BS: Commonly misspelled/mispronounced words

Subject: RE: BS: Commonly misspelled/mispronounced words
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 26 Jun 03 - 03:30 PM

Dr Johnson was once in a carriage, and a fellow passenger protested, saying "Yoiu smell, Sir"; to which the good doctor replied correcting his English - "No, Sir - you smell. I stink."

Subject: RE: BS: Commonly misspelled/mispronounced words
From: TIA
Date: 26 Jun 03 - 03:23 PM

If you are nauseous, you make people ill.
If you are nauseated, you feel ill.

Subject: RE: BS: Commonly misspelled/mispronounced words
From: DonMeixner
Date: 26 Jun 03 - 03:17 PM

Just about every word I type.   I spell just fine, I type just awful.

Don

Subject: RE: BS: Commonly misspelled/mispronounced words
From: Geoff the Duck
Date: 26 Jun 03 - 02:22 PM

One annoyance which springs from the USA is the compounding of perfectly good words into meaningles twaddle. For example :-
A burglar burgles your house. You as the victim (and your house) have been burgled. You have NOT been burglarised
what the burglar has done is NOT burglarisation.
In the world of biology your liver is an organ which removes toxins from your bloodstream. There are two verbs which describe the process - to detoxify or to detoxicate.The process is called detoxication NOT detoxification.
Quack!
GtD.

Subject: RE: BS: Commonly misspelled/mispronounced words
From: Sorcha
Date: 26 Jun 03 - 02:07 PM

Excuse me, that should be 'bob wahr', not barbed wire.

Subject: RE: BS: Commonly misspelled/mispronounced words
From: Mrs.Duck
Date: 26 Jun 03 - 01:45 PM

Buggered if I do McGrath! And of course Sorcha I would spell aluminum aluminium! The one that confounds me is practice/practise which depending on which side of the atlantic you fall are reversed - all very confusing.

Subject: RE: BS: Commonly misspelled/mispronounced words
From: Noreen
Date: 26 Jun 03 - 01:35 PM

Dave the Gnome's link above didn't work- try this one with the http:
http://www.mudcat.org/www.isms.org.uk

looks fun :0)

Subject: RE: BS: Commonly misspelled/mispronounced words
From: Noreen
Date: 26 Jun 03 - 01:25 PM

Yep, that's the usual way to prounce it in England, Ebbie :0)

Barb wire for barbed wire.

Subject: RE: BS: Commonly misspelled/mispronounced words
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 26 Jun 03 - 01:16 PM

The companion to doors that are alarmed is traffic that goes in for diversions.

Somhow people never seem to follow the instruction they put up in clothes shops, where it says "menswear" and "womenswear"

Subject: RE: BS: Commonly misspelled/mispronounced words
From: Bill D
Date: 26 Jun 03 - 01:04 PM

oh,...there are still folks who will argue violently about 'tomato' and 'salmon'...

and, although a tree of the Pacific Northwest is called simply 'Madrone' in most botany texts, it is sometimes called "Madrona", and I know one friend who will not listen to me discuss the tree and its wood if I spell it 'wrong' *grin*

Subject: RE: BS: Commonly misspelled/mispronounced words
From: Ebbie
Date: 26 Jun 03 - 12:43 PM

Doesn't bug me, exactly, but I'm aware of it when people say: eightth. As in eight-thuh. There is only one th in the word.

I know a woman who for "usual" (yoozhual) says "yoozyooall". As anyone else ever heard the word pronounced like that? (English is not a second language for her; she's a native born American.)

Subject: RE: BS: Commonly misspelled/mispronounced words
From: M.Ted
Date: 26 Jun 03 - 12:18 PM

"Irregardless" is a real word, irregardless of whether it is a very good word. As per The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language:

>Usage Note: Irregardless is a word that many mistakenly believe to be correct usage in formal >style, when in fact it is used chiefly in nonstandard speech or casual writing. Coined in the United >States in the early 20th century, it has met with a blizzard of condemnation for being an improper >yoking of irrespective and regardless and for the logical absurdity of combining the negative ir- >prefix and -less suffix in a single term. Although one might reasonably argue that it is no different >from words with redundant affixes like debone and unravel, it has been considered a blunder for >decades and will probably continue to be so.

Subject: RE: BS: Commonly misspelled/mispronounced words
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 26 Jun 03 - 12:14 PM

We've got parakeet flooring!

From www.isms.org.uk Hilaryous (sic) stuff...

Cheers

DtG

Subject: RE: BS: Commonly misspelled/mispronounced words
From: the lemonade lady
Date: 26 Jun 03 - 12:05 PM

Carboard : cardboard

And the way weather men/women say 'uh' before their words...you listen when they're doing the forecast on TV. They do it on Blue Peter too.I know it's the same as saying 'er' but it bugs me.

Sal

Subject: RE: BS: Commonly misspelled/mispronounced words
From: Bill D
Date: 26 Jun 03 - 11:59 AM

re: 'fidgiderry'...my cousin said 'batumfritter'..but HE was only 5, and learned better. Some adults do not care to learn.

I do grate (grit?) my teeth over randomly scattered apostrophes, with little regard whether they are used as plurals, possessives or contractions.

and I have totally given up on educating the masses on the difference between 'your' and 'you're' or 'there', 'their' and 'they're'

I also remember trying (with mixed results)to correct some young lads who said things like "He was standing in the filled (field), looking in the mere (mirror)"

Subject: RE: BS: Commonly misspelled/mispronounced words
From: Alba
Date: 26 Jun 03 - 11:19 AM

My Grandmother, bless her, (who frequently mixed up words) was telling us of a friend who had just had her Baby 6 weeks prematurely.
She informed me that the Woman was fine but the baby was in an incinerator until it got it got a bit stronger!....we were all laughing so much we couldn't tell her the word was incubator   *BG*
A:>)

Subject: RE: BS: Commonly misspelled/mispronounced words
From: Giac
Date: 26 Jun 03 - 11:17 AM

TV sports persons annoy me daily with this one:

Ath-a-letic. As in, sports fans and athaletic supporters.

A local one which is kinda funny the first zillion times you hear it:

fidgiderry

Got it yet? Whatever you were thinking, likely that's not it. It's refrigerator. Seriously. It is a corruption of the brand name, Frigidaire. That first R apparently is impossible to see, but is made up for by pronouncing the E. Written spellings, too, are quite exotic, including "frigerotor".

Ain't langidge grate?

Mary

Subject: RE: BS: Commonly misspelled/mispronounced words
From: Noreen
Date: 26 Jun 03 - 10:24 AM

Peter T reminds me of a usage which I thought amusing when I first saw it, but now appears to be generally accepted :0(
on private hire taxi cabs: Advanced bookings only.

Surely it should be advance bookings = bookings in advance?

Also, on public fire doors: these doors are alarmed
when they look perfectly calm to me.

Subject: RE: BS: Commonly misspelled/mispronounced words
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 26 Jun 03 - 10:24 AM

For February the most common mistake here is Febuary, then there's umbarella, and the folks who get their books from the libary. But what really gets on my tits is people who answer a question with the one word, "absolutely". ABSOLUTELY WHAT?? It can be either affirmative or negative, it is an adverb, and usually qualifies a verb, on its own it has no validity.
RANT RANT....Giok

Subject: RE: BS: Commonly misspelled/mispronounced words
From: kendall
Date: 26 Jun 03 - 10:21 AM

irregardless also sends me over the top. Our own Senator Snowe once used that non word, and I chastised her severely.

Prostate
Orangutan

Subject: RE: BS: Commonly misspelled/mispronounced words
From: Sorcha
Date: 26 Jun 03 - 10:16 AM

Well, for one thing, two Mr. Happy's examples are either two words or hyphenated words; no one and mo-ped. Solves that confusion. Cinnamon, aluminum, envelope,inundate (indunate), chimney (chimbley),often (ofTen. But, the one that drives me batshit is 'irregardless'. Not a word.

Subject: RE: BS: Commonly misspelled/mispronounced words
From: Peter T.
Date: 26 Jun 03 - 10:05 AM

Tough ones that virtually everyone is now getting wrong:

"principal" and "principle"

"effect" and "affect"

"its" and "it's"

yours,

Peter T.

Subject: RE: BS: Commonly misspelled/mispronounced words
From: nickp
Date: 26 Jun 03 - 09:31 AM

February/Febrary

Subject: RE: BS: Commonly misspelled/mispronounced words
From: Geoff the Duck
Date: 26 Jun 03 - 09:15 AM

Misspelt.

Subject: RE: BS: Commonly misspelled/mispronounced words
From: GUEST
Date: 26 Jun 03 - 08:46 AM

I hate it when sports commentators say "subtitute", "sikth" and "Alec" (Ferguson) instead of substitute, sixth and Alex - and they do it all the time! Why do commentators seem to find it so much of an effort to pronounce all the s's in a word?

Bagpuss

Subject: RE: BS: Commonly misspelled/mispronounced words
From: GUEST,Sooz(at work)
Date: 26 Jun 03 - 08:10 AM

My current one is focussed (or is it focused?)Apparently both are correct. I've just finished collating school reports with an equal number of each spelling and I think they look dreadful!

Subject: RE: BS: Commonly misspelled/mispronounced words
From: GUEST
Date: 26 Jun 03 - 07:40 AM

Nuclear, particularly, arctic, genealogy

Subject: RE: BS: Commonly misspelled/mispronounced words
From: GUEST,KB
Date: 26 Jun 03 - 07:10 AM

can you be more pacific about that?

Subject: RE: BS: Commonly misspelled/mispronounced words
From: gnu
Date: 26 Jun 03 - 07:04 AM

Volumptuous... and she was.

Subject: RE: BS: Commonly misspelled/mispronounced words
From: Noreen
Date: 26 Jun 03 - 06:52 AM

Definitely! (Aaaaargh)

Subject: RE: BS: Commonly misspelled/mispronounced words
From: Mr Happy
Date: 26 Jun 03 - 06:07 AM

ayup-touche-well i wasn't sure! 8-)

Subject: RE: BS: Commonly misspelled/mispronounced words
From: AllisonA(Animaterra)
Date: 26 Jun 03 - 06:05 AM

alright

Subject: RE: BS: Commonly misspelled/mispronounced words
From: GUEST,Dáithí
Date: 26 Jun 03 - 05:46 AM

How about your own "mispronounciation"? It's "mispronunciation"....
8¬)

Subject: BS: Commonly misspelled/mispronounced words
From: Mr Happy
Date: 26 Jun 03 - 05:42 AM

I've lately noticed a number of misspellings & mispronounciations of frequently used words.

noone:meaning nobody- could be pronounced 'noon'.
misled:meaning deceived- could be pronounced 'mizzled'.
moped: meaning small motorbike or moved gloomily.

anyone spotted any others?