Unless you speak with an endearing, cool-sounding accent, you can make yourself sound like a moron if you mispronounce certain words. Using casual utterances that are OK with friends and family can create a stigma that's tough to change if you do so in professional situations such as interviews or presentations.
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it annoys me when people say let me axe you something. I believe the word is ask. theres an S in it.
ReplyDeleteI f these show you are an idiot, what about the Shanie Shields Dictionary?
ReplyDeleteMy all-time favorite was on local TV.
ReplyDeleteThe lady that is the head of the library (at UMES I think), who certainly must have had a Master's Degree in education, pronounced the word "libary".
She had made a local commercial about reading, but after destroying the very word she was promoting, the commercial was pulled after one week.
She also said, "...stop by the libary 'WIF' your parents, or even 'WIF' your friends..."
This is who is teaching our kids. Amazing.
And while I'm here - here's my pet peeve on language:
The correct response to "thank you" is "you're welcome", NOT "no problem", NOT "you got it", or any variation of those. It's you're welcome. Period.
I never hear anyone properly pronouce the word "forte" when speaking of someone's special ability. It is NOT "for-tay", it is FORT. Look it up.
ReplyDeleteI used to work with a lady who used the word " yous " instead of you have. It drove me nuts! She wanted to walk outside with me to see my new car one day. She said, " Wow! Yous gots mags and duals exausts!" By the way, there were no mag wheels on the car. As we walked back inside she said finally said the word you correctly but ruined it by saying, " Wow! You gots a nice car!"
ReplyDeleteMy dictionary gives both pronunciations for forte, though "fort" is given first, indicating that it is the more used one. And, 9:56, I wonder if that's the same "libarian" who was working on her "doctorial" degree? (her pronunciation)
ReplyDeleteI correct my daughter religiously when she mispronounces a word. Except for sight words, we are taught to spell phonetically - i.e. what do you HEAR? If you pronounce it wrong, you WILL spell it wrong.
ReplyDeleteLazy tongue is a pet peeve of mine too!
SupposeBly instead of supposeDly drives me bananas and when someone says, "i was calm, cool and collective" instead of calm, cool and collected.
ReplyDeleteI get expecially annoyed when people axe me pacific questions.
ReplyDeleteThey wanna know how to excape from this nonsense.