cchris

A brief explanation of some common mistakes.

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Affidavid /Affidavit
Even if your lawyer's name is "David," he issues affidavits.

A blessing in the skies / A blessing in disguise
This phrase is no blessing if it comes from the skies. (Pronounce it correctly and help maintain the disguise.)

Calvary / Cavalry
It isn't clear why we say, "Mind your Ps and Qs" when we have more difficulty keeping up with our Ls and Rs. Had there been a cavalry in Jesus' time, perhaps Calvary would not have been so tragic.

Chester drawers / Chest of drawers
The drawers of Chester is a typical way of looking at these chests down South but it misses the point.

Duck tape / Duct tape
Ducks very rarely need taping though you may not know that ducts always do—to keep air from escaping through the cracks in them.

Flounder / Founder
Since it is unlikely that a boat would founder on a flounder, we should distinguish the verb from the fish as spelling suggests.

Heineken remover / Heimlich maneuver
The ancient art of stealing someone's beer.The art is using the latter to perform the task.

'erb / herb
Does, "My friend Herb grows 'erbs," sound right to you?

Klu Klux Klan / Ku Klux Klan
Well, there is an [l] in the other two, why not the first? Well, that is just the way it is; don't expect rationality from this organization.

Lambast / Lambaste Better to lambaste the lamb than to baste him—remember, the words rhyme. "Bast" has nothing to do with it.

Ostraya / Australia This pronunciation particularly bothers Australians themselves, most of whom can manage the [l] quite easily, thank you.

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There's a fine line between participation and mockery

slimshaydee

Mate with the aussie one, we are the most laid back country in the world, and we'll look for any excuse to be more lazy ie shortening words and leaving out sylables e.g. barbie, sunnies, sanga, snags etc. I'm gonnna have to issue you an "Affidavid"....see you in court

MaGlC_MaN

i have a friend who mispronounces EVERYTHING.. i find myself correcting him all the time and i don't mean to because that has to be annoying, but he just mispronounces soooo many words it's hard not to.
one of his favorites is "po - tuh - nent"
yes, that's how he pronounces "potent"
another one he used to say (i corrected him so much he stopped) is "onlyest" instead of "only"
there's a lot but here's one more for you, the other day i corrected him when he said "doorang" instead of "doorag" - (i'm not sure if that's spelled correctly)..
here's how i corrected him when he said it.. "oh, did you hit the guy that was wearing the doorang with your 'boomerag?'"

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Bye.

nash

I can understand "duck tape" vs. "duct tape." It's much much easier to pronounce the "ct" sound once than to do it twice in a row. It's called "assimilation" -- the word "import" used to be "inport" but it's naturally much easier to pronouce the "m" before the bilabial "p" sound than to pronounce the "n". The same with the word "input" -- linguists say that within the next 100 or so years the spelling will become "imput" to reflect the pronunciation but I personally think that they are wrong.

bernadette

i have a friend who says "li-berry"

correcting her to enunciate library properly is futile.

she also says berfday. happy f-ing <i>berf</i>day? what the hell is a berfday?

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Untitled

My roommate from last year would say "supposably" ALL THE TIME!!!

I even started quoting a line from Friends, where Chandler makes fun of Joey because he did this, and she still didnt get it. Finally, it just became funny... I dont think she ever figured out why we were laughing

Kewpie Dan

i say "birfday"! its fun and exciting to turn "th's" into "f's".

in my neck of the woods no one say "Toronto", it usually becomes "Tronna"

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I'm so awesome I made your mom cry!

Fremen

I noticed The Fonz doing that a lot in Happy Days.
He lost some cool points from me with that one.

Also, anybody that can't pronounce nuclear correctly needs to be popped in the mouth.
That especially includes George W. Bush.

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bundy

i try not to cringe when i hear news reporters saying, 'gover-ment' and, 'antar-tica'.

whatever happened to clarity.

mind you, not all reporters are bad. there are a few here who have immaculate enunciation.

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Ohayo!!!

CS733t

I get annoyed when I see people saying "your" when they mean "you're"

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So tired now of paying my dues
I start out strong but then I always lose
It's half the distance before you leave me behind
It's such a waste of time

Go_AVS

I'm gonna have to warsh your mouth out...

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MIA...

Derwood

A few of my pet peeves:

Acrost instead of Across. I think this is prevalent in Michigan and the Ohio Valley states.

Here's a big one. I live in Illinois, yet news reports are constantly pronouncing it ELL-IH-NOY. Better than ILL-IH-NOYS I guess.

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"You can't shoot a country until it becomes a democracy." - Willravel