Do you have any words with which you typically use the alternative pronunciation? For example, I heard a guy use the word "figure" today, but he pronounced it "figger." I think it sounds kind of cool that way, but that's not the way that I pronounce the word. I do the "fig-your" thing. I used to say "Looziana" but I've been back East so long that I now say "Louise-iana" like everyone else. Of course, here it's the preferred pronunciation while I guess it's the secondary in Texas. All I know is is that my Texas mother keeps wanting to correct my "Louise-iana"... I used to have a Texas girlfriend who always said "Ahnt" for Aunt instead of "Ant." I thought it was pretentious until I learned that her mom was from CT and so she had come by it honestly.
toe-may-toe...toe-mah-toe poe-tay-toe...poe-tah-toe al-lue-mi-num...al-lu-min-nee-yum ad-ver-tis-ment...ad-ver-ties-ment
I like to pronounce "Kobe" as "little b****." But english is my second language, so maybe that's just me.
are there words where you switch back and forth which pronunciation you use? i'm trying to remember the one i always do this with and it annoys me b/c i always get to the word and then my brain makes this split second, 50/50, completely random choice as to how i say it. wish i could remember the world right now. anyone say data as like dad w/o the last d plus tuh instead of day-tuh. that's annoying. and if you say ad-VER-tis-ment instead of ad-ver-TIES-ment, then you are also annoying.
Alternate: All-terr-nAte vs. All-terr-nit Government: Gub-ment vs. Guv-ern-ment Adult: a-DULT vs. AD-dult Houston: you-stun vs. Hou-sten Business: biz-nuss vs. bid-niss vs. biz-ness Stupid: stew-pud vs. stue-pid Napolean: Nah-pole-ee-ann vs. Nah-pole-ee-on Pedro: Pey-droh vs. Ped-droh Juarez: wahr-ezz vs. wharr-esss Han: Hahn vs. Hann Leia: Lay-ah vs. Lee-ah Chewbacca: Choo-back-ah vs. Choo-bach-ah Movie: Pick-cherr-show vs. moo-vee vs. philm
The 2 I cannot stand are: "penalize" (with the accent on "penal") - if you have ever watched Jeopardy! with Alex Trebek, you know that he pronounces "penalize" that way. For some reason, I do not want to think of the penal system or penal code when I hear "penalize" pronounced that way. "harassment" being pronounced as HARRISment (not the BBS poster ) instead of the way every other normal human says it. I remember the first time I heard someone say it that way - I died laughing for about 5 minutes. Then much to my chagrin, I was told that way was actually a correct way to pronounce that word.
Just tell us that you don't know any Natalees... I used to work with a lady who had formerly worked with IBM. I guess she was early into the dot-com revolution because her mind was a slave to it. She would always say "dot" where people commonly say "point." For example she would talk about an interest rate as "7 dot 9" rather than "7 point 9." It was very distracting.
This one gets a little dicey because the former is the "proper" pronunciation for the word as a verb while the latter is the "proper" pronunciation for the word as an adjective....
Mr. Duvall: Her name is Cady. Cady Heron. Where are you, Cady? Cady: That's me. It's pronounced like Katie. Mr. Duvall: My apologies. I have a nephew named Anfernee, and I know how mad he gets when I call him Anthony. Almost as mad as I get when I think about the fact that my sister named him Anfernee.
My relatives in Louisiana can't stand it when people say "Louise-iana". If you say New Orleans instead of "Na-Ohlins" they cover there ears and gasp in agony (Al Micheals does this all the time when covering saints/hornets games). I give them a hard time about it
