It's ESPRESSO not EXPRESSO!!

[ahhhhhpushit]

How many people do I hear saying expresso?!!!

It really grates me although I can sorta see why people make the mistake...

Am I the only one??!!

Christ, I hate expresso! It's even more unforgivable when it's actually printed e.g. in coffee shops. Also loathe the errant final 's' as in Tesco's and Costa's.

And someone I know says 'exasperate the situation' instead of 'exacerbate'.

Expresso, no! Which brings me on to...

...the advert for Asda, where the man says 'expecially'. Argh, argh, stabbity stab!

grazie mille, Collision.

I love that Mitchell & Web link.

Showed it to my family. DH said, 'thank God you haven't got a gun..'!

One of the presenters on the Today program said expresso far too often a week or two ago.

I think saying Tescos and so on is a class/regional thing. Everyone where I come from (rural Scotland) says it, everyone I know now (in London) slags me off for saying it. I wonder if it's because in a small isolated town, where we didn't have a supermarket til I was about 10, we were used to calling shops by the name of the person that owned it eg Simpson's, Gordon's and so on.

I will continue saying Tescos and Asdas and so on.

I don't really care about expresso and I have no idea about how to pronounce bruschetta.

So actually, I have no idea why I'm on this thread.

the 'disinterest' and 'uninterest' discussion is quite flavoursome. They are often used interchangeably yet have specific and distinct meanings.

complement and compliment is good for a slight raise of eyebrow too! and discreet and discrete ( I think).

Panino
Spaghetto

Yeah, I say espresso and it grates a little when DH says expresso, but language evolves and "officially" the word expresso does now exist as the anglicized version of the Italian word espresso. So while it may annoy you, it is not technically incorrect (by a hair).

The OED, Second Edition, does include espresso and expresso, the latter being a variant of the former.

The expresso/espresso thing winds me up too.

Next in line for annoyance is marshmellow instead of marshmallow.

I get murderous with rage about chorizo. It is NOT, and never has been Italian, and even if it were, it would need two zeds to be pronounced 'chorit-so'.

I remembered it as I was rather ed the first time around. As a coffee addicted loving francophone I shouldn't have been making that mistake but I was.

Prego Pan!!

yellowraincoat, I don't know about the class/region thing ? plenty of solidly middle-class London types of my acquaintance regularly narrowly escape strangulation annoy me slightly by saying 'Tescos' etc. I on the other hand am from very proletarian stock indeed and rabidly despise the errant apostrophe-s.

I dunno LadyClarice, then.

All I have to say to you is...

Tescos Asdas Lidls Aldis Waitroses

Merry Christmas!

my mum used to say Waitrose's which used to irritate the hell out of me - something about the double s sound which makes it sound idiotic.

Can I introduce a new one that I've not seen discussed on here: IRREGARDLESS. One of the big cheeses at work says this and I want to yell at him, it's either REGARDLESS or IRRESPECTIVE, IRREGARDLESS does not exist as a word!

Irregardless of that, mable, he's your boss, so you probably shouldn't say anything.

In some parts of Scotland they say 'sangwiches'. Oh it bugs the hell out of me!!

one of the single most frustrating experiences of my life was when someone gently corrected me on the expresso thing. I HAD FUCKING WELL SAID ESPRESSO, indeed i had said it with quite a distinct Roman accent BECAUSE THAT IS WHERE I LEARNED TO SPEAK ITALIAN etc etc

anyway. he said 'no, you said expresso, but don't worry, a lot of people make that mistake'.

lol yellow, no I couldn't say anything to him, but one of the less big cheeses and I have a running joke about it, I always sign off my emails to him with Kind Irregards.

oooooh I know that one Aitch. I speak German ( better than I write it) but was 'corrected' by an official at der Zoo station in Berlin re my pronuciation of "Franzoschiche" ( French)..which was perfect! He mis-heard it, and told me the exact ( same) version, with a smug little smile.

Small sharp objects were not to hand. Fortunately.

My mum says expresso and I politely pointed out to her that she was wrong once, and she got really huffy with me about it. I think she tried to convince me that there was some optional expresso rule that I was unaware of, and I was BU to care either way.

lol at kind irregards.

This is deeply irrelevant, DeePan, but a German once corrected me because I said "ich lebe" instead of "ich wohne". I don't mind the correction, but he laughed hysterically then told everyone we know. I love the Germans, but God, they can be smug.

Also: sangwiches. Glaswegians, you can not laugh at us teuchters when you continue to pronounce sangwiches so.

At least once a week a customer tries to tell me that our menu is wrong and should read expresso.

Vaffanculo!