Pronunciation clinic

[taximomfor4]

I am in NE Ohio, which is quite different from central Ohio and even more different from Southern Ohio.

I say....
"pop" for soft drinks
in-SURE-ance (most people around here)
REAL-tor (Although I hear lots of reel-a-ter around here)??
Meer-or
Rowt for route (Except when talking about Route 66, lol)
Roooooof
Sweet (for suite, ANY kind of suite. But that might be a leftover from some schooling in France, lol).


Oh, here is a new one that hadn't come up yet. Coupon. I say Coo-pon. But I hear LOTS of "Kyoo-pon". That one is pretty mixed in my area.

I only have to drive an hour, and the speech I hear around me has quite a different accent.

Beth


Beth

 

[#1MMFan]

Kyoo-pon... oh man, I can just hear my big cousin's wife saying this... it's bringing back their accents to me vividly!!!! Keep the posts coming... they're hysterical.

 

[BeNJeNWaFFLe]

I have never heard anyone say bedroom suit before. Its always been suite here.

On Long Island everyone says Coke for either Coke or Pepsi, but in genreal you say soda. I visited a friend in Michigan once and was suprised to hear people say pop. Another word they liked hearing the LI'ers say was water. I say it as "wuh-ta".

Actually we say(root) Route 66 but what is your route(rowt). Or you have a paper route (rowt)

I never realized I said the same word two different ways until you mentioned it. Keep this going. Its interesting to see people who live so close talk so differently.

 

[Linnie The Pooh]

okay, this thread is cracking me up. Oh another thing.... can you all stop saying Glenfiddich with a "ch" as in "church"... IT ISN'T pronounced that way... it's pronounced with a soft "ch" as in "loch"... get practising.. I'm gonna go spare if i hear it again!!!

So is it like "Glenfiddick?" I never knew that. We call the "ch" as in "church" a soft "ch" and a hard "ch" is a "k" sound like in "Christ." So we're even opposite of you in how we describe the sounds!

Around here people who say it like "coo-pon" are people who are trying to be fancy (my DH!!). Everyone says "Cyou-pon." I tried coo-pon, but couldn't handle it! Wasn't me! Those regional differences!! Btw, DH isnt from MT originally. He's lived all over the states.

I met some people from MO, once, and they said that up here in MT, everyone talks as if we are almost British. Very proper-like with our pronunciations, which I found odd. I think they sound very nasally. My MIL is that way. Everything comes through her nose. Then I met someone from down south and they said I had a "northern accent." I've never heard of a northern accent before.

 

[SEAlla]

I used to work with a girl that would say "pacific" as opposed to "spacific". Drove me nuts because we would be talking to clients or in a meeting and she would say "pacific". Made her look bad.

 

[chelle3807]

I'm worse than you, I say mear-ah lol

I get made fun of everytime I say that word around someone. They always say it's mirror. But it just comes out mear-ah, always has.

 

[LtlTee]

Just thought of something to add. Here is Massachusetts(although not as much as it once was, from what I understand-I'm from New Mexico) they will drop the 'r' where it needs to be and place an 'r' where it doesn't need to be. For instance: it's a cah, and an idear.

This made me laugh...
My son played in a hockey tournament last May in Massachusetts, and we kept hearing someone announcing over the loudspeaker, "The Leominster Stahs (Stars) are selling pizzer (pizza)."

Now whenever anyone here says they're hungry, we tell them "Well, the Loeminster Stahs are selling pizzer....."

 

[lecach]

There is a town name here in NC that everyone who lives around here pronounces wrong in my opinion. The town is Wendell - named after Oliver Wendell Holmes. I believe the correct pronunciation of his name is Wend-ell. The town is however pronounced Wen-dale. Heavy emphasis on the dale. Thats always bugged me.

 

[BelleMcNally]

Here are a few from my dad:

"Melk" instead of "Milk"
and, likewise,
"pellow" for "pillow"

 

[#1MMFan]

Okay, it is neither "Glenfiddick" nor is it "Glenfiddi-ch" ... the "ch" sound is made by breathing out against a partially closed glottis, so it doesn't have any "clicks" to it. So you'll all have to start practising. I swear I'm going to convert all of America!!!

 

[poohbear1029]

This made me laugh...
My son played in a hockey tournament last May in Massachusetts, and we kept hearing someone announcing over the loudspeaker, "The Leominster Stahs (Stars) are selling pizzer (pizza)."

Now whenever anyone here says they're hungry, we tell them "Well, the Loeminster Stahs are selling pizzer....."

For the record its Leominstah!!!

I lived the last 16 years in Central/eastern mass and my family in Western Mass says I picked up some of it.....but I dont think so. Western Mass does really have an accent.....when people would ask why not, my brother and I would tell them we talk like the people on TV!

My friend is from Rhode Island and she says "side by each" instead of side by side!

Now, we have just moved to SC and I am learning a whole new vocabulary! But, I will say no matter where we have been in the country, as soon as I say "wicked" people know I am from Mass! Isnt that Wicked Funny!?

 

[Crankyshank]

For the record its Leominstah!!!

I lived the last 16 years in Central/eastern mass and my family in Western Mass says I picked up some of it.....but I dont think so. Western Mass does really have an accent.....when people would ask why not, my brother and I would tell them we talk like the people on TV!

My friend is from Rhode Island and she says "side by each" instead of side by side!

Now, we have just moved to SC and I am learning a whole new vocabulary! But, I will say no matter where we have been in the country, as soon as I say "wicked" people know I am from Mass! Isnt that Wicked Funny!?

Your friend wouldn't happen to be from Woonsocket, would she? I think saying "side by each" is required by city law there. It's not too common in the rest of the state.

 

[JennyMominRI]

I moved from CA to RI for a complete East Coast verbal shock. The fact that no one pronounces their 'R's', people here have 'poties', not parties, 'caas' instead of cars, and we now go to the 'pak' instead of the 'park'. I notice that locally, shopping carts are called 'carriages'. Its regional though becuase Target, being nation wide still calls them 'shopping carts' - as they should be. Some people I know roll out an 'erz' sounds to words ending in 's'. Kills me. 'Was' is not 'werz'. My husband is from the East Coast and although he is pretty good about talking 'normal', every now and then his little Rhody accent will slip out. I torture him and yell...say it again, say it again. Especially the word 'orange'. It cracks me up every time I hear him say it. Oddly enough, when I first moved here someone said to me..'Your not from here are you?..You pronounce everything..?'

SO do you like your Hot Weinaaahs all da way?

 

[dcentity2000]

Hailing from the UK as I do, I often have trouble with American English - math instead of maths, sulfur instead of sulphur, airplane instead of aeroplane... it's like a different language!



Rich::

 

[poohbear1029]

Your friend wouldn't happen to be from Woonsocket, would she? I think saying "side by each" is required by city law there. It's not too common in the rest of the state.

yes....I think she is from Wooon - sock - ET as she says it!

 

[buddy&wooz]

Wow, that's funny about McLaughlin- I know a lot of them (including a family of 10) who've been pronouncing their name wrong all these years (with a hard K in the middle!)

 

[icebrat001]

One that doesn't seem to be tied in to any particular region by drives me bonkers is pronouncing the word: Caramel, like CAR(auto) MEL(as in blanc or torme). I mean, there's an "a" in there.

Care-a-mel.

I've never heard of a "Bedroom Suit"...

That one drives me bonkers too!

 

[dbarker]

I grew up calling cokes "soda-water", "soda-pop", or just "sody". We now call them sodas or cokes.

 

[Linnie The Pooh]

I've been thinking about this thread and the most annoying one I know of is: when people pronounce the g at the end of words like "long" is not "lonG" and "ring" is not "rinG". The g is silent.

A few others I thought of:
"Especially" does not have a K sound in it! It cracks me up to hear it pronounced like Ekspecially. Espresso is the same-I pronounce it es-presso, not Expresso (DH does that).
Words with an "st" sound. I've heard people say, "Shtreet" instead of "street" and "Shtraight" instead of "straight."
Names like Darrel & Cheryl do not have D's on the end of them and when I was a kid it used to drive me nuts when the kids would pronounce my sibs names Darreld and Cheryld.

Bury is another tricky word-around here we say it like "berry" but my college advisor used to go beserk when we'd say it like that. It's "Burr y" (he was from PA) and he'd correct us every time we said it like "berry."

I always wanted to be an English teacher. I've had way too many posts and too much fun with this thread!!

 

[MariettaC]

Has anyone else moved to another part of the country and encountered the pronunciation monster?

I lived on Long Island for 25 years before moving to NC. This is not a pronunciation monster but I have heard people refer to wool caps as toboggans. I've checked with The American Heritage Dictionary and it's not listed as any sort of headwear. I've also heard "suit" for suite. How about "She went acrossed the street." instead of across.