ragbag:

if you’re a masochistic pedant like me, then one of your favourite activities is using correct pronunciations which seem wrong, waiting for someone to correct you, and then telling that someone how you read in a dictionary once that your pronunciation is the correct one and their way is actually barbarous and laughable.

i do this all the time with the prefix quasi-, which is properly pronounced KWAY-zy the way that someone with a speech impediment might say crazy (which, beeteedub, makes words like quasi-religion and quasi-normal all the more fun to say). here are a few more pronunciation traps that you can set for your friends, enemies, and especially your frenemies:

diphthong: DIF-thawng, not DIP-thawng
eschew: es-CHOO, not e-SHOO
mauve: MOHV, not MAWV
orangutan: uh-RANG-uh-TAN, not uh-RANG-uh-TANG
patina: PAT-ih-nuh, not puh-TEE-nuh
ribald: RIB-uld, not RY-bald
vertebrae: VUR-tuh-bree, not VER-tuh-bry

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source: the big book of beastly mispronunciations (1999). more here.

11:53 am  •  28 March 2011  •  102 notes