10 Mispronunciations That Make You Sound Stupid

In addition, the words “like” and “actually” should seldom if ever be pronounced at all.

I agree with most everything in your article. However, “often” is pronouned both with the ‘t’ and without and is considered acceptable with either pronunciation. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/often

Dant, our junior high school teacher despised the word “like”, I agree with you that they should be seldom used.

I can’t stand people who aren’t “intelligent” enough to realize that language is dynamic and changes over time and as people spread out over the world. And then to have the nerve to call people who use common “mispronunciations” (according to who exactly) unintelligent shows a lack of understanding of how humanity interacts. In the end, if the people who wrote the dictionary decided that the “R” in February was no longer necessary and left it out in the next edition, suddenly all the people critiquing the rest of us English speakers would become “unintelligent”.

James is right. Check Merriam Webster. It includes the so-called wrong pronunciations of “February” and “often.” I will continue using the wrong pronunciations.

Just a few things

#1 is not a case of dyslexia, but of epenthesis, a process used by many languages to break up consonant clusters or change syllables around to a more palatable form.

You may not buy that #2 is regional (or varietal), but that doesn’t mean that’s not true.

#3’s maybe similar to #1 (and #2 may be as well)

#5 is not a mispronunciation: when the “d” comes before the “t,” English phonology causes them to, in a way, combine (homorganic stops in normal speech for many varieties of English only have one closure for the two stops, the former being the the close and the latter the release).

#6 is same as the above

#8: just because it’s spelled that way doesn’t mean it should be pronounced that way. It’s odd you make this claim since your pet peeve is the complete opposite of this case.

#9 is merely novel word formation, not mispronunciation. For that reason, you can’t say it’s “adding another syllable.”

FYI, The Often/silent-t thing is an americanism; brits pronounce the T. Moreover I would argue that it’s pure laziness on the part of most American’s that it has dropped out of the language.

Let’s just say: I SHOULD care less, but I can’t… I work at an HR office and get phone calls all the time from people asking “y’all is hiring?” I understand that being close to DC leaves the door open for a lot of “y’alls,” but if someone is asking for a job, shouldn’t they at least TRY to use correct grammar in their speech? My colleagues tell me our applicants don’t know any better, so I should just let it go. Some word usage changes over time, or we would still be speaking like the characters in a Jane Austen novel. HOWEVER, there are always some things that are just plainly unacceptable… like a president who cannot say the word “nuclear” the same way as the majority of the citizens of his country! Majority rules in things like language (and democracy).

Another one worthy of mention: “acrossed”. This is my personal pet peeve, and I hear it a lot from well educated people.

Mary, that’s an acceptable way of pronouncing it.

Is language dynamic and subject to change? Sure. Burt that fact does not insulate against the observation that certain usages, when deployed under certain circumstances, reflect ignorance. If I am living in 1972 and am attending an international conference on the dangers of nuclear proliferation, and I consistently pronounce the word as, “nucular”, while everyone else there adopts the universally recognized version, that does not make me correct. Right or wrong, it will make me come off as ignorant.

Just thought I might make a suggestion;

In most instances I feel the same way as you (bar #8) HOWEVER, Jewelry can also be spelled ‘jewellery’ (and is most English speaking countries) so I am afraid you are being just a little pedantic on that point.

A few that bothers me is when I hear the word Italian pronounced ” eye-talian.

I agree with Tony, when I hear those phrases, I cringe also. And in email, people are abbreviating their spelling and it hurt’s my eyes to read. They are carrying over their text messages. I think that is being lazy.

Two Japanese words I hear mispronounced all the time on the national news just drive me crazy: Tokyo and Kyoto. They are not TO-key-oh, or KEY-o-toh. They are to-kyo and kyo-to.

Granted, in Japanese, it’s a little more complicated as the syllables are held for two beats. The important thing to remember is that there is no vowel between the k and the y. It’s not it’s own syllable. It’s a blended consonant.

My gripe: “Should of known better.” People will even write it that way. It’s “Should have known better.”

Overzealous articles like these are precisely the reason I stopped majoring in English studies in college. Slight mispronunciation of words does NOT mean the person is stupid. Broad generalizations, very picky grammar hounds, and people who misinterpret regional/societal pronunciations as stupidity are not only rude, but can also be incorrect. Slight mispronunciation does NOT equate laziness. If laziness is at the heart of these phonetic “atrocities,” then so is your casual usage of contractions (it’s, and there’s) in the article, one must assume by your own definition that you’re lazy as well.

As for “I hate when Americans pronounce it like…” comments, different pronunciations are a natural part of being, oh, hundreds or thousands of miles away from each other. I could bring up the different pronunciation of “garage” in the UK and America, but it doesn’t matter, because it’s NOT about intelligence.

I’d give you more credit if you’d not misspelt “y’all”.

I hate how Toni Bowers, who complains about grammar, abuses it in his first paragraph, “I’d like to go a step farther here and talk about…”

The correct word here is “further.” When referring to physical, concrete distance, use “farther.” When speaking figuratively or abstractly, use “further.”

In his second paragraph, whose sentence structure is characteristically convoluted and poorly worded, he uses, “so it’s something you should be aware of.” He ended the sentence with a preposition, which deserves a slap in the wrist, since in this case, “so it’s something of which you should be aware,” or “so it’s something you should remember,” would be much better.

Stick with Words into Type or Elements of Style. Don’t pronounce the t in “often.” That sounds retarded.

I have a friend who pronounces “birthday” as “birtday.” It really bugs me…

??? Why are people supposed to pronounce the ‘r’ in “February” but not the ‘t’ in “often”? Some of these rules are accurate, some of them are way outdated. If everyone mispronounces it, then it’s no longer a mispronunciation. So as DUMB as the “supposably” people are today, in 30 or 40 years it could be a legitimate word. Just like “irregardless.”

Not that everyone ever agrees on anything. The closest thing we have to standard English is the consistencies that we see on TV, but there are hundreds (thousands?) of dialects in the U.S.