When I was in grad school, I was a participant in a linguistics grad student's study. I don't know how it came out, but I essentially had to talk to her for an hour and she asked me where I was from and where my parents were from.
I am certain I had (have?) a set of fucked up pronunciations because I speak in part slang/part west coast/part southern/part east coast. And my slang is all over the place from different ethnicities (I literally will say "bomb diggety" and "chisme" in the same sentence).
I guarantee I'm pronouncing stuff wrong and probably do so on a daily basis.
My favorite word to mispronounce?
allegory. I know how to pronounce it, but I will mispronounce it like nobody's bidness. All the time.
I also mispronounced a lot of British words but that's their fucking fault. "Gloucester" is Gloster? Fuck you for tricking me on purpose, England! "Worcestshire" is Wurstersheer? WTF?
I totally argued with javachik on the spelling of Gloucester. I was like, "It's totally pronounced the way it's spelled!" which it sort of is, if you agree that "glouce" would be pronounced "gloss."
if you agree that "glouce" would be pronounced "gloss."
Finishing putting on your lip glouce and we'll talk about it.
Teeth-ma released. Dentist praised my extremely healthy teeth, and told me I'd probably never get a cavity.
There's a French show jumper whose first name is Penelope.
But it is actually pronounced: Penny lop.
So confusing.
I am well familiar with "the crick that runs up the holler," AKA, "the creek that runs up the hollow". Shout out, Southwestern Pennsylvania!
Here in Utah there's a town called Eureka. It is not pronounced the way a Greek philosopher in a bath would pronounce it. In Utah, it is "YER-icka." And the town of Hurricane is "HER-eh-kin."
Rare Hartmann's Mountain Zebra born at the Blackpool Zoo.
So adorable and stripey.
I love the fact that California has both the town of Eureka and the town of Yreka, and they are definitely pronounced differently.
But I still don't understand why Oregon has the towns of Bend and North Bend, and North Bend is many miles southwest of Bend.
t scratches head
