Pronunciation Pet Peeves

Coupon: /cue-pon/ or /coo-pon/

Interesting: /inner-es-ting/ or /in-tres-ting/

Both of the first ones drive me batty. Anyone else?

I love people that stuff extra syllables into words.

"Joistses" - the singular is joist, the plural is joists

"Masonary" - it's masonry, folks

And a peeve from the mechanical world:

"Selonoid" - it's spelled (and pronounced) sOlEnoid

Puh-ray-yuz Ja-HE-yu-sus!

I am a Craigslist junkie, and I still can't not laugh out loud when I read ads selling "Chester Drawers" I read this and I think of some poor dude named Chester who is selling his britches.

Yes, they are actually spelling it like that.

Not really mispronunciation, but misuse.

My shocks don't provide adequate dampening.

Damping.

bludroptop wrote: Coupon: /cue-pon/ or /coo-pon/

Those are both correct.

koo-pon

or

kyoo-pon

dictionary.reference.com wrote: —Pronunciation note Coupon, related to cope and coup, is of French origin. It has developed an American pronunciation variant with an unhistorical y-sound not justified by the spelling. This pronunciation is used by educated speakers and is well-established as perfectly standard.

Al-U-minium

EastCoastMojo wrote: Al-U-minium

Yeah that's an awful one.

One that annoys me is the difficulty a lot of British people seem to have with ending words in an A sound. Plaza turns into plazer, etc. Really annoying.

ProDarwin wrote: Those are both correct. koo-pon or kyoo-pon

Point well made, and I think I knew that, but it still drives me bonkers!

Pronunciations:

Roof - wruf (between Roof and Rough). People in Michigan say this. Milk - Melk Pillow - pellow

Other

Annoying: I seen Not Annoying: I have seen, I saw

The word "got", as in I have got. 99.5% of the time it's unnecessary and could be left out altogether.

I'm surprised no one has mentioned nu-cu-lar yet :)

'Onliest' (only). That one drives me completely batE36 M3.

'Shivalay' (Chevrolet).

Discribitor' (distributor). Also 'scribitor'.

'Urnge' (orange).

'Tars' (tires).

'Chirren' (children). Also 'chillun', that's more a Geechee thing.

'Berrin' (bearing).

Jensenman wrote: 'Urnge' (orange).

Also

are-inge

Irregardless is a real measuring stick for me.

"You don't supposed to do that" is humorous when it comes out.

I've noticed lately that the breed of dog know as "Corgi" (Welsh Corgi, I guess) is commonly misheard as and repeated as "Corky."

Along the lines of extra sylables for fun: Capacitator comes to mind.

Yes...Dampening or Dampeners just drives me NUTS! I had a car cheif that threatened to hand out wet washcloths whenever someone asked for a dampener.

"It's" and "Its" are commonly confused. I typo them frequently myself as I'm used to just throwing an apostrophe in there (a muscle memory thing maybe?).

"To, Two, and Too" are just too much for some folks to differentiate between. (here I am ending sentences in prepositions again!)

Clem

I want to murder people when they mess up spelling your/you're and there/their/they're. Seriously, it throws me into a fit of rage.

Celebrated my grandfather's 85th birthday last week. I felt kind of bad for finding it amusing when I ordered a "Rob Roy, strait up" at a nice Chinese restaurant.

"Lob Loy, Stlait up. Okay."

It was not my intention to make him say that. But is it wrong to think it was funny?

I don't usually get annoyed with people, but do try to be precise in my language. Particularly when using non-English words or phrases. I studied Japanese for a few years in college. It so easy for English speakers to get the pronunciations right, its a shame stuff gets butchered. Signing with machine background music in front of your friends in Japan is pronounced Ka-ra-oh-kay. In the states it gets called "Karry Oky".

I find myself more distracted and sometimes annoyed with people who interchange "than" and "then" in written communication. I have read more THAN a few message boards where posters were looking for something that was cheaper THEN, smarter Then, or lighter Then whatever they had. I have seen a few If/Than as well.

[Gin-you-wine smartass]

Hey, did anyone check the spelling errors on the 'Next Issue' page of the current GRM? Or was everyone too busy vaporlocking over Tim's column?

[/Gin-you-wine smartass]

Salanis wrote: Celebrated my grandfather's 85th birthday last week. I felt kind of bad for finding it amusing when I ordered a "Rob Roy, strait up" at a nice Chinese restaurant. "Lob Loy, Stlait up. Okay." It was not my intention to make him say that. But is it wrong to think it was funny?

Did he order 'Flied Lice' as well? (ducks rocks and bottles from the politically correct crowd)

Funner is not a word, your car does not have a raydeeator (its a heat exchanger anyway) and my goddamn car is not a Porsche-uh.

We ordered a dinner with flied lice, honey walnut plawns, and banana cleam pie for dessert. And most of us were drinking Lob Loys. Some had their on the locks, other stlait up.

walterj wrote: Funner is not a word...

If the President has taught me anything, it is to not be afraid to make up words. It's way more funner that way.

walterj wrote: your car does not have a raydeeator (its a heat exchanger anyway)

So are you saying the radiator should be referred to as a heat exchanger? Good luck with that...having to explain yourself to everyone for the rest of your life (at parts stores, on internet forums, etc). Yes, it's a heat exchanger...but at some point you've got to give in to common and/or popular convention. (I'll be the first to admit that I have a tendency to be too hard-lined about some of this stuff.)

Or are you saying it's "rad-ee-ate-or"

In any case I'm lost. All my cars (since I haven't had any aircooled yet) have had radiators.

Clem

It annoys me when people pronounce it raydeeator in place of radiator. I was just tossing the fact that it really isn't a radiator either in as bonus material to show the anti-shock folks how clever I am ;)

If radiator's wrong it's too late to correct it, like how we use "rims" in place of the archaic "wheels"