The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #60703   Message #973006
Posted By: Jim Dixon
26-Jun-03 - 07:37 PM
Thread Name: BS: Commonly misspelled/mispronounced words
Subject: RE: BS: Commonly misspelled/mispronounced words
I bother to complain about mispronunciations only when they are made by people who are paid to speak, for example TV announcers, political pundits, talk-show hosts, and the like.

For example: pundit. I've been hearing it a lot lately as if it had another 'n': pundint.

Where did people get the idea that the plural of 'process' is pronounced 'process-ease'? You hear about legal process-ease, diplomatic process-ease, and so on.

And I've been hearing 'antibiotic' pronounced 'antibeeotic'. Nonsense. It should be pronounced with a long i as in biology, biography, etc.

Since the medical professions switched to the metric system, doctors and nurses have been pronouncing 'centimeter' in the French way, 'sawntimeter'. That's silly. Maybe the French invented it, but it's an English word now, so pronounce it consistently with cent, century, centennial, percentage, etc.

These are Americans I'm talking about, of course.

Regarding the 'smell/stink' controversy: Try saying, "A rose by any other name would stink as sweet."