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Halifax is a regional municipality in which one of these countries?
I say, I say, I say
There are words in the English language which I simply cannot say - and I do not mean the four-letter variety which I can pronounce and (oops) have used on occasion. These unseemly words usually have the merit of uncompromisingly easy pronunciation based on phonetically unambiguous spelling, (which may be part of the attraction to habitual users though it is unlikely they first encountered the offending terms in print).
Nor am I referring to the ludicrously long technical terms which litter the sciences. These words exist for a reason and contain a great deal of information but we only need to worry about them when they are used to exclude the non-professional. For that matter, even short and simple medical terms can fuddle the layman (Hint to surgeons - no one outside the profession says 'resect' when they mean 'cut out' so they're just not going to understand you).
Peter Piper picking peppercorns and the various Sister Susies, seashore seashell vendors and pheasant-pluckers are designed to be awkward so I'm not worried about making a mess of them. And either Denis Norden or Frank Muir decoded the Mary Poppins example as 'soup, a cauli, fridge-elastic, eggs, pea, halitosis' - once heard in the My Word context, never forgotten.
No, what I mean are the simple words which fill me with dread, whether I meet them in a text which has to be read aloud, or When I simply have to say them in conversation. There are few lengths to which I will not go to avoid mentioning anything to do with the instrument which measures wind speed.
Not to mention (well, of course, I don't) the so-called 'wind flower' created by Aphrodite from the blood of Adonis, her late lover.
There it is - I get the n's and m's of anemone and anemometer (spellcheck, please) horribly confused.
What's your pronunciation bugbear?
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I say, I say, I say
Wow! Nostalgia trip. I also grew up on My Word and My Music, and remember "soup, a cauli, fridge, elastic, eggs, peas (not pea), halitosis". And Kragzy, I also remember trying to decipher Let stalk Strine. There was an English version of that book called Fraffly but that was just not our language.
I have never been able to successfully utter the word schnitzel - I'm afraid it will always be crumbed veal to me. It's the only word I can think of that I wouldn't even make an attempt at pronouncing.
One that I can pronounce and have always loved is floccinaucinihilipilification. The word itself being much like its definition other than to confound others.
Advance Australia Fair always bamboozles kids. I have learned from kids that "Australians all eat ostriches" from their interpretation of the national anthem.
Oh I loved "My Word"! Thanks for the memories. When I was nursing way, way back in the dawn of time, we had to learn the difference between various sulpha drugs. To this day I can spell (and say) phthalylsulphthiazole. In fact I've been known to try saying it with a lisp, much to my own amusement, anyway. When a doctor refers a patient to a colleague, he often uses the term "complaining of..", followed by the patient's symptoms. One lady who had obviously read her referral was quite upset, and assured the surgeon that really, she never, never complained at all. The words I'm too embarrassed to say are those I've read and understood, but never heard spoken, as I don't inhabit an academic world. "Segue" was one of my bugbears for ages. Thanks, Miranda, for making me think about words.
loved your blog Miranda, is that the appropiate word? I have been known to order a "side saddle" in a restaurant and I also love to watch the ladies "side salad" at the royal show.
can never say Buenos Aries (probably can't spell it either !
my mother, much to her embarrassment, while studying Dickens at school, stood proudly in class to answer a question about the great man's literary works... "A SALE OF TWO TITTIES"!!!
TWAS BRILLIG AND THE SLITHY TOVES DID GYRE AND GIMBLE IN THE WABE. ALL MIMSY WERE THE BORROGOVES AND THE MOMERATHS OUTGRABE! Gotta love CS Lewis. In case we didn't have enough trouble with English....
Speaking of clever word plays, does anyone remember some of Ronnie Barker's sketches? I recall the one about "people who have trouble with their worms" (words). Another was a brilliant sketch on word confusion e.g. a bloke tries to buy fork handles and is given four candles. I'd love to see that again!
Also the bloke ordering a meal in a German hotel: F-U-N-E-X? I'd like some M-N-X for breakfast. Reply: 9, V-F-T, V-F-A-4-D-GGs, but V-F-O-X.
And the lady trying to order a double dozen double damask dinner napkins and ends up asking for twenty four serviettes.
I think you meant Lewis Carroll Megsy01. C. S. Lewis was into ions more than jabberwoks.
schedule is my bugbear...I learnt to say it with the sk sound but when learning shorthand at college it was to be written shhh which is totally different in shorthand. I practiced it a thousand times...filling pages & pages of the notebook...but I still hesitate writing it & have trouble reading it back into English And, to me, the National Anthem is Advance Australia Square (after living in Sydney where it was a standing joke) and it's stuck.
And, of course, children singing that old hymn "Gladly, my Cross-eyed Bear".
I too am sadly old enough to have loved listening to "My Word" and also remember hearing our lady of the 24 serviettes on an old LP(!!) of my mothers. Can't think of my own bugbears but do find myself rolling my eyes at people whose fireplaces possess chimbleys and who operate escavators!! I've also noticed that more than a few of these offenders also ride excalators which can often be found in shopping senners....
As a child my daughter loved eating waterlemon on a hot summer day. And my dad didn't always put that first "c" in arctic.
Somethink, everythink and nothink have become eveyday language. Crazy that someone can spell the words with a "g" on the end, yet pronounce them with a "k". Very mysterious....
and isn't it nice to be asked in a restaurant "can I get ewes anything else?"
The somethink, everythink etc makes me wonder too. Two others are: 'Pavalova' instead of 'pavlova'; and 'orf' instead of 'off'.
Lay down instead of lie down, loaning instead of lending, and apostrophes in all the wrong places.
Staff
For whatever reason, my partner has a great deal of difficulty with the word 'specific', as more often than not it will come out as 'Pacific'. This is apparently a source of great amusement to the high school students she teaches as she stutters and splutters her way through trying to correctly pronounce it, as unfortunately there are not too many suitable alternatives that readily to mind!
my word I have difficulty with and never say it right is RESERVIORS
my mum had a dear friend who had flurocescent lights and suffered from bronichal pneumonia - and yes, I have a problem with schedule too - shedule or skedule?
I live in the US, where schedule is "skedule." I've always believed it was pronounced as "shedule" in the United Kingdom; and that Austrailia and New Zealand probably followed the UK. Now that the voices from the Southern Hemisphere have spoken...I'm confused! Having said that I live in the US, here's a problem most others have (I don't)...the proununciation of AUNT. Most Americans say "ant" like the bug. I was raised in New England (the six northeasternmost states), and the natives of that area say "awhn-t."
Oooh rhve - linguistics major? a recent favourite: I was accosted in the supermarket the other day by a bloke who exhorted me to not on any account do anything which would lead to a problem with the 'cartridge' in my knee ...
IN OUR FAMILY AVOCADO IS PRONOUNCED ADVOCADO. WE KNOW WE SAY IT WRONG BUT CAN'T CHANGE! MUM STARTED THE TREND AND WE ARE INTO THE THIRD GENERATION.
My daughter, when small, had trouble with bridge and hanky(ie!) and pronounced them fridge and kankie. For quite a while we had a lot of B-fridges and H-kankies until the magical day arrived when the announcement was proudly made "Mum, Mum! I don't need to say H-kanky anymore!!" We (like a lot if other families with small children) also saw a vast number of lorries on the road!! Who'd believe a simple word like truck would cause so many parents to blush!!
Please excuse "if" instead of "of" in previous, my keyboard has occassional difficulties with language!!
Have heard peeps put a K on the end of K-mark! Patients will often ask for their "X-er-ray fillums" but the word I can't pronounce would be "ophthamologist" and I know that is spelt wrong! As an aussie in the states have to think about what I'm going to say before I start talking "strine" also!
I need to get my sharpets campood. Don't know why, when I tell my husband this, that the words come out mixed up each and every time. Very embarrassing. And who doesn't mix up the names of their children? I can be thinking, and visualising the child I want to speak to, but then the other name comes out! Oh, and my Nan eats Macadamian cookies. Is that a race of people, or of aliens?
The word I always have trouble with is 'anthropomorphise'. I just can't get past 'anthro', luckily for me my work colleagues know what I'm trying to say. When I was little I couldn't say granddad and called my grandfather 'Glad', it was decades before I realised I was the only one who called him that.
as a nurse assistant, i have a lot of trouble with the word " spasticity " meaning involuntary contraction of the limbs. i also HATE it when people say "aks" instead of ask !
A bugbear of mine is when people don't seem to know the difference between BOUGHT and BROUGHT. I have often seen journalists use these words incorrectly in their news items, too.
I'm with spoggy re "aks"!! And who can forget that old favourite... "who wants some pasghetti?" That really bugs me!!
I have an ex who says aks instead of ask and another who says brang instead of brought. I have trouble saying insulation (inshulashun) and anaesthetist (my brother is one so that's embarassing). I've heard people talk about their prostrate gland, bronical asthma, and those Heroin headache tablets you get at the supermarket.
One thing that grates my gears is to I hear people complaining about a case of ammonia not pneumonia
Many of the above, + "mischiev(e)ous", could of, would of, etc. One of my funniest memories is of a U.S. exchange teacher attempting to read "Let Stalk Strine" aloud.
My main word bugbear is medcine instead of medicine. Journalists are the worst at this.
I've read everyone's bug bears and have to agree with many of them, but my greatest bug bear lately, which seems to be a fairly recent one, is our habit of pronouncing "s" as "sh" - even newsreaders refer to us as "Aushtralians"!
Well since we're talking about bugbears... it amuses me when people expand "would've" into "would of". I even heard ABC Reporter Lisa Miller do it once. Laughable. The other one is getting me and I mixed up, e.g. "me and Joe went out" and "give it to Joe and I". It's so easy to get it right - just take the other person out of the sentence: "me went out" and "give to I" are obviously wrong.
I'm with Kragzy... some of our journalists are the worst offenders when it comes to mangling the English language. Sad when you think of all that wasted education!
Late entry as just found blogs.... but for me it's athaletics!
Another late entry - same reason as annieb's. As well as all of the above, it really annoys me to hear 'million' mangled into 'miyion' and 'Australian' into 'Austrayan'. My other big bugbear is the latest trend, as evinced by most TV news readers, to not speak in sentences. Eg 'a hot day today, when the temperature reached 39 degrees'. Did these people never listen to their English teachers???
Extending the conversation on bug bears -'battree' instead of battery, and my all time dislike 'filum' for film. I didn't have much of an education, but my hearing is excellent. News readers and others 'up front and in your face' in public set that example. Monkey see (or hear) monkey do.
Has anyone noticed a trend on the ABC to pronounce words like worry, won and frontier with “o” as in hot, rather than “u” as in under? Extremely confusing when it comes to wonder/wander and won/wan which both end up sounding the same. BTW – My Word lives on – 5.30 on Radio National every Thursday morning :)
My son spent his entire Prep year singing "Ostrayan doors and dusty doors, our doors are nice and free!" Got to love assembly.
When I started school, the principal's name was Miss Ballantyne. I always thought it was Miss Spellingtime, a logical name for a teacher to my five year old mind.
My worst bugbear is "Haitch" instead of "aitch" for the letter H. It really makes me cringe!
cactus and cutlery are two words i have trouble with - always have since i was a child and am 52 now and still have to think before i say them otherwise the words come out the wrong way around
I cannot order a chai tea latte at Starbucks. It comes out Tai Chi. Aesthetist should not even be a word in my opinion. It's too close to anesthetist. Although I have had an oxygen facial so maybe they are interchangeable (just kidding). And in time for Christmas: Good King Wences car backed out on a piece of Stephen!
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My Word Miranda! I fear your reference to that great radio show has revealed your age, or at least your age range. I remember it well from my youth - absolutely brilliant. Being a Australian who learnt to speak in suburban Sydney, I find any words that require you to move your lips too much are a challenge. Watch foreigners imitate Aussies speaking - inevitably they mumble and speak with their lips barely moving. We're a weird mob - let stalk Strine!