Speak To Me

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Since, down deep, I am a hillbilly from the Ozarks, there are a few words I can't say, or I pronounce them incorrectly. I have learned to think really hard before I say them, or I say them really fast so people can't tell. These are my problem words: Ibuprofen (I have trouble with the bu part), exacerbate, (which exasperates me), wash and for (correctly pronounced in Vicki-speak warsh and fur). I read that putting r in worrrrds is a St. Louis thing. My St. Louis cousins also say sod-e (rather than pop or soda) and dull (for doll). Some general slang terms I use; you guys (rather than y'all), howdy, and folks. I do not say idear for idea however. If I'm in casual voice mode with someone who doesn't know me well and they are treating me like a dumb blonde, (I really don't like having to do this) I'll switch to techno/science speak which usually leaves them speechless, a nice reversal.

-- Anonymous, July 24, 2000

Answers

Oh! So the question is, what unique speech patterns do you have? Are there any words difficult for you? And BTW, I just figured out why I have trouble saying ibuprofen, I try to say ibruprofen. Can't get the r's out :)

-- Anonymous, July 24, 2000

Oooh! I'm a hillbilly too! Originally from Kentucky, then Southern Missouri for about 20 years. Although I personally don't say any of these things, these are the weird and quirky speech patterns in my family:

warsh for wash

ideal for idea

Mizzura for Missouri

tole for told

Now that I live farther north (but still in Mizzura), I've noticed a strange phrasing peculiar to this area. People here say "of" instead of "in" sometimes. For example: I always brush my teeth first thing of a morning. It's the strangest thing.

-- Anonymous, July 25, 2000


there are a few things I deliberately picked up from my mom and dad to make fun of how they say things...

Wal Marts....why does she pluralize it, I don't know. hanGer...she pronounces the "g" in hanger. ruts for roots, ruff for roof hosPital...my dad prominantly pronounces the "p" and places all the accent on the second syllable. and of course, I've always said warsh.

-- Anonymous, July 25, 2000


The people that live in my area pronouce Theater, "TheeAYter" Ambulance is pronounced "Ambilance" and, sadly, Library is pronounced "Liberry" It drives me nuts. My husband makes fun of me for pronouncing the word Tour, like "tore." He says it should be pronouced "Tooer" (for lack of being able to spell it the way he pronounces it)

-- Anonymous, July 25, 2000

My mom, a native Californian born to Nebraskan parents, says "melk" for milk, "peenits"/"walnits" for peanuts/walnuts, "cole-OAK-KLEE-ul" for colloquial, and she pronounces words ending in "ic" with an "EEK" sound: "muse-EEK" (music), "pan-EEK" (panic), "madge-EEK" (magic). My dad, who moved to California from Virginia in his 20s, has lost most of his southern accent, but still says things like "rurn" for ruin and "lah-bull" for liable (as in You're lah-bull to rurn that.).
My maternal (Nebraskan) grandpa calls Mervyn's dept store "Merwin's", and refers to almonds as "AM-ins". My mom's aunt's whole family pronounces Yosemite "yo-SIM-in-ee" and Bodega (Bay) "buh-DOO-guh". And my dad's sister thinks Ghirardelli is pronounced "gear-in-DELL-ee". Mind you, she misspelled my first name Kelly as Kelley for 23 years, so. ;-)
My mom's biggest pronunciation peeves are people saying "kinny-gardin" for kindergarten, "febree-airy" for February, and "lye-berry" for library.

I'm perfect, I don't mispronounce anything. *snicker*

-- Anonymous, July 25, 2000



Paul and I have argued so often about the pronunciations of theater and pecan that we no longer remember how we originally pronounced them. I say "THEEter" and "puh KAHN". Or PEE-kahn if I'm fucking around.

I pronounce lure "lur". Wait... that doesn't really tell you much, does it? Let's say I make it rhyme with "were". Paul makes fun of me because he says it "loo-er". Whatever. As if anyone cares about fishing, anyway.

-- Anonymous, July 25, 2000


I say "THEE-uh-ter", "PEE-con", and "LOO-er". I also say "IN-vuh-lope", "KYOO-pon", "APE-ricot", and "flan" (rhymes with pan). That last one is solely to bug my friend Nadine. :-)

I screwed up one of my mom's pronunciation peeves in my previous post (god, alliteration much? ;-) ). She hates when people say "FEB-yoo-airy" for February. I think "FEB-ree-airy" would just make her giggle.

Heh, I just remembered that my best friend argued with me, once, over the correct spelling of similar. Maintaining that it was spelled simular, she asked, of my spelling, "Well where does the 'u' sound come from, then?"

I had to tell her she'd been mispronouncing it for her entire life. She wasn't pleased. *grin*

If she knew I'd posted this on the web, she'd kick my ass. ;-)

-- Anonymous, July 25, 2000


My accent wanders all over the place depending on where I am and who I happen to be talking to at the time. I have an accent that seems peculiar to a segment of the population in Savannah. It isn't Southern, though I'm clearly a belle, and it isn't English, though I've been accused of that before, but is instead a blend of the two. No one forced me to speak like that, and I don't make an effort to, it's just how it comes out. I sound like a lot of other folks I went to school with, etc., though. I think it's an alternate option available if you're from the area.

My ex has a strange Southern (South Carolinian) / British drawl that he swears he has always had. He's clearly not a Brit, but he doesn't sound like a Southerner per se either.

My telephone/interview/performance voice is clipped and proper and vastly different from my default accent, which is vastly different again from the muddier, lazier accent I use with close friends. I did not know I sounded different in different situations until it was pointed out to me. On the phone, I sound exactly like my mother, to the point where I've confused family members. (My grandfather, who was slightly deaf and thus not a good example, was upset with me over some infraction I don't recall. He called up and I answered the phone and identified myself, and he blipped right over that and proceeded to vent to me about me, thinking I was my mother, and suggested all sorts of correctional techniques. I tried to correct him but he ignored me and a light dawned, slowly, and I realized that this might be useful. Needless to say, I didn't bother to try and enlighten him again.)

I somehow got it in my head that "reluctant" was pronounced "re-loo- chant", which was due to a bad font choice on the cover of The Reluctant Dragon. In fact, my worst offense is probably pronouncing a word I've only read, as opposed to heard used aloud, wrong. I used to be embarrassed about it, but now I figure that it shows I can read and understand big words, even if I can't say them properly. I promise, however, that I'm not by any means as annoying or clueless as the geek child in "Trekkies" mispronouncing words to the point where it is painful.

I had horrible problems with "th" and "f" sounds ('wif' for 'with', 'fird' for '3rd', confusing 'death' and 'deaf', confusing 'free' with '3', etc.) when I was little and would get corrected constantly. I still do it when I'm in a hurry or agitated.

I say SHED-yule for schedule, p'-CAHN for pecan, NEW-clee-er for nuclear, LOOR with an er sound and PYOOR with an ooh-er sound for lure and pure, etc. I tend to soften words with "R"s on the end: wah- turh for water, laff-turh for laughter, etc., where the r is nearly subliminal in there. I put a faint 'r' in February (Feh-bru-air-ee) and a VERY faint 'd' in Wednesday (We[d]ns-day). I stress the double "E"s in Hallowe'en (Hah-low-ee-en) and the double "O"s in cooperate. (I used to put an umlaut over the second o, as I read the word in 40's era books before I heard it used verbally, and it had either a dash in front of the second 'o' or an umlaut over it!) Some words I don't stick with one choice. I've caught myself saying both t'MAH-tuh AND tuh-MAY-to for tomato depending on context [!] and thee- ah-tuh and thee-AY-ter for theater (which I just had to struggle to spell with an 'er' and not an 're'). I pronounce yahoo.com as both yaye-who and yah-who, depending.

In short, I'm fucked up, but people seem to be able to understand me.

-- Anonymous, July 25, 2000


Are you guys hating it having to write all this stuff phonetically?

-- Anonymous, July 25, 2000

I cannot stand it when people say "pitcher" for "picture"! My own accent tends to wander a bit depending on who I'm with and what I'm doing. At work sometimes I put on my "customer service drawl". Most of the people I wait on are native Texans and speak like it, so I end up mimicing their enunciation. The drawl just sounds friendlier to me in that context. Still my coworkers always point out to me how midwestern I sound, so who knows. I love the word "y'all" and appropriated it immediately upon moving here. But I cannot stand the expression "fixin' to." It just sounds inexcusably hillbilly to me, but "y'all" just seems cute and friendly. A friend of mine is from Seattle and has a sort of Canadian accent that I have picked up bits of. Sometimes I'll find myself saying "sore-ee" rather than "sah- ree" (for sorry, ya know?) And as a child of the 80's I'm sure I use "like" like way too much.

-- Anonymous, July 26, 2000


My Grandmother, born and raised in NJ, said "warsh" for wash.

I like to say Flahrida for Florida, not Floorida. My brother says "wutter" for water, and no one else in my family does. We don't know WHERE he got it.

In Indiana, where I lived for several years, people say "ruff" for "roof", "kyoopon" for "coupon", many say "thee-AY-ter" for "theater", "y'all" (which frankly I love and still use even though I'm back in NYC).

My mother says "Mondee" for "Monday" Lord knows why.

-- Anonymous, July 26, 2000


I had a friend who could not for the life of her pronounce "ruin". She said "rern", and once, when pressed to sound it out, "rerroon".

Funny mispronounciations when you know better are a form of humor, though, right, klee? Instead of Jzhee-vahn-shay, say Give-inchy. That's what it looks like, damn it.

I still have to pause when saying "suave and debonair" because the joke, way back in high school, was to pronounce them "swayve and de- boner". *cackle*

-- Anonymous, July 26, 2000


Joanne, my mom says "mundee" for Monday too! I forgot about that. She does that with all the days of the week. :-)
M-cat, I DO say "swayve and dee-boner" when I use that phrase, and it never fails to crack people up. I also dig on mispronouncing (and misusing) French words and phrases. You know all too well how often I say "oh kahn-trair, mahn frair" (au contraire, mon frer), which I nicked from Bart Simpson, actually. My friend Francois, who is French and Egyptian, saves French faxes for me to read aloud to him, he likes it so much. *snicker* SOMEbody needs to get a life. *grin*

-- Anonymous, July 26, 2000

Mom sent me a few more contributions. ;-) Her grandfather said "YATCH-et" for yacht, and our Indiana-bred neighbor says "spay-shul"/"spatial" for special. I also remembered that my supervisor, aged 35, still can't say 'breakfast'-- she pronounces it "breffrurst". When I was wee, I called it "breck-stist".

-- Anonymous, July 27, 2000

What gets me is when my boyfriend talks about people having diabetes and calls it Die-ah-bee-tis. I also get annoyed when he says roof, because he fails to remember that two letter os together make an Ooo sound, not an uh. He's quite a white boy in the sense that he grew up never knowing, "The roof! The roof! The roof is on fire!"

If only he had known that song, I wouldn't have to mutter the correct pronunciation of it under my breath after he says it.

Oh, and when he says Eye-talian. Because people live in Eye-taly.

I've got more... give me time.

-- Anonymous, July 27, 2000



Well, I'm from Louisiana and although I've been involved in the THE-AY-TUR (kidding, I don't say it like that) long enough to monitor my accent, I am guilty of some of the things I've read in this thread. I have a friend who does odd word substitutions without noticing. For example, during a discussion about the apocalypse one evening, she remarked, "Well, it says it right there in the Bible, that there are (blah, blah, I can't remember what she actually said)" and I said, "Which book in the Bible are you talking about?"

She replies: "Exorcist".

Me: "What?? What book in the Bible??"

Her: "Exorcist. It says it right there in Exorcist."

Me: "You mean EXODUS???"

Her: "Oh, Exorcist, Exodus, whatever".

She does that all of the time. Goofy, goofy.

-- Anonymous, July 27, 2000


My friend uses the word "irregardless" CONSTANTLY. It drives me nuts because it's not a real word-- yes, it's in the dictionary, but it's listed as nonstandard, because it's redundant (once the negative idea is expressed by the -less ending, it is excessive to add the negative ir- prefix to express the same-- according to my big fat dictionary).

And of course, she uses it around me even more since discovering how much it bugs me, the brat. ;-) Phoo, I feel better now. Gwen's Forums-- Therapy, Dirt-Cheap!

-- Anonymous, July 28, 2000


My husband and I laugh at the Bob Evans commercials that we see on TBS because the food is described as being fraysh instead of fresh.

-- Anonymous, August 01, 2000

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