For wanting to stick pins in my eyes when people write "on route"

[gratefulforwhatihavegot]

If you don't understand how to write something then don't try and be clever.

I think you'd sound a major twat if you tried to sling in any fancy pronunciation.

I worked with someone at the time General Pinochet was arrested in the UK, who insisted on pronouncing his country Chillay and him as Chillayun.

It was a work thing at a radio station. I don't generally talk about human rights abuses and State-sponsored murder for idle amusement.

At our meeting to decide how to cover it, everyone else said: 'But nearly every English speaker pronounces it Chilly and we will sound like prats if we don't. Besides, we're talking about what are some of the most serious crimes you could be accused of and you're getting off the point.' In a big way because you're a tosser.

He said: 'But that's the way it's pronounced.' So he did. He sounded like a prat; because that's what he was.

Just thought of a couple more...'mash potato' and 'corn beef' crop up quite a lot on Facebook cooking groups I'm on

I have a terrible affliction, which makes me the subject of social derision (don't laugh). I pronounce French/German loan-words in the English way when attempting to communicate in French/German and in the native way by accident during English conversations.

For example, when attempting to speak French, I pronounce Paris in the English way, with the s. Exasperated French people correct me.

When casually talking in English, I say Par-ee by accident. And then everyone thinks I'm Hyacinth Bucket's little sister.

Alisvolatpropiis
Didn't know that one was wrong.
I'll stop it! I promise.

limited IRL I have a nice line in "you mean wrongly" to anyone being an arse to someone else about corrections.

Someone on a FB selling site is looking for a chicken coup!! Watch your backs-the birds are taking over! would correct her but she is an evil cow and have had a run in with her before

Christ-posted my previous comment before reading through all the pages! How has it become so serious? Also I can't believe that in all this debating no one has brought up the fact that all these mistakes are made because the value of correct spelling and grammar in education has dropped so much in the past few years. Kids' school work isn't corrected throughout-one teacher told me that it is considered demeaning for a child to see a large amount of corrections across a piece of work so they will not all be flagged up. WTF?! How do children learn if they aren't shown their incorrect spellings?

The one that bothers and puzzles me in equal measure is the use of 'brought' instead of 'bought'.

I really can't wrap my head around how they can be mixed up. I have seen and heard it misused in alarming frequency over the past few years. How, why and when did this start?

They mean completely different things, ffs!

Oh and for the OP, 'toshay' came up on my fb feed once.

And have also witnessed the use of 'walla'.

When I was little and was taken to church every week, I was a bit confused why we all said 'thanks Peter God' after reach bible reading.

Ooooo. On route would really wind my manager up. Evil grin...

Thing is, on route makes just as much sense as en route.

It does owl. I used to think enervate meant precisely the opposite of what it does. I think I mixed it up with energised.

Thank heavens I learned by hearing someone use it in the correct context and thinking: 'Eh?' and looking it up, rather than posting it here.

Is it wrong to start frothing at the mouth at things like 'less people'? Inability to know when to use the word 'fewer' seems to be astonishingly widespread now. Such a simple effing rule. If you can count it - it's FEWER. Even my 6 year old knows that.

limited JK Rowling made the same mistake, and became a best-selling author anyway.

Doesn't stop me despairing……!!

QED etc etc.

Seeing someone mentioning 'faux' reminded me of a classic TV moment where a little girl was, for some reason, reading out the news headlines. She had reached the sporting news and was ploughing gamely through the motor-racing when an obviously-wincing Voice-Off hisses "Gran Pree!!"

Little girl looks up from her script, and says, very firmly, "It says Grand Pricks here."

apples I remember that. I don't remember what programme it was but it was definitely a stage school brat-infested programme.

Possibly it was Why Don't You Switch Off Your TV Because We're Just Patronising And Deeply Unironic Bastards, but possibly not.

The girl who said 'grand pricks' was a white girl of about 10. The boy who tried to correct her on-screen was about 17 and black.

I was aged in the middle. I am going to spend the rest of the evening trying to remember their names.

I remember another one with a little girl who said Grand Pricks, and then promptly realised on screen. You could see that she badly wanted to swear, but didn't know any.

That was how I learnt it was Gron Pree. Bloody French and their decorative letters!

In the late Seventies I used to say layzONyeearr to describe the frozen food my mum bought from M&S.

About five years later I was mocked for my pronunciation by people who'd caught up on our sophistication for pre-prepared minced beef and pasta combos.

These days I'm a reasonably competent Italian speaker as well as quite good at Spanish and French. I bet they're not.

What I'm trying to say is that some people are stupid cunts.

I am... a terribly incompetent French speaker, but I probably have the most recent French GCSE in this thread- I took it as a night school course last year. Unfortunately en route never came up in the vocab list, although the Frenchwoman who taught it did stop me thinking or saying 'fo paz'. I can give French tourists written directions to the local recycling centre and talk (incomprehensibly!) about deforestation and its contribution to global warming, instead.

So GCSE French hasn't served me well, with regard to avoiding the irritation of Mumsnetters!

My pet hate, seen and heard often is hence why as in 'Mum's in hospital hence why she's unavailable'.

Wasn't the Grand Prix girl Susan Tulley of Eastenders and Grange Hill fame?