Mispronounced words that drive you mad

[puds11]

Just overheard someone ordering an ‘expresso’

What mispronounced words drive you mad?

I'd looked it up quickly and only came up with lonjevity.

I've certainly only heard it that way in the last 50 years I'd been noticing such things.😂

I don't mind if we have a style reappraisal of spellings and pronunciation to reduce confusion, my dyslexic family would welcome it. I was just a bit miffed that I'd missed the memo!

I'd never heard anyone say longevity out loud until quite recently and always assumed it was long-eve-ity. Fortunately I didn't find out by saying it!

One of the Loose Women keeps saying ‘sensity’.
She wants her men to act with sensity.
I wonder how she spells it.

Itch and scratch being interchangeable, which they’re not.

@ladyvimes

Mischievous. My friend with an English degree pronounces it mischievious and it drives me mad!!

I've got an English degree too and I didn't know this was wrong 😂 thanks. I will say it correctly from now on.

It’s probably already been said but my husband says pronounciation rather than pronunciation which piddles me off so much. And his mother, brother and he all say curtins instead of curtains. I audibly groan each time
I hear it. The thickos!

Sicastic instead of sarcastic.
Brought instead of bought.

Prostrate instead of prostate, as in a colleague who kept talking about her husbands prostrate cancer. It felt churlish to correct her so I didn't but it really irked me maybe because my dad died of prostate

Some of these are dialects/ accents. How boring would it be if those didn’t exist? Would of is never right but would’ve sounds almost identical even on radio 4 and only annoys me if written. I reserve my pedantry for written English

A BBC reporter said 'burgalries' the other day. I thought she'd said it by mistake but then she said it again

@RoseAddict

Some of these are dialects/ accents. How boring would it be if those didn’t exist? Would of is never right but would’ve sounds almost identical even on radio 4 and only annoys me if written. I reserve my pedantry for written English

Oh, I wouldn't find people not using dialect as an excuse for error boring at all. I would find it refreshingly honest.

Pitcher instead of picture. I like House of Games and I like Richard Osman but I wince every time he says 'pitcher'.

When I have been to the big city I have smiled at the young person ahead of me saying, "Can I get a lartay?" and my following on with, "Please may I have a cafe latte?"

I recently listened to an audiobook which was about a library and the narrator said 'lie-bry' all the way through. I know those words like particularly, peculiarly, February etc. are quite difficult to pronounce but they need the speaker to Take A Bit Of Time to say them, and it always seems that folk have to hurry them.

Panini's have been upsetting me for years. Sandwicheses? Rollses?
Baguettese's?

Nobody knows how to say Omicron... But I find varunt a bit shoddy.

Burglerised - another charmer from the good ole' USA

There was a whole programme on the World Service yesterday about the appostayzy of the Polish Catholics.

Not apostasy, like what we have always said...

You'd think maybe someone who was presenting a whole programme on a subject might look up how it is properly pronounced. Members of the Polish Catholic Church kept saying it right to him, but he seemed unable to take it in.

An irritating change I've been noticing recently is reporters saying 'swarths' instead of 'swathes', as in broad sweeps or coverings of something. I don't know whether the spelling has actually been changed in some quarters, or whether it is just being wrongly read.

Swath does exist: www.dictionary.com/browse/swath but doesn't mean the same as swathe: www.dictionary.com/browse/swathe

Swath as in stroke of a scythe; swathe as in swathing bands and in a manger laid.

@ladyvimes

Mischievous. My friend with an English degree pronounces it mischievious and it drives me mad!!

This this this

I know it’s a regional thing but my mil says ‘hopikkle’ instead of hospital and it grates my bloody nerves.

My husband says bister but my mum always told me it was pronounced bye-cester.

Dad say hose ( hos C) for horse

Locals definitely call it bister. File it with Towcester (pronounced toaster) and other place-names in the UK that don't sound as they look. Totnes. Penicuik. Wrotham.

Avoid the Shrowsbury/Shrewsbury debate; you can find locals who say both.

(And a few wags who call it Shrubbery, just to annoy.)

'Coup(e) de gras' is a big one. It's 'coup de grace' or nothing, seriously.