There are certain words in the English language (many borrowed from other languages) that are routinely butchered by many of us. (You know who you are.)
No, wait. You don't know who you are--that's why I'm cluing you in.
There are a few that are of particular annoyance to me, so I thought I had better let it all come out, so that you can plainly see just how arrogant and elitist I truly am. My apologies. If you find yourself mispronouncing any of these, I hope you will kindly refrain from driving by my house armed with a carton of eggs.
First, and the most annoying for me, is the mispronunciation of the word
NUCLEAR
Many, including George Bush the Younger, say this incorrectly, often on national television, to my personal horror. Don't these people have handlers for this kind of thing? They must not, because right there in front of zillions of people they say
NEW-CYOO-LER
If you see that you may be saying it wrong yourself (gasp!) say the word this way, as if it were two words:
NEW + CLEAR
I tried to get this across once to a close relative who said the word incorrectly. I said 'new-cyoo-lar' and then explained that it should be 'new-clear'. She said, "Right! New-cyoo-lar. That's what I said!"
Sometimes you just have to pick your battles. I let that one drop in the name of familial peace, and she still says it wrong, 10 years later. This tells me that the desire to say words correctly is not genetic.
Speaking of which, next on my list is 'parmesan'. Nearly everyone I have ever known says it incorrectly, including (horrors) my own children, despite my arrogantly correct pronunciation of the word in front of them for the past 20 years:
PAR-ME-ZHAN, with the 'z' sound like we say "ZsaZsa Gabor"
(If you're young, you have no idea who or what that is, and therefore no idea how to pronounce the words. She was a semi-famous actress, but never mind that.) Say 'collision' and you'll be making the 'zh' sound like everyone does when they say 'parmesan'.
Yeah, that's wrong.
That would be correct if the word were spelled 'parmesian', similar to "Parisian", as in all things related to Paris. But you may notice that there is no letter 'i' in front of the 'a', and this makes the all-important difference. (Important to me and no one else, clearly.)
The word is pronounced just the way it's spelled. It is, simply,
PAR-ME-ZON
So ubiquitous is this mispronunciation that if you try saying it correctly in front of your peeps, they'll look at you like you've got three heads.
(Ya like that word 'ubiqitous'? That's a five-dollar word right there. I throw that in when I want to sound cultured and just a little douchey.)
Next, did you know that in the western parts of the U.S., words like 'provolone' and 'minestrone' are pronounced with the 'ee' sound at the end, like,
MIN-E-STRON-EE and PRO-VO-LON-EE
I grew up saying the words this way, but when I moved to the east, everyone drops off the last 'EE' syllable, making it a silent 'E'. I have heard that in 'low Italian' the last 'e' is often dropped, but in standard Italian, the 'e' is always pronounced. In fact, in nearly every other language besides English, there is no such thing as a silent 'e' at the end of a word -- this is something peculiar to English, French, and a few other languages.
And please remember it is not
ORIENTATE
Yes, there is a word "orientation" but this is based on the word "to orient" or to 'situate in a place with respect to a point of reference'. The extra syllable 'a' placed before the 'tion' is only there to prevent the word from becoming 'oriention' when rendered as a noun. When you shorten the word from its noun form, 'orientation', it becomes
ORIENT
Think about the word provocation. Do you say 'provocate'? Well, some of you might, but it shortens to 'provoke'. See?
OK, I'm on a roll now. Try to keep up.
SHER-BET
not
SHER-BERT,
REAL-TOR
not
REAL-A-TOR,
and
MIS-CHIE-VOUS
not
MIS-CHEE-VEE-OUS.
Continuing.
The French words
MAUVE and TAUPE
are also a problem for some. We're pretty good about saying
TAUPE correctly, as 'TOPE'
but as you can see, mauve also has the 'au' vowel combination, and in French this is always pronounced as a long 'o'. So that word should be pronounced
MOHVE, as in 'STOVE'
not
MOV
In addition, it's
ASTERISK
not
ASTERIX
or worse
ASTERICK
Remember to use the word 'risk' at the end.
I had my dog
SPAYED
not
SPADED
and we went
ACROSS
the street, not
ACROST.
And it's hard hearing otherwise intelligent people say
ECK-SPECIALLY.
instead of
E-SPECIALLY
Do you see a 'C' or a 'K' before the 'S' in that word?? Hmmmm????
And the biggest irony of all is that so many people get the pronunciation of the word pronunciation wrong! They say
PRO-NOWN-CIATION.
There's a head scratcher fer ya.
And don't even get me started on all the people who say
AX
instead of
ASK
Whenever we are in New York and I hear someone say, "I have to ax my mother" I have to resist the urge to say, "But won't that hurt?"
Here. Pronounce each of these letters one at a time:
A.......................S.....................K
A..........S............K
A.....S.....K
ASK
There. Simple, right?
And that people actually say, "Youse guys" is beyond my understanding.
So get on the stick. Don't make me have to come over there and make you say it right. Nobody wants that.
