h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Saying 'haitch' instead of 'aitch'.

Personal bugbear is pronouncing 'aitch' as 'haitch'. Grrrrrrr!
BCNU - Crescent

I win! * at Crescent*

lol Until later...
BCNU - Crescent

Since this seems to be the thread for griping about bad grammar and the way people pronounce things....

I honestly, honestly would love to stick staples into the folks over here who *insist* on pronouncing the letter O in all words as 'oh' (as in cot, spot, shot etc), even when the soft O sound is required. I tell you there is *nothing* more hideous than hearing words like 'monk' and 'sponge' pronounced as 'm-OH-nk' and 'sp-OH-nge'. And the day I heard my Significant Other pronounce 'sword' as 's-WARD'.....

And just in case you're asking, folks, no, this has nothing to do with local accents. Our local accent (which I strangely do not have) leans towards the ugly pronunciation of 'th' as 'd', so that words like 'the', 'other' and 'that' come out as 'de', 'udder' and 'dat'. It was an absolute nightmare coaching our college choir team...

Dialect doesn't bother me - in fact I think it's fab. And I rather miss hearing the Glaswegian glo!al sto!

Mispronunciations don't annoy me too much either, unless it completely changes the meaning of what the speaker intended - pacific/specific as someone else said earlier.

The odd typo doesn't offend - but mispellings such as 'could of' instead of 'could've' do grate.

The thing which really irks is disagreement of verbs - 'there was six of us' - he's went to the shops' - 'the boy done well'.
I know this is often a dialect thing - but it still annoys.

strictly speaking, 'it' should have been 'they'

>>Mispronunciations don't annoy me too much either, unless it... <<

My bad.

Then, of course, there's 'dice' instead of 'die'.

Another thing that bugs me is when these mispronunciations make it into the written word. Lay-deez and choon are the main offenders.

Obviously 'the boy done well' is football speak, obviously.

>>>>Surely though, the difference in the way some would pronouce certain words would be down to their regional accent.
I come from Bradford, West Yorkshire & it wasn't until I had met my Boyfriend from Castleford, West Yorkshire that I had heard someone say "are Clare" or "are David" or someone been called a cocker-spadge, (don't ask because i've no idea what it means).<<<<

I lived in Castleford for years (before I escaped - thank Jah!) - perhaps I can be of assistance.

1. It's nor "are Claire", it's "our Claire"; but "our" and "are" in west-yorkshire are homophonic. So... "our Claire" is the Claire that belongs to our family - e.g. my sister Claire.

2. A cocker-spadge is a corruption of the cockney term of endearment "cock-sparrow" - meaning a male sparrow. Again, coupled with the Castleford tendency to alter the pronunciation of words in order to sound permanently drunk. ("a'reyt cock, a yoff darn Legends? A saw some reyt fit b'ds there" being a common sentence in Castleford-ese)

>>>>If this didn't happen, we would all still be communicating with grunts!!??<<<<

People in Castleford do!

>>("a'reyt cock, a yoff darn Legends? A saw some reyt fit b'ds there" being a common sentence in Castleford-ese)

Translation: "Hello my friend, are you going to Legends [Cas nightclub]? I saw some very attractive girls there"

You should visit South Africa. Turn on the evening news and even when it's in English, you'll find you require the services of a translator or subtitles. Fortunately they have these tiny people squeezed in the corner of the screen translating for the deaf.

Examples of poor pronunciation:

Economic – should be eco + nomic
What we have from government officials is econo + mick

I’m not sure what the origins of that word are…

Endeavours – becomes endehh + viz

Actually – becomes ek + chilly

I – becomes ah, and that applies to all instances of I

Like becomes lark

Sounds very similar to how they talk in my home town of Rotherham, South Yorkshire, although I've lived away for long enough to count as a Southerner now . They converse in grunt in Rotherham, too!

I have to admit, that while I don't mind variations in spoken English, grammatical variations in written English really wind me up. The worst one for me is where people write "thankyou" instead of "thank you". It's two ing words!!!!! It's not that hard to remember!!!! Misplaced apostrophes also tend to send me into hissing fits.

Like 'Carrot's 50p'?

I'm alway's tempted to ask why this carrot has it's own money.

...I'm waiting here with baited breath...

RF

The absolute worst is when someone refers to the Christmas period as 'Chrimble' or 'Chrimbo' . Regardless of local dialect, people who do this will be first up against the wall come the day.

I've put as hook through a worm and placed it on my tongue.

This is the only way I can think of to bait my breath.

RF

I'm with you there pfffft.

For some reason (okay, i'm a pedantic miserable b*stard) I get annoyed when people say 'Skeggy' for Skegness.

I hate anything twee (did I mention I'm a pedantic miserable b*stard?). A bit off-topic, but that song "closest thing to crazy (I have ever been)" I would dearly love to stamp into non-existence.