the end for plural

 

[MissMolly]

Actually it’s “all y’all” for plural [emoji23]