My friend uses the wrong words...

[nickytwotimes]

My very good, kind and lovely friend uses the word "pacific" rather than the correct term "specific". My fellow pedants, what do I do? I have turned a blind eye (or deaf ear) to it thus far, but it drives me crazy. Another lovely friend responded to my ds saying "How do you do?" (he is 18 mths - very cute!) by saying "Very well thank you and how are you?"!

Am I going straight to hell for being so judgemental?

And now, on the subject of leeyoors, a confession:

There was a word I always mis-pronounced in my head. I had never had cause to say it out loud. One day, on a long car-journey with some terribly bright friends and family members, we were playing the alphabet game to amuse my DC's - I chose an animal beginning with 'l' and said lemur - as one might say le mur in French...

I wake up at night in a cold sweat when I remember..

Any confessions? Please tell me I am not alone...

Oh, just as I feared... Goodbye forever.

hang on, give me a sec, I'm sure I can think of something
le-mur to rhyme with demure? (almost)

OK, not striclty a pedant issue but until fairly recently I thought that tigers were female lions. Well I didn't so much think it as have never really considered it until I mentioned it to DH. Tigers are still called "lady lions" in this house

Oh Stealth, I love you!

lol you are all nutters. LittleWonder is sweetly misguided. And Stealth, were you schooled?

Till I was 13 I thought colonel was colon-elle.

Jane Austen lost much of her glittering aleeyoor when I was corrected. The reality is so .. pedestrian.

Actually, I've just realized that I always channel Brian Sewell on Pedantry threads. I don't express myself nearly as ludicrously elsewhere.

Yes. (Hangs head in shame) To rhyme with demure.

Lady lions are tigers?

Oh onebat, I love you too! My dear colon-elle! I'm sure you are actually right on that one!

Well, I was a very small gal when I told my big, clever sister that I rather liked a name I had read in a book - FOBEE - have you got it yet?

Phoebe? I think it was Catcher in the Rye...

LW - you were post-30 (I'm guessing obv) when you realized limure wasn't right? Weren't lemurs on Blue Peter when you were a child?

Is it a universally-acknowledged truth that our mispronunciations are invariably more pretentious than the correct version?

'colonelle' (to rhyme with 'bagatelle') and 'lemyoor'(to rhyme with 'monsieur')

I think it's to do with precocious pre-adolescent reading..

I did Phoebe too! But mine was Phobe.

(Howling and furtive at same time) - Yes, post 30... But they didn't have Blue Peter where I grew up....

And guilty of precocious pre-adolescent reading.

I can imagine playing dressing up with you though - waving a fan and exclaiming
"Oh, but my dear colon-elle..."

Having read early posts in this thread can I just say that I can not pronounce "th" so always say "fing" and "vat". This is despite having speech therapy as a child, and a grade A English Language A-level and a 2:1 in English Language and Linguistics (which included phonology, phonetics etc) from Durham. And also tuition from various well meaning friends.

LW I don't suppose you are a secret Georgette Heyer fan?

Bozza - I have a friend who has the same difficulty with 'th'. I always think it sounds sort of aristo actually, a bit Nancy Mitford.. (Hope that isn't rude or too personal)

Ah, no. Is there something you would like to divulge my colon-elle onebat?

she's a sub-Austen romance writer from the thirties LW - rather fabulous with the Regency language, but not nearly so 'cute with her social observations etc. But a fabulous thing for all precocious readers, passed from mother to daughter and so on.

You might enjoy this thread from Thu 17-Jan-08 19:13:36-ish, when all the secret Heyer fans came out of the closet and wrote their own novel. Unfinished, sadly: it was quite exhausting..

One to read when you have a little time.

I have to go and comb out headlice now. Till we meet again, my dear Miss Wonder.

I was about 30 when I found out how the word 'segue' is pronounced. And I still shudder every time I hear it. It's my least favourite word in the English language. When I am Queen, I shall banish it to the Great Vocabulary Bonfire.

And I fondly imagined for many years that 'limpid' meant sort of limp and drippy and that 'laconic' meant something like laid-back and drawling. I was editing dictionaries by the time I found out the truth.

ROFL at me being aristo. Will have to work on the rest of my rather northern accent to pull that one off. Although DH is convinced that I don't have an accent so might work on him.

OH MY FREAKING GOD! THAT'S NOT WHAT LACONIC MEANS?

I am dreadvully zorry to invorm you, ladies, that Onebat has zuffered a cadastrophic zychic inzident vollowing Midnight's earlier rrevelasian. She haz therevore been admidded to the Spa Angst vor restorative treadment, until vurzer nodice.

Damn, forgot namechange..

I am dreadvully zorry to invorm you, ladies, that Onebat has zuffered a cadastrophic zychic inzident vollowing Midnight's earlier rrevelasian. She haz therevore been admidded to the Spa Angst vor restorative treadment, until vurzer nodice.

Onebat,you snorted the headlice lotion didn't you?

Laconic does so mean that!