Why do people pronounce turmeric as tewmeric?

[CompanyOfThieves]

It's got an 'r' in it. It's tur-mur-ic.

So annoying.

Yes, but some of the words he doesn’t pronounce like any Australian I’ve ever met

What about those people who put an R in words like bath and castle. They sound proper daft. I mean darft.

Who puts an r in those words? Surely no-one?

Do you mean they say bah-th and cah-stle? Like most people do in the south of England?

Haitch is never correct. But sadly it’s used so much, I think the majority of the population say Haitch now.

Agree. I wondered how long this thread would take before someone came on to bash a southern English accent! Actually took longer than usual.

Exactly. If you look it up in the Oxford English Dictionary it's in the letter a section, and is spelled aitch. It is not spelled haitch nor does that word appear in the letter h section.

Actually, it has also been haitch for centuries, depending on the dialect. You can look at the etymology all you like but it's not etymology that determines correctness, it's usage. Aitch comes from French. While some dialects retained the aitch pronunciation, haitch evolved to match other consonant sounds in multiple dialects so unless "incorrect" means "not in my dialect", your assertion is simply dialect-bias and amounts to personal opinion.

This.

It would be incorrect for me to say “haitch” because that isn’t part of my dialect. It would not be incorrect for a Hiberno-English speaker (for instance) to pronounce it that way.

Haitch is correct in multiple dialects. Claiming otherwise is simply ignorant.

Except it also lists haitch as a variant of aitch...

Exactly. Sometimes the dialect bias in evidence on here borders on xenophobia.

It doesn't in mine...

To those who claim haitch is correct because it is said like that in some areas, do you think that the pronunciations vem, vose, fing, Arfur, ve, vese etc are also correct? Because plenty of people in the south east seem to find it difficult to say the sound th and claim it's dialect.

Dialects and regional variations in pronunciations exist but that doesn't mean they are strictly correct.

If a foreign person was learning English abroad they would not be taught that the haitch pronunciation is the correct way to say that letter of the alphabet.

So you’re saying they add a haitch or could it be an aitch?

When is anyone actually saying haitch or aitch though? People always complain about it on these threads but when do you actually hear it? Are you asking people to recite the alphabet to you or something?

My MIL does this. See also a hard 'j' in fajita and jalapeno, a hard 'g' in gelatory (gel-AY-tor-ee), quorm instead of Quorm, brufen for ibuprofen, hyu-mos for hummus, and kwin-o-a for quinoa. And I won't even try to type how she said chipotle to a waiter recently. It's maddening.

i call it tewmeric
i have no idea why
this is how i would have heard it pronounced.

i also pronounce tofu to rhyme with toffee, i have no idea why though

My gran used to pronounce margarine with a hard g. It's one of life's great mysteries.

They actually call it holding, or at least by where I live.

Haldi bloody auto correct.

Isn't that just "toffee" then, or do you not even start it with a "t" sound?!

No, I'm saying that the long 'a' sounds like ah, not ar.

The BBC decided to change it to the soft g. Your gran's pronunciation (which I heard as a child) is the logical one

(the commission) ...grappled with how to pronounce “margarine”, eventually plumping for a soft g, despite the fact that the substance was derived from margaric (with a hard g) acid

https://www.theguardian.com/education/shortcuts/2016/jun/07/marjerine-or-marg-arine-how-the-bbc-taught-us-to-talk-proper?CMP=ShareAndroidAppOther

Brufen isn't a mispronunciation, it's a brand name that a lot of older people use generically. My mum calls it that too - like calling all vacuum cleaners hoovers.