Let’s face it. Most of us weren’t born great orators who can step onto a barrel and captivate the whole square with their speech like Cicero.
In reality, we can barely pronounce words like isthmus, myriad and… just wait until you get to "otorhinolaryngologist." But some people are doing everyone a public service and suggesting whole new pronunciations for some very popular words.
From Wayne pronounced like Kanye to baseline pronounced like vaseline, I sign up for every one of them. I suspect that Merriam-Webster’s dictionary won’t approve, but hey, language is a living thing and we may as well have some fun with it!
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Why stop at Onety-one? Onety-two, Onety-three, Onety-four ... and on it goes!
That might sound too similar to "twenty one" though
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Yes! In my language it is spoken (and written if you write it in letters) like five and twenty (literally translated). Twenty five is so much better! Especially when I was an athlete and kept scores of other categories' performances, you had to wait until the entire number was spoken, and they went through the scores fast (up to 10 scores for 1 performance), so writing it down you had to be so fast. With twenty five you can already begin to write the 2. It sounds like it doesn't make any/much difference, but it really does. It was so much easier at international competitions! Plus, again: twenty five makes much more sense.
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That is probably about the most satisfying thing I have ever said! :D!
I designed a birthday card for a client for her "Thirty-Twenty-Eighth" birthday... forever in her Thirties.
No. Ten plus one. Tenty-one. Like twenty and twenty-one. Or maybe eleventeen?
Sounds a lot like twenty-one and could be confusing. Nevertheless, I love it!
This just reminds me of Tubbs counting in League of Gentlemen “Twelvty”
Onety one is silly. It would be tenty one of anything :o) Although, Two-ty two is quite funny...
Yeah, I saw this same damn thing on Tumblr years ago. OP asks the "Onety-one" thing, next person weighs in with "Twoty-two", a third suggests with "Threety-three", and a fourth chimes in with "Fourty-four", before quickly realising that's exactly how it goes anyway. They ignore the misspelled "Forty", however.
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Well, Bilbo did live to celebrate his eleventy-oneth ( :) ) birthday!
There are tons of words in the English language that do make our heads spin now and then if we have to pronounce them. Luckily, these are usually not ones we use often.
For example, the word "defibrillator" is an example of a linguistic phenomenon in which similar consonants or vowels in a word become less alike, e.g. defibrillator becoming "defibyulator." Blame your mispronunciation on them.
Another confusing word for many is "February," which is a case of dissimilation. According to Merriam-Webster's dictionary, "The y heard from many speakers is not an intrusion but rather a common pronunciation of the vowel U after a consonant, as in January and annual."
If you want to get your tongue twisted, try saying "antidisestablishmentarianism" out loud. For many, it’s the longest word they know with 28 letters in total and 13 syllables.
However, the longest word in most English dictionaries is “pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis,” which refers to a lung disease contracted from the inhalation of very fine silica particles, specifically from a volcano.
If I'm not mustachen, I sense a lot of pun potential here
Well, Nike like Adidas is pronounced differently by us Americans than by everyone else.
you have to squeeze your thumb, middle, and index fingers together and shake them slightly when saying it that way
*Horse gallops through a field of roses* *Random lady in flowing dress waves some fabric around to the Halo song* (soft male voice whispers) *its Horsé*
The 'gua' in regional Spanish is pronounced 'whah'...so it's already there...
Note: this post originally had 42 images. It’s been shortened to the top 30 images based on user votes.
If languages were a story, English would be one giant plot hole.
Few other languages have such seemingly haphazard orthography as English does, and I pity all dyslexic children having to learn how to read in English. But what a language! There is such an insanely large vocabulary in English because it so readily borrows and incorporates words from other languages, and most of the words juxtaposed in the post do indeed come from different languages. Personally, I very much prefer to call it 'guacamole' instead of 'mashed alligator pear salad'. One of my favourite loanwords is 'window'. I bet that not many English speakers realize just how poetic this humble old Norse loanword is. and it may change how you see your house or apartment once you process the fact that it has walls, doors, and eyes to the wind.
The size of the English vocabulary is hardly unique though :) I believe many countries try to hold the claim for largest dictionary. The Institute for the Dutch language has a dictionary online with words from 1500-1976 with 400,000 words in it that are explained. I found something about Korean having a dictionary with an oddly specific number of 1,100,373 words. It's more what we use in daily life I guess. English is a great language, that's for sure.
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I have no idea why my original comment about 'Keeping up Appearances' Bucket vs Bouquet is hidden. Any suggestions?
I've had a few pop-ups about community guidelines while posting very ordinary comments resulting in a hidden comment...
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My teacher, Mr Ed Parker, was from Hawaii. He told about the tourists asking about the "pee pay lee nay" on the sign. Locals explained, We pronounce that "pipeline."
About 20 years ago, there was a British comedy program called 'Keeping Up Appearances' about an overbearing and snobbish woman, who wanted to raise her station in life. Her last name was Bucket. But, she kept telling people that it was pronounced 'Bouquet' because it sounded classier. She had a son named Tarquin. Tarquin! It was a great show.
What EYE want to no is HOW did Arkansaw become Arkansas? If you were from a non-English speaking country, how long would it take you to learn our idiotic language? Especially given that our OWN CITIZENS have so many problems with it!
Well, someone’s upset about people making fun of English pronunciations... he’s downvoting every comment.
are you people not listening to 'our president'? we are using new pronouncations for EVERYTHING
In Hawai`i tourists mispronounce so many Hawaiian words. My favorite example: Kamehameha (Ka-meha-meha) the chief who united the islands, is frequently pronounced Kame-hame-ha. It's fun to be on the phone with a mainlander when they try to pronounce my street name and town. Hawaiian has only 12 letters, less than half of English. It's not that hard.
The entire premise of this list is completely oblivious of linguistics and etymological routes by which words evolve. The pronunciation of words goes along with the root words and languages that the words were borrow and/or notified from.
My husband is going to love these, and I'm going to regret showing him this for the rest of my life (but I cannot stomach the guilt of keeping such a massive secret!). He's been mispronouncing certain things forever because he gets a kick out of it. "Croissant" = "croysent", "Star Trek" = "Stir Trak", etc. EVERY TIME. Of course he loves this part of the movie Megamind. (And now I'm thinking meega-minned - oh god it finally broke me...)
I actually have this problem. If I've never heard a word spoken before, I tend to mispronounce it/say it the way I think it's pronounced. My late mother used to tease me. "Where are you from?"
Please don't worry about it. We all do. And the same word may very well be pronounced in different ways, depending on which country one is in or even on the dialect spoken within a country.
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Tear as in to rip something is like bear. Pear the fruit rhymes with bear... Best not to try and hope for sense!
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this is why the English language is so hard to learn...it makes no sense!
There are certain words I purposely pronounce different because I prefer to. I say warsh instead of wash because of Loretta Lynn. I say sangwitch instead of sandwich because of an Italian man I know. I say ch-hoo-a-hoo-a instead of Chihuahua because of Les Nesman from WKRP in Cincinnati. I have more but you get the point.
And most people have no idea how that stuff works. I was never taught this in school either, so all those weird letters that are supposed to describe the pronunciation mean nothing to me.
Load More Replies... ...or people under the age of 35, who were not taught English as prior generations learned it, regardless of which Anglophone system under which they learned... -retired k-12 English teacher & history professor
Load More Replies... If languages were a story, English would be one giant plot hole.
Few other languages have such seemingly haphazard orthography as English does, and I pity all dyslexic children having to learn how to read in English. But what a language! There is such an insanely large vocabulary in English because it so readily borrows and incorporates words from other languages, and most of the words juxtaposed in the post do indeed come from different languages. Personally, I very much prefer to call it 'guacamole' instead of 'mashed alligator pear salad'. One of my favourite loanwords is 'window'. I bet that not many English speakers realize just how poetic this humble old Norse loanword is. and it may change how you see your house or apartment once you process the fact that it has walls, doors, and eyes to the wind.
The size of the English vocabulary is hardly unique though :) I believe many countries try to hold the claim for largest dictionary. The Institute for the Dutch language has a dictionary online with words from 1500-1976 with 400,000 words in it that are explained. I found something about Korean having a dictionary with an oddly specific number of 1,100,373 words. It's more what we use in daily life I guess. English is a great language, that's for sure.
Load More Replies... I have no idea why my original comment about 'Keeping up Appearances' Bucket vs Bouquet is hidden. Any suggestions?
I've had a few pop-ups about community guidelines while posting very ordinary comments resulting in a hidden comment...
Load More Replies... My teacher, Mr Ed Parker, was from Hawaii. He told about the tourists asking about the "pee pay lee nay" on the sign. Locals explained, We pronounce that "pipeline."
About 20 years ago, there was a British comedy program called 'Keeping Up Appearances' about an overbearing and snobbish woman, who wanted to raise her station in life. Her last name was Bucket. But, she kept telling people that it was pronounced 'Bouquet' because it sounded classier. She had a son named Tarquin. Tarquin! It was a great show.
What EYE want to no is HOW did Arkansaw become Arkansas? If you were from a non-English speaking country, how long would it take you to learn our idiotic language? Especially given that our OWN CITIZENS have so many problems with it!
Well, someone’s upset about people making fun of English pronunciations... he’s downvoting every comment.
are you people not listening to 'our president'? we are using new pronouncations for EVERYTHING
In Hawai`i tourists mispronounce so many Hawaiian words. My favorite example: Kamehameha (Ka-meha-meha) the chief who united the islands, is frequently pronounced Kame-hame-ha. It's fun to be on the phone with a mainlander when they try to pronounce my street name and town. Hawaiian has only 12 letters, less than half of English. It's not that hard.
The entire premise of this list is completely oblivious of linguistics and etymological routes by which words evolve. The pronunciation of words goes along with the root words and languages that the words were borrow and/or notified from.
My husband is going to love these, and I'm going to regret showing him this for the rest of my life (but I cannot stomach the guilt of keeping such a massive secret!). He's been mispronouncing certain things forever because he gets a kick out of it. "Croissant" = "croysent", "Star Trek" = "Stir Trak", etc. EVERY TIME. Of course he loves this part of the movie Megamind. (And now I'm thinking meega-minned - oh god it finally broke me...)
I actually have this problem. If I've never heard a word spoken before, I tend to mispronounce it/say it the way I think it's pronounced. My late mother used to tease me. "Where are you from?"
Please don't worry about it. We all do. And the same word may very well be pronounced in different ways, depending on which country one is in or even on the dialect spoken within a country.
Load More Replies... Tear as in to rip something is like bear. Pear the fruit rhymes with bear... Best not to try and hope for sense!
Load More Replies... this is why the English language is so hard to learn...it makes no sense!
There are certain words I purposely pronounce different because I prefer to. I say warsh instead of wash because of Loretta Lynn. I say sangwitch instead of sandwich because of an Italian man I know. I say ch-hoo-a-hoo-a instead of Chihuahua because of Les Nesman from WKRP in Cincinnati. I have more but you get the point.
And most people have no idea how that stuff works. I was never taught this in school either, so all those weird letters that are supposed to describe the pronunciation mean nothing to me.
Load More Replies... ...or people under the age of 35, who were not taught English as prior generations learned it, regardless of which Anglophone system under which they learned... -retired k-12 English teacher & history professor
Load More Replies...