Pro Nun Ci Ation

[Hotelboy]

Ah yes, mispronounced words. My favourite. Growing up in Ontario, you learn how to pronounce French very well. Then we get jobs in the service industry and watch tourists try their shot at it.

Foy errr = Foyer
Rid ewww = Rideau
Roy = as in Patrick Roy the goalie for Montreal/Colorado
Mont reel = Montreal
trem blant = Tremblant

and names! Oh so slaughtered!

Less vess key = Lesvesque
Lang ga leer = Langelier
Goo gee on = Gougeon
Gag knee = Gagne

and my fav

Mono poly instead of monop oly. Which I was guilty of until I was 10. My parents got a kick out of it.

Made a couple of friends when I was on the island just because I was the first to pronounce their names properly in years. Andréanne Plante and Alain Boileau became Adriana Plant and A-lawn Boil-eww.

[MadMike]

I was waiting in line at the local burrito place a few years back, behind an older couple who were discussing what kind of "tor-TILL-a" to get with their burrito, and had to bite down on my lip to keep from laughing at them.

I almost lost it completely when they decided on "ja-LAP-e-no."

[Hotelboy]

"Can I get the 'case o' dillas' ?" = quesadillas

"do you want one dilla or the whole case?"

[XCashier]

Ah yes, mispronounced words. My favourite. Growing up in Ontario, you learn how to pronounce French very well. Then we get jobs in the service industry and watch tourists try their shot at it.

That sounds like my situation, except Spanish instead of French. Like MadMike and HotelBoy said, it's hilarious to listen to the tourists ordering at Mexican food restaurants. "Gimme one of them queasy-dillas and some tor-tilluh chips, and hold the juh-lop-uh-nos!"

And the way they pronounce town names...hoo boy.

CITY: Tucson
REAL PRONUNCIATION: Two-sawn
TOURIST PRONUNCIATION: Tuck's Son

CITY: Casa Grande
REAL PRONUNCIATION: CAH-suh GRAHN-day
TOURIST PRONUNCIATION: CAA-suh GRAND

CITY: Mesa
REAL PRONUNCIATION: May-suh
TOURIST PRONUNCIATION: Mee-suh (paging Jar-Jar Binks!)

[Rapscallion]

There's a place near me called Slaithwaite. Even some locals don't know the correct pronunctiation is "Slow-wet". I prefer to let them live in ignorance, though I have to admit that if I wandered over to some of the interestinly pronounced places in the US I would be caught out.

Rapscallion

[Sphinx]

"E-lamination" for "lamination" ... "I need something elaminated"

"Bounded" for "binding" ... SO many customers say that "I need this book bounded" ... and most of them are thesis-writing graduate students.

And, of course, "ups" (pronounced as the plural form of "up"), for the delivery service U-P-S.

Oooohhhhh I SO get that all the time being as I work in a print shop

Oh the insanity . . . . . . .

[XCashier]

There's a place near me called Slaithwaite. Even some locals don't know the correct pronunctiation is "Slow-wet".

To be fair, it's not spelled remotely close to how it sounds. I can understand the mispronunciation.

[Rapscallion]

Hmm - it's 'slow' not pronounced as in 'not fast', but more as in to rhyme with 'plough'.

Makes it worse, eh?

Rapscallion

[Jester]

Working in food service, I have heard them all. Especially being from the Southwest and listening to people trying to pronounce some of the Spanish names of Mexican items. One that has not been detailed here yet is, of course, pico gallo. (For those of you unfamiliar with it, it is a chunky salsa-looking relish that many people just think of as "chunky salsa," but it is not salsa. It is a relish made of diced tomato, onion, jalapeno, and cilantro.) Anyway, the correct pronunciation is "PEE-ko GUY-o." But I never stop hearing people asking about the "PIKE-o GAH-lo"

One I have mentioned in here before was a situation of a coworker being a smartass to SC's.....

SC: "How is the mer-LOTT?"
CW: "Great. It goes really well with the fill-LET."

He almost got fired for that one.

And I still amaze Polish people I meet when not only do I know about it, but correctly pronounce Zywiec beer. (I can't even begin to type out the phonetic pronunciation, and it did take me weeks to learn how to pronounce it from Poles I knew at the time. Warning...you can straing your tongue trying.)

[Seanette]

Uh, isn't that pico *de* gallo?
(Not that it really matters to me, I hate the stuff either way.)

[Jester]

Okay, so I am a moron. Again. Nothing new there. (Damn it, knew SOMETHING didn't look right there!) Anyways, the spirit of the post still stands, even with my inordinate amount of screwups today.

[KuzcoLlama]

Hehe, yes it is Seanette. For me, it's one thing if a person can't pronounce in a mexcian restaurant Tacos del Carbon and they pronounce it more like the stuff that eventually turns into diamonds. I understand, they don't know it means something different in spanish. One pronounces the quesadilla like in MadMike's story, I will be a very sad llama.

I think my absolute favourite mispronounciation was someone asking for the "79 blank" when what they really wanted was the "Sauvignon Blanc."

[Seanette]

Okay, so I am a moron. Again. Nothing new there. (Damn it, knew SOMETHING didn't look right there!) Anyways, the spirit of the post still stands, even with my inordinate amount of screwups today.

There, there [sympathetic pat on back]. Your original very good point remains valid.
I've always wondered who'd name this stuff "beak of rooster", anyway.

[skeptic53]

The Seattle Mariners have a great series of commercials every year. One of the funniest was several years ago, their now-retired star hitter Edgar Martinez was giving rookies a class in Pacific Northwest pronunciation:

Puyallup (city) Poo YALL up
Geoduck (clam) GOO ee duck

You can see the commercial here:
http://seattle.mariners.mlb.com/NASA...ials_edgar.jsp

If you watch it, the "Cougs" are the Washington State University team, the Cougars. "Ya sure, ya betcha" refers to the neighborhood where I live, Ballard, once a strongly Norwegian population.

[Jester]

There, there [sympathetic pat on back]. Your original very good point remains valid.
I've always wondered who'd name this stuff "beak of rooster", anyway.

The same culture that gave us "old clothes" to eat (ropa vieja) and "rat's mouth" to live in (Boca Raton).

But let us not forget that the Italians have us eating "little worms" (vermicelli) and "harlot's pasta" (pasta putanesca).

And so it goes.