Common Mispronunciations

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.
 
I often hear the word prostate mispronounced.
 

Dame Warrigal said:
How about al-u-min-i-um ?
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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 aluminium. In the US it is spelled and pronounced aluminum.
 
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.
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Humphry Davy was English.
 
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.

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.



Humphry Davy was English.
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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.
 
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.
 
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.
 
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?
 
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!
 
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!
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I had a couple of coworkers in TN who pronounced it like that as well.
 
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!
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HA!! Reminds me of my patient that said she had firebirds in her uterus. lol!!
 
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