Comments on: Do You Mispronounce These Common Words?

By: Erin

Erin — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 18:30:00 +0000

I hear heighth a lot instead of height. It’s usually said in conjunction with width. “What width and heighth should this be?”

By: Elmo

Elmo — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 23:28:00 +0000

I’m a terror for saying prehaps instead of perhaps and consequently misspell it all the time, no one has ever picked up on the mistake in my speech because it’s such a slight change – but it really bugs me lol.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Fri, 28 May 2010 22:44:00 +0000

wanna / gonna / shoulda / coulda / woulda … you can figure out the equivalents.
“I could care less” when it’s obvious that if the speaker really could care less, they would already be doing it.

I’m trying to learn a new language, so I have a lot of empathy for non-native speakers of a language … the worlds best word-list is useless in mid-conversation.

OTOH, I have little compassion for those who persistently remain illiterate in their native tongue.

By: Bahama Mama

Bahama Mama — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 21:30:00 +0000

Hello Suzannah! Hello to everyone. I notice i’m mispronouncing words as I get older which is funny since I’m 27! I wanted to see if there was any articles or forums on the WWW that would give me some clue why I keep doing it and I’m glad I came across your website because honestly in the back of mind I thought it may be some kind of speech impediment. I mean I’m inteligent and also speak well but it puzzled me to know I have this pronounciation problem. Like i would say ‘an-al-a-sis’ instead of ‘uh – nal – uh -sis’ or ‘ call-dir’ instead of ‘cal-der’. Other common words I have said through out my life I can’t seem to say them the correct way anymore, but I do come close.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Tue, 06 Apr 2010 20:44:00 +0000

So mischievous is pronounced mis-chiv-us? I’ve been accenting the EE all this time, and now I am horrified!

Someone in my family (I won’t out her) pronounces Ibuprofen I.B. Profen. It makes me crazy, and I think that’s why she does it.

By: None

None — Sun, 04 Apr 2010 00:55:00 +0000

Several of these pronnciations are actually correct even if not pronounced how they’re spelled, for example, the r in February and the c in arctic are silent.

By: suzannah

suzannah — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 01:30:05 +0000

And I declare you’re certainly entitled to your opinion
.-= Read suzannah´s last article ..How to Flip Your Self-Doubts as a Writer =-.

By: Heike

Heike — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 00:48:42 +0000

I also think that this argument, taken to its logical extreme, means we should pronounce all words as close as possible to Old English, which is preposterous.

And furthermore, in Italian it is “peccadillos” and in Spanish “pecadillos,” so if we’re going to be spelling and grammar Nazis, we should do it without being picky of the language.