Listen to Jim: http://redclaydiary.com/mp3/mispronouncersoftheworld.mp3
or read on…
Can’t stop my brain.
That is, I can’t stop my brain from delving into realms best left undelved.
For instance, when I hear a word mispronounced, my instant impulse is to correct the mispronouncer. I hold my tongue when the mispronouncer is a casual acquaintance or a friend who doesn’t need to know better, but I feel free to correct any mispronouncer who is well-educated and well-paid and should know better.
When I hear a word misused or or misenunciated, I want to quickdraw my aural red pen and be helpfully enlightening to people who in reality don’t want my help and don’t appreciate my avidity.
So, all I can do is share my whimperings with you, the hapless reader of this note.
NPR announcer talks about unrest in Monty Video (monty-vid-DAY-oh to you and me). Montevideo.
Highly paid news reporter laments the muh-LEZ of the public (mah-LAZE to us-all). Malaise.
Customer asks whether I carry books by GO-eeth (GER-tuh or something like that to the semi-educated). Goethe.
And one chatterer clearly enunciates the word MORE-ass (muh-RASS to us pseudo-intellectuals). Morass.
Which reminds me that the late undearly departed Alabama icon George Wallace used to lambast all those SUE-dee-oh intellectuals (SUE-doe is the way it’s pronounced among us pseudeos). Pseudo-intellectuals.
How many ways have you heard Obama pronounced? (uh-BAMA, oh-BAH-muh, oh-BAMA, etc.)?
Worse still, is it ee-RAN, ee-RON, uh-RAN, uh-RON, eye-RAN, eye-RON? (ee-RON in Farsi, ee-RAN most likely everywhere else). Iran.
If you’re at a diner, it’s EYE-tal-yuhn dressing, elsewhere it might be eh-TAL-yuhn or ee-TAL-yuhn (eh-TAL-yuhn might be correct). Italian.
Depending on who’s on duty at WBHM, it’s DUBB-yuh bhm or DUB-ull-you bhm. Which would George DUBB-yuh approve of? Way back in the ol’ days of broadcasting, I was taught to say DUB-ull-you—and I still do. Thanks to Don Rollins and Joe Langston, two of my early mentors.
Maybe I should drink less coffee—no, wait, I don’t even drink coffee. Then why can’t I stop my brain
© 2013 A.D. by Jim Reed