What words do you hear mispronounced often?

[Lady Florida.]

One I haven't seen mentioned is Jew-lery for Jewel-ry. Makes me shudder when I hear it. 

 

On 4/29/2021 at 2:45 PM, athena1277 said:

 

It makes me batty when people drop the t’s in the middle of words that should not be silent.  For example mountain is not pronounced mouw-an and button is not pronounced buh-in.

I recently heard words with a middle t pronounced as d and it sounded so weird. I'd never heard anyone say words that way before (it was Jenna Bush narrating an audio book she and her twin sister wrote). Buddon for button, Pudin for Putin, etc. The d was very clear, not muddled. I figured it's her accent but maybe it's just a quirk in how she pronounces words.

On 5/2/2021 at 6:50 PM, Lucy the Valiant said:

I was surprised to see "chester draws" for sale on our local sale pages . . . Chest of Drawers.

 

I'm from Northern New Jersey and though I lost my accent and regional words long ago, I used to say chester draws. Or just draws for drawers. I have family still there who say it that way too. 

Dh mispronounces a lot of words because he has an uncorrected hearing problem in one ear. He's always had it, one of his brothers has the same hearing problem, and neither one had it addressed when they were growing up. They also both stubbornly won't get hearing aids as adults. They pronounce words the way they hear them, which isn't always the way they're actually pronounced.

Edited May 6, 2021 by Lady Florida.

[ikslo]

Height, when people add an h on the end 

[maize]

2 hours ago, ikslo said:

Height, when people add an h on the end 

Aw, I'm very fond of that adaptation. Length, width, and heigth; they match 🙂

[Laura Corin]

2 hours ago, Legalsers said:

"Often" and it drives me crazy!!!

There are various ways to pronounce the word - none of them is wrong.  This is a screen print from the OED:

[wintermom]

On 4/29/2021 at 8:41 PM, theelfqueen said:

I hate when people say Chip-ol-te when they mean chipotle.

My mother will never be broken of saying "eye-talian"

Raising had to saying chip-ol-te. I visually flip the letters 'L' and 'T'. I also hate playing tennis against Betty and Debbie. I constantly mix up the "B" and "D" sounds. 😅

Similar to the Italian "eye-talian" for me is Quebec being hacked up to "Q/Kew-beck." 

For anglophones, the nicer (for my ears) sounding way is "kwe-beck" and the correct French spelling and pronunciation is Québec (KAY-bec). 

I always heard that Toronto is pronounced "Torono" by locals; those who pronounce the 't' are not from there. I usually pronounce the 't.'

Massachewsetts is a bit of a tongue twister for me, and I can never spell it without help. 😉  I can do Saskatchewan, though. Helps having a million Canadian geography quizzes over the years. 

Edited May 13, 2021 by wintermom

[Laura Corin]

Spam reported 

[Lady Florida.]

I once had a roommate from England who made it her goal in life to teach every American she came in contact with to stop calling Wimbledon, Wimpleton.  FTR, she didn't need to correct my pronunciation. 😄

On 4/29/2021 at 3:32 AM, calbear said:

Library is constantly mispronounced as liberry. Like nails on a chalkboard.

When I was teaching high school one of the secretaries pronounced it liberry. Every time I heard her voice on the overhead speaker say "Will so-and-so please report to the liberry" I tensed up. She was such an absolute sweetheart of a person that no one ever had the heart to correct her. 

On 4/29/2021 at 8:44 AM, regentrude said:

"egg cetera"
Instead of etcetera

Also excetera. I just heard it that way on a YouTube video yesterday and it reminded me of this thread.