# Common Mispronunciations



## SeaBreeze (Feb 9, 2015)




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## Josiah (Feb 9, 2015)

I had to call a VA tele-nurse the other day about a urological problem and would you believe she asked about my prostrate gland and she didn't mispronounce it just once, but repeatedly.

What really gets me is having a conversation with someone who mispronounces a word and during the course of the conversation I have occasion to say the word several times pronouncing it correctly and then the person again mispronounces the word. Clearly they are just not hearing any distinction while it's bothering the hell out of me.

Also you would think that after being at war for so many years people would start to coalesce around a single pronunciation of the name of the country whose capital is Bagdad.


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## SeaBreeze (Feb 9, 2015)

I often hear the word prostate mispronounced.


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## Ameriscot (Feb 10, 2015)

SeaBreeze said:


> I often hear the word prostate mispronounced.



Me too.


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## Warrigal (Feb 10, 2015)

How about al-u-min-i-um ?


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## Ameriscot (Feb 10, 2015)

Dame Warrigal said:


> How about al-u-min-i-um ?



I hear this one all the time with British saying Americans can't pronounce it right, and Americans are just baffled by how Brits pronounce it.  

Don't know how it's pronounced in Oz, but in the UK the word is spelled and pronounced alumi*nium*.  In the US it is spelled and pronounced alumi*num*.


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## Warrigal (Feb 10, 2015)

We pronounce it the same way as the English and the periodic table from the Royal Society of Chemists spells it aluminium.
I've been checking out different periodic tables and was surprised to find it spelled aluminium on American ones.

I guess naming rights should go to the chemist who discovered this element.

Looking that one up now.

Discovered in 1825 by a Danish chemist Hans Christian Oersted. No idea how he spelled the name of this element.
Scientists were aware of this metallic element before it was isolated.



> In 1808, Humphry Davy, together with other scientists, identified a metal base of alum and alumina as its oxide, which Humphry Davy originally called “alumium” but was later called aluminium.



Humphry Davy was English.


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## Ameriscot (Feb 10, 2015)

Dame Warrigal said:


> We pronounce it the same way as the English and the periodic table from the Royal Society of Chemists spells it aluminium.
> I've been checking out different periodic tables and was surprised to find it spelled aluminium on American ones.
> 
> I guess naming rights should go to the chemist who discovered this element.
> ...



I think the British had changed the spelling to aluminum but changed it back.  Americans didn't.  I'll have to check. It will be listed properly on the periodic table but in day to day life it's spelled aluminum.


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## Ameriscot (Feb 10, 2015)

Here's the scoop, which I'll read later. 

http://www.worldwidewords.org/articles/aluminium.htm


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## rkunsaw (Feb 10, 2015)

I've noticed on 'Wheel of Fortune'  when talking about the Caribbean, the announcer always says Ka *rib *ean while Pat Sajak says Kara be an. Pat is correct but the word has been mispronounced so much over the years that both are now accepted.


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## Ameriscot (Feb 10, 2015)

Many words are pronounced differently in the US and the UK which has nothing to do with accents.  The accent is on a different syllable.  Some sound wrong to me, some don't.  Some examples:  respiratory (UK long i), disciplinary - in the UK the accent is not on the -ary, urine - long i in UK, etc.


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## oakapple (Feb 11, 2015)

So, who has a prostrate prostate?


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## oakapple (Feb 11, 2015)

How about Noo York [so good they named it twice.]We say New York [Knew York.]However, people here in Devon and Cornwall, and also some in London say Noo York.Weird innit?


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## Ameriscot (Feb 11, 2015)

oakapple said:


> How about Noo York [so good they named it twice.]We say New York [Knew York.]However, people here in Devon and Cornwall, and also some in London say Noo York.Weird innit?



My Scottish husband makes fun of how I say new as noo. He says it as nU.


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## AZ Jim (Feb 11, 2015)

Years ago we has a friend who constantly mispronounced Salmon she said it like it's spelled SAL MON. No silent L for her. She said too she was beginning to get "very close veins" in her legs!


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## QuickSilver (Feb 11, 2015)

oakapple said:


> So, who has a prostrate prostate?



Could be it's just laying down on the job.


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## Ameriscot (Feb 11, 2015)

AZ Jim said:


> Years ago we has a friend who constantly mispronounced Salmon she said it like it's spelled SAL MON. No silent L for her. She said too she was beginning to get "very close veins" in her legs!



I had a couple of coworkers in TN who pronounced it like that as well.


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## QuickSilver (Feb 11, 2015)

AZ Jim said:


> Years ago we has a friend who constantly mispronounced Salmon she said it like it's spelled SAL MON. No silent L for her. She said too she was beginning to get "very close veins" in her legs!




HA!!  Reminds me of my patient that said she had firebirds in her uterus.   lol!!


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## AZ Jim (Feb 11, 2015)

:lol:


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## rkunsaw (Feb 11, 2015)

Pecan is a word often mispronounced in the US. It is pronounced Puh Kahn but people in the northern states often pronounce it Pee Can. Out west it's  a mixture of the two Puh Can


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## Falcon (Feb 11, 2015)

Ameriscot said:


> I had a couple of coworkers in TN who pronounced it like that as well.



How about  salmonella ?  Maybe that's where she got the idea.?


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## AZ Jim (Feb 11, 2015)

rkunsaw said:


> Pecan is a word often mispronounced in the US. It is pronounced Puh Kahn but people in the northern states often pronounce it Pee Can. Out west it's  a mixture of the two Puh Can



http://askville.amazon.com/correct-pronunciation-word-pecan/AnswerViewer.do?requestId=8116298


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## Josiah (Feb 11, 2015)

oakapple said:


> So, who has a prostrate prostate?



Mine is healing having just been surgically reamed out, but for a while it was indeed a prostrate prostate.


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## Josiah (Feb 11, 2015)

Another word which is pronounced differently in the UK is "evolution"


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## Butterfly (Feb 12, 2015)

Josiah09 said:


> Another word which is pronounced differently in the UK is "evolution"



How do they pronounce it in the UK?


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## Ameriscot (Feb 12, 2015)

Butterfly said:


> How do they pronounce it in the UK?



Long e.  There is a massive list of words pronounced differently here that have nothing to do with accents.


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## Warrigal (Feb 12, 2015)

ee-volution in OZ too.

Also ee-volve.


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