Pronunciation Pet Peeves

In the German language, the word Porsche would be pronounced with an unaccented schwa vowel on the end. Its not Porsh-uh, but it there would be a tiny almost imperceptable vowel following the Porsh part. If it were sung vocally in a song, the extra syllable is voiced completely, even written with its own note.

So, technically the correct pronunciation would be neither ways mentioned in this thread. Its neither Porsh nor Porsh-uh.

Here in the states where we have towns like:

North Versailles, PA (north ver-SALES)

Dubois, PA (DOO-boys - incedentally Michael Jackson's favorite town)

New Orleans (nu-WAH-lins)

I don't mind the "porsh" pronuciation. Most americans can't get the little subtleties of the European trailing syllabic vowels anyway, so if you can't do it right, leave it off.

I'm a California transplant here in Tennessee and I drive my coworkers crazy because I pronounce the town of Louisville as Loo-ee-ville instead of Loo-vull. That, and I pronounce Lafayette like the pirate, not le-FAY-ett.

I lived in Louisville for about 5 years and say Loo-ee-ville. I'm told I'm doing it all wrong. I guess somewhere along the way I got it all wrong.

When I lived in Louisiana, I rarely heard nu-WAH-lins, and only tourists say "n'awlins"

And after 10 years in Kansas City, it's still Missour-ee, not Missour-ah.

We have a town up the road, Milan (My lin) we ain't in Itly

Tim Baxter wrote: When I lived in Louisiana, I rarely heard nu-WAH-lins, and only tourists say "n'awlins" And after 10 years in Kansas City, it's still Missour-ee, not Missour-ah.

I lived in New Orleans for a year, so I say "new orlins" because I don't have the southern accent which would make me drop the "r" :)

I got one on a different forum yesterday. I busted a guy's chops for his cam choice and he thanked me for my "cantor." I wrote back and said... "I gave you a catholic singer?"

Tim Baxter wrote: I lived in Louisville for about 5 years and say Loo-ee-ville. I'm told I'm doing it all wrong. I guess somewhere along the way I got it all wrong.

I lived there for 6 months, and I say Loo-ee-ville also. I think people honestly believe it is pronounced "Loovle"

Some folks around here refer to a driver's licence in the plural, as in, "I lost my licence, and now I have to go to get them back." Makes me cringe.

GameboyRMH wrote:

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.

Look up the word in a Brit dictionary and it'll be spelled aluminium. So both ways are correct depending where you are.

WHILE WE'RE ON THE EASTERN PA SUBJECT:

5,280 feet equal one mal

To remove wrinkles from clothing after you dry them, you use an erin. Which can be confusing around our house since we have a niece named Erin and a grandson named Aaron.

The final R thing seems to be a New England thing. Danica Patrick told the story about being on a plane and the pilot announcing that "Danicker Patrick is flying with us today..."

NYG95GA wrote: Some folks around here refer to a driver's licence in the plural, as in, "I lost my licence, and now I have to go to get them back." Makes me cringe.

I think that might make me shoot someone.

mel_horn wrote: The final R thing seems to be a New England thing. Danica Patrick told the story about being on a plane and the pilot announcing that "Danicker Patrick is flying with us today..."

Definitely a British thing. One of the managers at work will frequently tell me to "Check if Pauler has placed the order yet" (Paula)

Cities are different. I live near Meh-DIE-nuh (spelled Medina) and my stepdad is from VY-en-na (spelled Vienna).

There's another one around here that looks like it should be one way, but is completely other, and for the life of me I cannot remember it.

Yeah, eastern PA has a ton of 'em. The 'g' sound drops out of all the 'ng' combinations: strenth and lenth come to mind.

The last two heavily hispanic areas I lived in had tons of spanish names that were pronounced american.

Supulveda: suh-PULL-vi-duh

Los Feliz: loss-FEE-luss

Del Valle: dell-VAL-ee

Visited my girlfriend's parents this weekend. The street they live off of is "Valle Verde" - pronounced: "Valley Ver-dee".

My wife works for an international glass wholesale company and as such she gets phone calls from all over the planet. Generally they dont faze her, but there is one that still cracks her up. The call came from New Orleans and the woman on the other end was probably a mix of Creole and Cajun, meaning she had a lot of French and patois in her speech. The woman kept saying she was from the 'New Orleans Hosing Bureau', and my wife just could not figure out what the heck she was talking about. Turns out she was from the New Orleans Housing Bureau.

Had a professor talk about being in a waiting room somewhere, (I think at a doctor's office) and the receptionist was calling out names:

"Jesus Garcia? Jesus Garcia?"

Pronouncing it: "Gee-zus Gar-shu? Gee-zus Gar-shu?"

Hey-zoos Gar-see-uh never came forward because he was probably an immigrant and didn't recognize what was not his name.

noisycricket wrote: Cities are different. I live near Meh-DIE-nuh (spelled Medina) and my stepdad is from VY-en-na (spelled Vienna). There's another one around here that looks like it should be one way, but is completely other, and for the life of me I cannot remember it.

There's a suburb of Minneapolis called Medina (Mee-DIE-nuh), along with another suburb called Edina (Eee-DIE-nuh.) Whenever the local TV stations get a new reporter, it's fun to listen to them mangle the local pronounciations during their first few weeks on-air.

ProDarwin wrote: I have to admit, while grammatically correct, I did a double take the first time I heard "Do you need a sack?" (bag) when checking out of a grocery store in Ohio.

Sorry, this one made me smile cuz it's a grammatically incorrect sentence that discusses grammar. The sentence has a dangling modifier in it. While grammatically correct incorrectly modifies I; it is meant to modify Do you need a sack? instead. As it's written, the sentence, taken literally, means that ProDarwin himself is grammatically incorrect, not the question about sacks...

One fixification possibility: I have to admit that I did a double take the first time I heard "Do you need a sack?" (bag) when checking out of a grocery store in Ohio, even though the phrase is grammatically correct.

stuart in mn wrote:

noisycricket wrote: Cities are different. I live near Meh-DIE-nuh (spelled Medina) and my stepdad is from VY-en-na (spelled Vienna). There's another one around here that looks like it should be one way, but is completely other, and for the life of me I cannot remember it.

There's a suburb of Minneapolis called Medina (Mee-DIE-nuh), along with another suburb called Edina (Eee-DIE-nuh.) Whenever the local TV stations get a new reporter, it's fun to listen to them mangle the local pronounciations during their first few weeks on-air.

You should hear people try "Olathe", a Kansas City suburb. (It's O-lay-thuh)

Nevada Missouri is pronounced "Nuh-Vay-duh"

Miami Missouri, I hear, is pronounced "My-am-uh"

And, to me and most around me, Missouri is pronounced with the long e sound at the end, not the "uh" sound...We get a little lazy in the middle though: "Mizzurry"

Clem

Don't forget Cairo, Illinois, which is pronounced Kay-roh.

mel_horn wrote: Look up the word in a Brit dictionary and it'll be spelled aluminium. So both ways are correct depending where you are.

Davy (a Brit) first called it alumium, then decided on aluminum.

It was later conformism-mad people who decided that all elements needed to end in -ium. You know, like leadium, goldium, copperium, radonium...

So if aluminum is wrong, then aluminium is even wronger... :)

procainestart wrote:

ProDarwin wrote: I have to admit, while grammatically correct, I did a double take the first time I heard "Do you need a sack?" (bag) when checking out of a grocery store in Ohio.

Sorry, this one made me smile cuz it's a grammatically incorrect sentence that discusses grammar. The sentence has a dangling modifier in it. While grammatically correct incorrectly modifies I; it is meant to modify Do you need a sack? instead. As it's written, the sentence, taken literally, means that ProDarwin himself is grammatically incorrect, not the question about sacks... One fixification possibility: I have to admit that I did a double take the first time I heard "Do you need a sack?" (bag) when checking out of a grocery store in Ohio, even though the phrase is grammatically correct.

Either way, it must have been SE Ohio. I've never heard anyone refer to a "sack" in NW, NE, or SW Ohio, unless it referred to a decidedly male piece of flesh.

Ohio is a neat state. It has a bit of everything. South, North, mountains, plains, forests, rivers... if you don't like where you are, drive fifty miles!

Ok... new texasism. I heard it twice, once from a prostitute and once from a good-ol' boy.

That stuff you pour sidewalks with? Its Kong-creek.

I'll let you guess the context with which the hooker said it.

Here in Washington State, a lot of people from the older generations have tendancy to say warsh. For instance, instead of saying Washington like a normal proper english speaking individual, they would pronounce it Warshington. To this day, I still can't help not to cringe a little whenever I hear someone say that.

So how do they pronounce George Washington? 'Georrorge Warshington'?

J