Comments on: Words you probably pronounce incorrectly

By: Carol

Carol — Fri, 29 Jul 2011 22:13:48 +0000

Thank you, Mark Jaquith, for citing “zoology”! You’d think I didn’t have real problems, the way I’ve been tearing my hair out over that word for years. I had a conversation with two students at UC Berkeley who were majoring in “zoo-ology”. I couldn’t stop myself. They came back with, “Our professor says ‘zoo-ology!” & that was that. Q: How do you go through the education system, acquire a doctoral degree, & land tenure at a prestigious university, without knowing how to pronounce what you’re teaching? The word zoo is an abbreviation of “zoological [zoh-ological] garden”, the original term. The prefix “zo o” (“zoh-uh”, meaning animals) is shortened to “zo” (zoh) when used before a vowel, & “ology” of course means a branch of learning. So we have zoogeography (zoh-uh-geography) for the science dealing with the geographical distribution of animals, & zoology (zoh-ology) for the study & classification of animals. Et cetera. (Et ketera?)

By: Robert

Robert — Mon, 04 Apr 2011 09:32:41 +0000

Chef pronounced as ???
Lead pronounced as “Lid” is its a verb or “Led” if its a noun
Leave pronounced as “Lee-vi” not “Liv”
Adjust pronounced as “r-just” not “Ad-just” (controversial)
Benny pronounced as “Burn-ny” or “Ber-nie” or “Burn” ????
Owl pronounced as “Ah-wel” not “O-wool”
Question pronounced as “Kwess-shen” not Kwessen
Anxiety pronounced as ???
Elite pronounced as “Eh-lit” not “Eh-light”

This is fun… help required where there are ???

By: Lena Hammond

Lena Hammond — Sun, 24 Oct 2010 04:40:07 +0000

Are you sure about that? It may be correct in Latin, but I have never heard it pronounced with a hard C in English..

By: Lena Hammond

Lena Hammond — Sun, 24 Oct 2010 03:20:30 +0000

I nearly forgot the word that is so frequently mis-pronounced: “tenterhooks” meaning filled with anxiety or in suspense. Nine out of ten people say “tenderhooks”. Wrong!

By: Lena Hammond

Lena Hammond — Sun, 24 Oct 2010 03:00:14 +0000

That’s also typical cockney talk – they don’t seem to be able to pronounce ‘th’ but it comes out as ‘ff’

By: Lena Hammond

Lena Hammond — Sun, 24 Oct 2010 02:51:32 +0000

That’s typical cockney talk.

By: Lena Hammond

Lena Hammond — Sun, 24 Oct 2010 02:49:28 +0000

I agree, but like so many of the other words it’s plain sloppiness.

By: Lena Hammond

Lena Hammond — Sun, 24 Oct 2010 00:05:20 +0000

The word that annoys me most is the pronunciation of the word “asphalt” which is all too often pronounced “ashfalt”. The correct one is of course “asfalt”. there’s no “ash” in asphalt.

By: Lorraine

Lorraine — Tue, 04 May 2010 20:54:11 +0000

I’m a tad late on this talk but what the heck.

Firstly, I hate when people say “Doc-tor’-ee-al for the word Doctoral. It’s Doc’-ter-ul.

Secondly, I hate when people say “melk” or “vanella” for milk and vanilla.

Lastly I hate when people say “pree’-zen-tay’-shun” istead of “prezz’-un-tay’-shun”.

Phew! Had to get that out of my system someplace. Thanks.

Lorraine

By: Mark

Mark — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 06:40:31 +0000

I’ve heard it pronounced correctly, and your explanation makes sense.

By: mike

mike — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 09:20:43 +0000

well, it’s bei3 which means north. your voice needs to go down and then back up. and then jing1 is pronounced with your voice at a higher pitch and it stays at that pitch throughout the sound. very difficult to explain if you don’t know any chinese.

By: Rich Dardine

Rich Dardine — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 15:49:56 +0000

albLum instead of album
fo’ward instead of forward
uniNEted instead of united
furmiliar instead of familiar
-een instead of -ing

I’m looking at you, NPR!

By: Tom Burns

Tom Burns — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 21:36:29 +0000

You probably spell it: “shoulud”

You should be spelling it: “should”

If you say it as “shoulud,” you sound like somebody with braces trying to say “salad.”

By: Lana D

Lana D — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 18:11:31 +0000

Complaining about people’s pronunciation is a MOOT point! Not mute…because we are speaking about something not being quiet…oh well, guess I will become mute at this point.

By: Laurie B

Laurie B — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 12:54:50 +0000

The weather folks on television who say “temp a chur”