Irritating pronounciation

[percheron67]

I have just seen the Tesco steak ad and wish that the woman talking would not use a glottal stop in the middle of words. Perhaps this is regional but it sounds very lazy.

[Buswankeress]

The one that irritates me is “ibuprofen"

I say it Eye-bu-prof-en - the same way my mum (nursed for 40 years) does.

I have heard a lot Ey-bur-ofen which annoys me.

I really do have better things to worry about

[ChinkChink]

A glottal stop is usually written as " t' " But is not pronounced. It's to substitute a missing 'the'.

Mispronunciation - conflab. It's a confab, if you are using the short form of confabulation, which I'm sure you are. Although it's so widely misused I believe conflab will enter dictionaries.

On a side note, it's worth watching Judge Judy on the off chance that someone will refer to a 'vee-hickle'.

[MooChops89]

I say eye-byuh-PROfen, but what really annoys me is when people call it ibroofen

[ScreamingValenta]

My DH has a very strong West Country accent and says paLm, aLmond etc. It's a regional thing. Life would be dull if we all used RP.

[StealthPolarBear]

Could baguette be pronounced bag-ey? Doesn't sound right

[JacquesHammer]

What is a glottal stop?

It’s a pronunciation quirk that means you sort of miss a hard consonant and replace it with a break in the word but no real discernible sound.

So “butter” would be “bu.er”

[Tarriance]

I find these threads so interesting, particularly the suggestion of putting an r in almost every word / name

[WaxOnFeckOff]

Eemamc, it's all about the rhotic accent. I can guarantee that anyone here with a chart showing those as phonic matches would be thrown out of teaching.

[AnotherDunroamin]

@MaMaMaBelle A glottal stop is the sound / non-sound in the middle of a word like "waiting" or "butter" if you imagine it pronounced in a cockney accent. It's sort of a catch in your throat that makes a short, sharp pause in place of (in some UK accents) a "t" sound. In some languages it's a functioning part of the language's phonology, so a word pronounced mata would have a different meaning than a word pronounced ma.a (where . represents a glottal stop), in the same way as the t/d distinction changes the meaning of the words 'to' and 'do' in English for example. But in English it doesn't have a meaning-changing function, it's just accent dependent. So some people are aware of it; others don't really notice it.

I'm a linguist by training / profession. There are so many regional accents in the UK that you can't really argue for "correct" or "incorrect" pronunciation based on every usage of a sound - e.g. it's not factual to say "glottal stops are a feature of incorrect pronunciation", because they're not; they're a feature of particular regional accents (and are "correct" in those accents, in the sense that they're subject to the same consistent phonological rules as any other sound that forms part of that accent). It is of course possible to mispronouce individual words e.g. people who pronounce ibuprofen eye-broo-fen (I'm looking at you, DH). And there are some cases where you could argue either way, e.g. ahks for 'ask' - in some accents this word is consistently pronounced this way, but in others it would be considered incorrect. So the concept is a bit fluid.

The reason there's a perception that RP pronunciation is "correct" is just due to social conditioning. For so long, that was the accent chosen to formally represent spoken English by royalty, government spokespeople, newsreaders etc that a stigma was attached to other regional accents. But regional variation almost always has a historical basis and one accent isn't "more correct" than another from a linguistic point of view; it might just be more socially accepted from a social conditioning point of view.

[Ihavenoideaatall]

In Scotland we use the North American Jolly Phonics "ar" sound

[DontCallMeCharlotte]

Ghoti is pronounced "fish".

[Ihavenoideaatall]

So wouldn't be the same as "palm"

[Norma27]

There are some words which I say in a different way to husband. We both think we are right! Doesn’t bother me but there is one word he will always laugh at me about.
However, when my sil ‘corrected’ my daughter’s way of saying a word I did get the rage. It is how we say it in this region (she is originally from a different part of the country).

I used to work as an accountant and I remember when I first started one of the senior managers having a rant about the word schedule. (It was a word used lots in our area of work). It should be shedule and he hated people ( including me) saying the c so skedule.

[MaMaMaBelle]

Ahh, thank you ChinkChink & JacquesHammer

It's a regional thing. Life would be dull if we all used RP
Exactly.

[RebeccaCloud9]

The thing that gives me the rage is people not understanding that ar and ah make the same sound in a lot of UK accents - when it is said that almond is pronounced armond- we are not making a piratey arrrrrr sound!! We're not 'putting in a random r' but we are making the long ah sound!

[MaMaMaBelle]

AnotherDunroamin Thank you, that's really interesting

[AnotherDunroamin]

Incidentally, I think using more regional accents on TV is really important for getting rid of this nonsense idea that RP is the only correct way to speak English.
Good on Tesco for giving the Geordie accent some much-needed airtime - now if channel 4 news can do the same please...

[Timeisslippingaway]

Where I live, nearly everyone I've heard say Ibuprofen pronounces it. "brufen or ibrufen, even doctors! It does my head right in!

[Lalliella]

Scone!

[LyndorCake]

Thirty three and ferty free

[RedDwarves]

Scone is an odd one to me, because I would never dream of pronouncing the food as anything other than "scon", but there is a large rural town where I live called Scone and it's pronounced "scown", to rhyme with own, lone etc.

Conflicting.

[Iruka]

Wasn't brufen a brand name of ibuprofen? Its like saying hoover instead of vacuum cleaner.

[CharltonLido73]

bruschetta when pronounced as "brooshetta" when the correct pronunciation in Italian is "broosketta".

(I know - hardly life-endangering but it's like fingernails scaping down a blackboard to me.)

And, as someone else posted, "aitch" pronounced "haitch" - just no!

[MaMaMaBelle]

What's the fastest cake in the world? ...Scone!

Incidentally, I think using more regional accents on TV is really important for getting rid of this nonsense idea that RP is the only correct way to speak English
Yes. Plus I love a wee game of 'guess the accent'

[AnElderlyLadyOfMediumHeight]

Wanted to say that ^^ about 'brufen'. It isn't a pronunciation as such.

Applauds AnotherDunroamin.
I always find it quite fascinating how the rhotic and non-rhotic pronunciation worlds collide on these threads, with each 'side' not seeming aware of the other and prepared to argue to the death for their way being right. Why do we (collectively) seem to have such little awareness of pronunciation varieties within our own language?