It is fun being Antipodean. A colleague of mine always loses it when I say “decade” he hears “dickhead” (Scotland). So I work this in whenever I can, including a very serious work conference about serious security stuff. Lots of people in NZ have decks of which they are particularly proud. There is a whole Aussie comedy sketch about it, NSFW but I will try and find it.

I think message should be pronounced mess-ahhge, like a massage. Actually, sausage sounds better like that too.

@Cougar

How would you pronounce “?

hmmm unless I’ve forgotten, I would’ve just called this an “inverted comma” back in the day. Bit of a mouthful, but it’s an example of something I’d read or type but never actually say in conversation! Probably just call them “quotes” these days I guess. What did you call them?

Frank Bruno’s Boxing

Never seen that before, wow that really is quite something 😳 Never played that game, googled it and it was a very early one for home 8-bit systems so probably a year or two before I got my Amstrad!

French counting

Sixty seven, sixty eight, sixty nine, sixty ten…sixty sixteen, sixty ten seven, sixty ten eight, sixty ten nine, Four twenties! four twenties and one, four twenties and two…

I’m sort of impressed really…

Sounds like you need clarification.

😃

Two words I mispronounce regularly are:

statistics = stastistics

fritillary = flitillaly

I can say them properly if I speak really slowly, but if I try at normal speed they just don’t come out right.

Also, I say skel-ee-t’l – taught to me by a prof of muscle physiology … most people seem to say skel-eh-t’l – which seems quite sensible based on skeleton. Finally checked the dictionary today and, if I’m understanding the phonetic symbols properly, it seems that both are fine.

and that his how “99” Flake came by its name.”

The apocryphal story I heard was the the 1/2 flake without a wrapper was item 99 on the sales sheet that Cadbury door to door trade sales used to use to reorder stock when going to news-agents, confectioners and so on back in the day  Head office noticed there was one beach front shop ordering way more than every one else in the country and a lacky was dispatched to find out why, and he saw the owner of the shop sticking them in ice cream cones…Light bulb moment: Star is Born

hmmm unless I’ve forgotten, I would’ve just called this an “inverted comma” back in the day. Bit of a mouthful, but it’s an example of something I’d read or type but never actually say in conversation! Probably just call them “quotes” these days I guess. What did you call them?

We had no idea what they were called, so we named them after the noise your pen made writing them. So they were duh-duts. Eg, “LOAD duh-dut duh-dut” Years later with the rise of the Web it turned out that this was pretty common, kids across the land had regional variations. Dit-dit, dot-dot and so forth.

SRAM

@Cougar ha, had no idea, very imaginative! 🤣

I don’t even know if it’s wrong but Mrs F always laughs when I say “I’m going to (tu)the shop” whereas she insists it is “Going too” which just sounds pretentious to me. Like somebody thinking they sound posh when it just sounds daft. Then again she’s from Cheshire and I’m from West Yorkshire.

Clearly I’m right on this one. Going too would be like saying “I’m going as well the shops” that’s just madness.

I always say donimo instead of domino.

Cocteau Twins fan?

I learned the word inventory from 1980s text adventures, I read it as “in-VENT-ry” – a near-homonym with infantry.

Never heard anyone pronounce it any other way than yours/ours.

Regardless of Bush Jnr, it will always by Nu-Clee-Ur.

You’re wrong. I work in the industry, it’s universally nu-clear, your version goes in the same sorting bin as al-oom-i-num

wasnt all that long ago (a year or two) i read

“to all intents and purposes”

I always thought it was

“to all intense purposes”

which, i appreciate, makes no sense at all, but it didnt come up often enough for me to appreciate it.

We had a work email from a manager that used “for all intensive purposes”. I’m not sure what an intensive purpose is but I imagine it probably shouldn’t be performed at work and especially around fuel flasks.

Living in Central Scotland, there are many “u”s added to words (girul, filum, etc.) and swapping of “i”s for “ai”s … gairul for example. Also, dropping of hard consonants … butter … jeepers, it’s not bu-er.

The butter example is a glottal stop, it’s a peculiarity of the Scots language as spoken in English.

@nickc it’s Gaelic, nothing makes sense because its a completely separate language branch with no relation to English.

Watch out for… great
(They rhyme with… straight

Like shit they do. Maybe if you’re 200 miles south of here.

And… card and ward,

They do though.

Lolwut? How do you pronounce them if great doesn’t rhyme with straight and card rhymes with ward?

Quinoa
Go on then, without knowing what its supposed to sound like..
Kwin-wah
Kwin noa
I give up

superlative. It was for years super LAT ive in my head.

And schedule. I know it’s SKed-yool like school, not SHed-yool yet every time I’m about to say it in a conversation (let’s schedule another meeting in a couple of weeks’ time) my brain goes into a weird paralysis and has to try both on for size, before inevitably choosing the wrong one.

Lolwut? How do you pronounce them if great doesn’t rhyme with straight and card rhymes with ward?

Do I need to record myself speaking these?

Great rhymes with strait, neither of which rhyme with straight. Wholly different, though I get why they might be homonyms in some dialects.

What I don’t understand is how card doesn’t rhyme with ward in any accent.

Could be my age but is it daeta or daaaata ?

And schedule. I know it’s SKed-yool like school, not SHed-yool

One of those is British English and the other American English and I can never remember which way around it is. I think I mostly fudge it with a mongrel sound like the Scottish CH in loch.

I’m with you on straight and great not rhyming but ward and card sound very different when I say them. Ward is just war then d whereas card is car then d. Ward is Ford and card is yard. Totally different and would love to know how you say them @cougar. Language is ace.

Could be my age but is it daeta or daaaata ?

ward and card sound very different when I say them. Ward is just war then d whereas card is car then d.

THAT’S STILL THE SAME BLOODY THING!! How is war and car different?

Dogs and cats, living together. Mass hysteria.

No it’s not 😂 Ward sounds like Ford and card like yard. The a in ward is almost an o whereas card is an a sound. Ford and yard don’t rhyme ergo card and ward don’t either. Can you call me, I need to know how you’re saying these words?

Car

Not car

Ward sounds like Ford

You’re a lunatic. (-:

See how you pronounce card and yard? Cross out the c/y and stick a w in there, that’s how I’d say ward.

How is war and car different?

😂 can’t tell if you’re now trolling Mr Cougar. You pronounce war and car the same so that they rhyme. Either you’re a crow caw! Caw! or war sounds like a noise you make to make somebody jump (wargh!)

Honesty intrigued as to how you’re saying them both as I’ve never heard them pronounced so that they rhyme or sound similar tbh

Edit – Shit! Have I being saying ward wrong all theses years? I can’t have been though because everyone I know pronounces it like Ford with a W. Where are you from if you don’t mind me asking Cougar?

Just because I can, I like to pronounce Epiphany : Epi-fanny

Similarly I like to pronounce Cacophony : Cack-o-fanny

Have I being saying ward wrong all theses years?

I’ve no idea whether one is more ‘right’ than the other. I assumed regional differences.

Where are you from if you don’t mind me asking Cougar?

East Lancashire. Ey up and sithee nah then then.

it’s Gaelic

So what? The thread is titled words you’ve always mispronounced, not English words you’ve mispronounced

Cack-o-fanny

Ah, sir requires our Specialist menu.

Based on these last few posts, I think I’d need an interpreter to understand Cougar.

Strait and straight sound the same, and both rhyme with great.

Ford and ward rhyme, as do card and hard. I’ve never heard anyone say them any other way. Really want to hear a recording of his speech now.

I just asked my partner.

Take the letters w-a-r-d, how would you say that? “word”

Wait, swap the w for a c. “card”

For a y? “yard”

Back to the w: “word”

What the actual… you wouldn’t get a prison worden would you?

“Worden! Where did you go to school?”

The same one as you you bloody maniac!

“No, you’re the maniac!”

Screw you, I’m going to go argue with the Internet.

what about onward?

Bolognese. I know (or at least I think) the G should be silent (bol-o-nays) but it’s either ‘bol-og-nays’ subconsciously or very deliberately ‘Bongolese’ for comedy effect.

Back to the w: “word”

But word rhymes with herd…

And the ‘ward’ in warden still rhymes with ford.

Strait and straight sound the same, and both rhyme with great.

Nah, I’m with Cougar on this but definitely not with ward and card. Straight is streight in Funkville whereas great is the same as grate

what about onward?

Onwud, same as I’d pronounce wood. This is fascinating. Mods, can we have an audio thread?

But word rhymes with herd…

She’s just chastised me for this post.

I meant “word” as in w-oh-rd rather than the word word which is werd.

Weird.

As a kid moving from NornIrn to north east England I had to relearn a lot just to be understood, but I’ve stuck with watching fillums and I pause before saying Newcastle to think about which version to go with.

My favourite bit of accent shenanigans (sweary, but in a nice way).

but how did they get to us? aaron and shiobahn are both apparently hebrew origin, but if aaron came down through greek latin etc to us but siobahn took a branch line of language….?
(I dont know the answer but Im presuming its something like that)

For Siobhan –

Its a version of ‘John’ off of the Bible

John, Ian, Iain,  Euan, Johan, Yan, Juan, Sean, Shaun, Sean, Jane, Jean, Joanne, Shona, Siobahn, Joan, Janet, Janice, and many many or more are ways of spelling the Hebrew  ‘Yôḥānān’ in different languages and inflected into masculine and famine forms – if theres a country where people read a bible there’ll be a way that Yôḥānān will have been translated – and that’ll be the basis of transliteration into popular names. So ‘Siobhan’ is a way of approximating a Hebrew name, in a feminine form in Irish-gaelic n the same way that ‘Jane’ is in English.

Aaron doesnt seem to have caught on so much in European languages – but around the world typically starts with an H – Haroon / Harun

And schedule. I know it’s SKed-yool like school, not SHed-yool

I think you’re wrong there

it’s shibboleth, for me

cougar – I assume you’d go stret om instead of straight home, would you

And schedule. I know it’s SKed-yool like school, not SHed-yool

I think this is a US/UK thing, SKed-yool being the US pronunciation.