I have received another suggestion: project
Published:
December 11, 2011 at 1:03pm
Yes, I agree that this is a real problem, and not just with politicians but mainly in schools, where teachers, children and their parents are forever talking about:
Prow (pronounced as in ‘row’). Jects.
This is the correct pronunciation:
Prodge (as in ‘Roger’). Ect.
Keep sending in your pet peeves. Together we can make a difference.
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What about ‘out of the blues’? I know it’s not related to pronunciation but still, it sets my teeth on edge.
[Daphne – Yes, like ‘thanks (or rather, tanks) God”.]
Q: ‘How are you feeling?’
A: ‘So and So.’
Translated from ‘hekk u hekk.’ Completely different meaning to the intended ‘So-So.’
‘Looking forward for…’ NO! It’s ‘Looking forward TO.’
Oh there are just too many.
I have noticed the difficulty most speakers have with ‘th’.
‘With’ is pronounced as ‘wit’
‘Three’ is pronounced as ‘tree’
The turd candidate…
Possibly a case of ellipsis: Thanks (be to) God.
Ellipsis? Like “out of the blues”?
I was going to mention ‘tenks God’.
What about memo, rhyming with Nemo?
And bowl, rhyming with owl?
Or sieve, rhyming with leave?
‘sore throat’ – accent and emphasis on the ORE and pronounced as one whole word.
Tenk you lilek.
Daphne – you’re going to need a whole new Notebook, and maybe a couple of staff, to handle this new venture.
How about few-will for fuel? Which will then be written as “fjuwil” in Maltese.
And on the television news:
petrol boat
Women – pronounced ‘wumen’ when it should be ‘wimmin’.
According to a certain Joseph, the correct pronounciation is of course: prrrrowwwjekts.
It happens in Maltese too: it-tij-jah.
Bowl pronounced like bowel.
How about ‘meemow’ ? But the best one lately was ‘paradigim’, and using ‘ethics’ to mean ‘etiquette’. Should be given a medal for keeping my face straight.
…..and how about tree and three and third and turd. The trouble is, the English language doesn’t help much. One is expected to pronounce words differently even if they are written the same way, take read and read or partly written similarly as in school and schedule (not the American pronunciation) or written differently and pronounced similarly, as in red and read or reed and read, fed and dead. It’s never ending really.
Emended designs for the hard headed fountain.
http://www.di-ve.com/Default.aspx?ID=72&Action=1&NewsId=88153&newscategory=31&cache=false
Chocolate pronounced coklejt.
Complain instead of complaint.
Children have become ‘kids’ yet many an adult would object to being referred to as goats .
Yesterday night I returned from Sicily on the catamaran. The obsessive use of blasphemy and obscene innuendos by the Saturday day trippers, both men and women, was very annoying.
Salmon – selmin; basil – bejsil; three – tri; and the one that gets me every time: third – terd (sounding like turd).
Daphne, my pet peeves are leopard and salmon:
Leo – paRRRd (with Leo pronounced as in the man’s name)
Salmon (sell-minn)
Signatory rhymes with lavatory.
Not pronounced sig-na-ter-ree
I would hang draw and quarter the idiot that came up with “bawl”
If we start on these we are heading for the rikotta debate
More misused than mispronounced: ‘presently’ is ALWAYS used in place of ‘currently’, when it really means ‘soon’.
Ah, another one: bah-ree-errz (barriers).
Some of my personal favourites:
‘review island’ instead of ‘inland revenue’
‘vezen up’ instead of ‘7-Up’
Rai Uno might sound correct, but not when talking about cars. i.e Fiat Uno
The list goes on and on and on, and I love it.
The first is probably a malapropism whereas the second might be a spoonerism rather than a mispronunciation [not sure though because it could just be “exdyslia”].
I’m going to “applicate” to join the DNA [1]. I overheard someone say she had already filled the forms and “applicated” for a particular job… AND why not?
I also heard that “o_bezz_iti” could be due to something wrong with the “tierot” [2].
I love good spoonerisms as much as I love malapropisms. Does that make me a “fart smellow”?
But let me stop short of being judgemental… after, all, one has to look at the whole “plectrum”.
[1] National Dyslexia Association.
[2] Thyroid.
Peugeot pronounced Bu-jou
What about all the ‘th’ /ð/ sound?
I know that the Maltese language doesn’t have it but is it so hard to pronounce?
For example, to speak French properly, you have to learn the gutteral /r/. In Malta, we start learning English at a young age, so there should be no excuse.
When my four-year-old son hears someone say “tree” instead of three, he says “It’s three, a tree is a ‘sigra.'”
You should see the look on people’s faces.
He cracks me up.
Kemm ghandek it-tifel bravu. Prosit!
LE….PROSEET
Thank you. He has his moments.
Maybe you should dedicate another post to Anglu Farrugia pronouncing tuks fors correctly.
Would Spooner have said “Fuk stores”?
x-tray
The same person I heard say “x-tray” also said “retired” instead of “retarded” about someone who is “mentally handicat”
I find “welcome” (“you’re welcome”) pronounced as two words quite annoying – especially being corrected by somebody, when I’ve just said it properly.
vee-dee-o for video
I was once told by a television announcer that he HAD to mispronounce certain words and names or his audience would not understand him.
Surely not Peppi Azzopardi?
Peppi, referring to a breed of dog on Xarabank;
‘A-laaa-skin Maa-laa-moo-teee…’
Maybe the script was illegible.
If we had to list every one of Peppi Azzopardi’s linguistic facepalms, we’d need a whole season of Xarabank.
Selminn (salmon)
elmint (almond)
bey-sill (basil)
And pronounce – iation instead of pronUNciation.
Vey-koom cleaner ta l-aqwa ditta.
Ghamara tas-solid, ffinixxjata fuq il-vien-ghe’ jew owk.
Taghti tacc (touch) lejn ir-rustiku.
L-ahmar u l-gowld huma l-kalers li huma moda hafna din is-sena’….
…… johloq ambjent rich hafna.
Yor welkimm.
Reel Muddrid (Real Madrid)
Lasanja for lasagne, on TVM’s cooking programmes.
“teramezu” instead of “tiramisu”.
Sir-KUM-stins for circumstance.
Someone please tell Tony Zarb that union is not pronounced oon-yin.
While you’re at it, inform that dinner lady on Super One (Nancy?) that pickles is not pronounced pick-less.
Then of course there’s the Coincidence & Combination conundrum, “Ara, what a combination!”
Finally, it seems many think that alienate is the English word for aljena. Prize specimen from timesofmalta.com: “GonziPN is using the war in Libya to alienate us from the price of electricity”
What about “Man-chis -terr”
Berdej
Must not forget to buy some air conditions tomorrow
X-ray not X-tray
airhostess not airhoster
lipstick not lisptick
revolver not loverver
insurance not inxurjans
and finally….
decaffeinated not defuckinated (yes, a woman did actually tell me that she drank ony defuckinated coffee)
That last one… beautiful spoonerism. I love it.
It could only be topped by “defecated” coffee.
I think the golden medal should go to ‘birthday’. I have yet to meet people who pronounce it well. They say ‘bird-day’ – the day of the bird.
One Maltese newspaper uses “elevated” when reporting evidence found at a crime scene.
I’ve been “preaching” about “THANK YOU …LILEK” for years.
And what about RAPPORT TAT-TEMP when it’s a FORECAST and so should be TBASSIR TAT-TEMP?
Both languages are being torn to bits.
What about where and were? Both have very different pronounciations but are confused very easily and end up being said in the same manner.
[Daphne – ?]
Two words often mispronounced are “apparently” and “bowl”.
Where are they? Pronounced wehr (silent H)
They were there. Pronounced wur.
There is certainly a difference in the way where and were are pronounced, don’t you think so? However few realise that there is a different pronounciation for each one.
[Daphne – Oh my god, of course not. I’ve long wondered why so many people say WUR for were. Now I know. Is this mistake being taught in schools? Where did you learn it? We had a couple of teachers who said WUR at St Dorothy’s back in the 1970s, and they were the subject of much hilarity and a great deal of mimicking. Where and were are pronounced the same way. The only difference is in the accent, i.e. people from Manchester will pronounce where and were in X way (roughly WURRRRRR), while a Hooray Henry will pronounce them in Z way, which is pretty much ‘waaaaah’.]
I was always taught they have the same pronunciation too.
But what about the Scots who phonetically transpose the “aitch” in “where” making it “hwere”? I have come across that many, many times, especially when there is a heavy regional accent. It makes me feel like I’m being told, “Please note I know how to spell this word”; or maybe they do it for assumed phonetic clarity.
Therefore, I take it that you would pronounce ‘Where were you?’ in the same way? If that is the case, then I beg to disagree with you.
[Daphne – Yes: Weh weh you? If I want to get up people’s noses, then it’s ‘Waah waah you.’ You are free to disagree. People who live in Glasgow do too.]
Then what about there and their?
Would that be ‘theh’ and ‘thur’?
And would ‘they’re their’, be pronounced as ‘theyr thur’?
They all sound like “th_air”, as far as I know. But did you mean “they’re there”?
Forgive me but I am just as guilty (of unseemly errors)… my 7-y-o and 5-y-o grandsons went into hysterics when I repeated something they told me in Greek. Apparently, I made a right hash of it. It was only the name of our favourite ice-cream parlour but I apparently made it mean something totally different.
My mistake, should have read ‘they’re theirs’, as in ‘those belong to them’
i have heard English persons say hwhere and hwhich and hwhat
with a soft but audible first h.
Actually, it’s the second consonant.
Kett-egg-ery for category
Bro-sher for bro-shore
My pet peeve is when people say “ghamilt one plus one”, when what they mean is that they put two and two together.
Seeing as everybody else is at it, i thought i’d show off a bit too :)
My pet peeve is the way accurate/accuracy and precise/precision are used as though they meant the same.
Wor-sester-shy-er sauce
Gros-vee-nor House
Wor-CHester-shyer
Even an American would pronounce them like that, unless he learns the correct pronunciation from a British person.
Skinned milk….
This one made me laugh out loud. Good one Matt!
I hate loosing.
Gib dak it-Telesell.
In-shyur-ins
Do you mean in_shoor_yins?
salad – seh-lidd
panel – peh-nill
festival – festivill
Meadow Leah, like Princess Leah.
Wireless router (rooter) not RAWTER!
rawter is actually the American way of saying it .. :)
[Daphne – And they’r wrong, of course, because the word comes from ‘route’ and not from ‘rout’. And Americans don’t say ROUT 66, they say ROUTE 66.]
Believe it or not, American IT specialists do actually say “Rawter” and not “Rooter”.
Of course, they are totally wrong because the device is for the purpose of routing data to different channels not to “rout out” a core like another device of similar name that is used in joinery.
Try going to Best Buy or any IT store in America and ask for a “route-r” .. no one would have a clue as to what you’re referring to. Then try say “rout-er” and you’re all set.
Not saying it’s right or wrong, just pointed out differences.
I thought of another one – serious instead of series
Oh I just remembered: the plural of boots = bwiez.
I heard a person ask for a ‘ saqqu orbot idek’, when he was after an orthopaedic mattress.
Heard during recital of the beatitudes, “Imbierka l-qalza mqatta tieghu” for “Imbierka l-Qalb Imqaddsa Tieghu”.
During the Latin litany, ‘Stella matutina’ became ‘Stella ta’ malatina, and ‘Faederis Arca’ was corrupted into ‘Fidiel ta’ Sakra’. We also got ‘Regina santu rimonju’ for ‘Regina sanctorum omnium’
vera WORTHED – worth it
http://www.maltatoday.com.mt/en/newsdetails/news/national/Alfred-Sant-says-European-Commission-has-soft-spot-for-Malta
“Rules and perimeters”.
Sugar! The penny just dropped. My grey matter must be thickening. I’ll have to reduce my intake of cornflour.
@ DCG: Ma’am, do you think a ‘fish thread’ would be of any interest to your dedicated readers? I can only offer it up for you to CODsider.
I was inspired by this recent couple of threads on mispronunciations, but if you don’t think this is the right PLAICE for it… no worries. WRASSE just say, it might be stimulating for some; no need for them to be subtle or KOI either.
I didn’t know quite how to appROACH this and it gave me a bit of a HADDOCK at first. Then I asked myself, “HALIBUT if I throw this open to everybody. It may turn out to be a BRILL thread as long as they don’t let it FLOUNDER”.
It could keep us smiling for a couple of DACE. Over to you…, this is making me feel a bit TENCH now. It may turn out to be CRAB but, hey… I know the risks… I wasn’t PRAWN yesterday.
Just something to think about over a nice large STURGEON and tonic.
Regards,
Peppi iehor.
(no connection with any other Peppi)
Some other Maltese words:
Pony = Ponniy
Migraine = Migkranja
Gay = Grayle
Go see the priest = mur ghand il-Fadjer