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  • #31
    I have to add another one from yesterday.

    Three ladies came in looking at notebook mice. They all had accents that let me know English wasn't their first language. (It sounded like Portugese when they spoke to each other.) The one who was buying the notebook mouse had to come talk to me because she couldn't find one she wanted. She took about ten minutes explaining to me that she wanted a wired mouse because she didn't want to change batteries. She didn't like the Microsoft mouse she found on one of our Back2School displays and wondered if I had others.

    Most of her words came out as well-pronounced as could be expected. But one word was her kryptonite, and it was the one word around which the whole conversation centered: mouse. Whenever she said mouse, she pronounced it so that it sounded like a bizarre cross between "muse" and "moose." Her voice was high and nasally to begin with, but her use of "mouse" increased the effect, especially as she gave the whole word a rising crescendo, apparently coping with the strain she endured speaking it. I think in text it would look like this: "myooOOOSss." The other ladies with her had no problem with it.

    "You have other myooOOOSss?"
    "Microsoft no make good myooOOOSss. I need other myooOOOSss with cord."
    "This myooOOOSss work with notebooks?"

    Somehow managing to hide my cringes, I finally found her a satisfactory myooOOOSss in an off-brand, and they left happily.
    I suspect that... inside every adult (sometimes not very far inside) is a bratty kid who wants everything his own way.
    - Bill Watterson

    My co-workers: They're there when they need me.
    - IPF

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    • #32
      Ugh. If I had to deal with that, I'd have smacked someone

      The automotive community has its own set of goofy words. Just the other day, I was trying to discuss rally cars with someone, who was apparently a fan, yet didn't know how to say some of the words...especially the names of certain French cars! He kept going on about the Pee-U-Ge-Ots. Since it's pronounced "Poo-Show", he hurt my ears! "Renault" is another one--with this, there are at least *3* "correct" ways to say it, so I let that one slide
      Aerodynamics are for people who can't build engines. --Enzo Ferrari

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      • #33
        My mom the pharmacy tech supplied me with a doozie:

        They have a lady that comes in to get her meds, including generic Xanax, which is alprazolam, and every single month she asks for her "alakazam." At first they thought she was kidding, since psych drugs do seem to have a somewhat magical effect when used properly (or improperly for that matter but that's another story). The first and only time they chuckled and said, "You mean your alprazolam, right," she freaked out and was like, "That's what I said, alakazam! You're laughing at me, aren't you?" So now when she comes in they are like, "Hi there, how's it going, got your alakazam right here!" Also, they have all started to refer to it like that in conversation, as in, "Pharmacist, can you doublecheck this bottle of alakazam?"

        My personal favorites at my job:
        -Simms card. No. No. No. For heaven's sake, people the thing is a SIM card. Call it a smart card. Call it the memory chip if you must. Heck, call it "that little doohickey under the battery." But please, for the love of all that is not dumbtarded, don't call it a Simms card. Grrrr...
        -Mo'troll-ah. How hard is this? Come on, folks, sound it out. It really is pronounced just how it is spelled. Mo...to...ro...la. There, now that wasn't so hard, was it? Of course, if they manage to master Motorola, there's always...
        -NO-keeya. Ok, so you've used your phonics, good job. But I think, as my dear departed grandpa used to say, you've got your emPHASis on the wrong syLABBle. How about...NoKIa...because that's how it's pronounced. That one's pretty minor, and Mo'trolla, while annoying, is not so hard to ignore. There's another one though that just gives me the willies every time I hear it...
        -Samson. How are you that dumb but can drive and dress yourself? How do you just not see the bloody great "G" on the end of that word? It is a Sam...Sung. This isn't difficult! It's not like these are long, complex words with lots of strange silent letters. We're not speaking Romanian or something here, just sound it out!

        You know, I don't think it's just the mispronounciations that bug me out, although I admit to being picky where that sort of thing is concerned. I think a lot of it is the fact that the person that comes up to me and says, "I need a new Simms card fer mah Samson phone," is the same person that stands next to a big sign that says, "Sale! $9.99 until Saturday only!" and says, "How much is this, and can I come get it on Sunday?" They are also often the people that do things like pulling out a wad of wet bills from their bra to pay me, or raise a ruckus when I tell them that I can't get their phone "cut on," any faster than the time it takes the payment to post. *sigh* Is it really only stupid people that buy things, or does it just feel that way sometimes?
        Dips: The best karma happens when you let a jerk bash themselves senseless on the wall of your polite indifference.

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        • #34
          We get the same things here. All the computer techs will probably know some of these.

          En Dora - Eudora (Email Program)
          out ward express - Outlook Express (Email Program)
          UBX Drive - USB flash Drive
          Canyon - Canon Printer
          Mc fee - McAfee AntiVirus
          Gra soft AGV - Grisoft AVG
          Her lit Packard - Hewlitt Packard Printers
          Interweb - Internet
          re sip net - recipient was rejected by the server......

          There are a ton more, but my head hurts just thinking of these.
          "The light at the end of the tunnel has been turned off due to budget cuts." - Steven Wright

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          • #35
            OMG, we get "out ward express" all the time, as in, "Will this BlackBerry sync (but I know they think it's spelled "sink" and has somthing vaguely to do with plumbing) with my outward express?" It is so hard to not to say, "No. But it will sync with your OutLOOK Express, you fool."

            And the endless combinations of letters people use for "USB" will never cease to amaze me. I had one the other day! "I need a UNC cable to connect my phone to my laptop." I was like, "I don't think we carry UNC cables." The whole time, I'm thinking, "what the heck is a UNC cable, and why have I never even heard of it?" Finally, the guy picks up a USB to mini-USB cable and says patronizingly, "This is a UNC cable. See, this end has a UNC, and this end has a mini-UNC."
            Dips: The best karma happens when you let a jerk bash themselves senseless on the wall of your polite indifference.

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            • #36
              Quoth dragonflygrrl View Post
              -Samson. How are you that dumb but can drive and dress yourself? How do you just not see the bloody great "G" on the end of that word? It is a Sam...Sung. This isn't difficult! It's not like these are long, complex words with lots of strange silent letters. We're not speaking Romanian or something here, just sound it out!
              Several people refer to a certain line of printers as a "Brothers." Um, last time I checked, there's no "S" on that word!
              Aerodynamics are for people who can't build engines. --Enzo Ferrari

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              • #37
                Quoth dragonflygrrl View Post
                -NO-keeya. Ok, so you've used your phonics, good job. But I think, as my dear departed grandpa used to say, you've got your emPHASis on the wrong syLABBle. How about...NoKIa...because that's how it's pronounced. That one's pretty minor, and Mo'trolla, while annoying, is not so hard to ignore. There's another one though that just gives me the willies every time I hear it...
                A friend of the family used to work for that company, and he would complain that people were always pronoucing it no-KI-a, like it was a japanese word, when it was supposed to be pronouced NO-ki-a (it's the name of a river somewhere in Scandinavia, I forgot where).
                Random Doctor Who quote:
                "I'm sorry about your coccyx, too, Miss Grant."

                I has a gallery: deviantART gallery.
                I also has a "funny" blog: Aqu Improves Her Craft

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                • #38
                  Quoth HawaiianShirts View Post
                  But one word was her kryptonite, and it was the one word around which the whole conversation centered: mouse.
                  I have seen this with native English speakers, actually. Every now and then, certain people just can't say certain words.

                  Perfect example: a good friend of mine, who is absolutely brilliant, and who has been educated at some of the finest universities in our nation, and who has a very difficult and demanding job, and who is very well spoken....to this day cannot say, correctly, the word "cinnamon." Kind of ironic, really, since she enjoys munching on raw cinnamon sticks. But for whatever reason, she cannot say that word. I find it funny....until I remember that, try as I might, I can never say "caricature" or "caricaturist" correctly on my first or sometimes even second try. The irony HERE, of course, is that my business cards have a caricature of me on them.


                  Oh, and on other thing...I come from Tempe, Arizona, a suburb of Phoenix. Most people not from there will pronounce it TEM-pee. Of course, us Tempeans take great joy in correcting them....it is tem-PEE. A minor thing, I know...but at least I am not from Tampa, Florida...where people are (I kid you not) Tampans. (Pronounced tampons.)

                  "The Customer Is Always Right...But The Bartender Decides Who Is
                  Still A Customer."

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                  • #39
                    Quoth dragonflygrrl View Post
                    -Samson. How are you that dumb but can drive and dress yourself? How do you just not see the bloody great "G" on the end of that word? It is a Sam...Sung. This isn't difficult! It's not like these are long, complex words with lots of strange silent letters. We're not speaking Romanian or something here, just sound it out!
                    Hijacking, but Romanian, being a mostly phonetic Romance language, is actually quite easy to read and pronounce. It's the Dacian Grammar of Doom that causes problems.

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                    • #40
                      Quoth Jester View Post
                      Oh, and on other thing...I come from Tempe, Arizona, a suburb of Phoenix. Most people not from there will pronounce it TEM-pee. Of course, us Tempeans take great joy in correcting them....it is tem-PEE.
                      Hi from Phoenix (occasionally pronounced as "Phone-iks" by snowbirds)!

                      I've even heard Tempe pronounced as "temp"!
                      I don't have an attitude problem. You have a perception problem.
                      My LiveJournal
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                      • #41
                        I went to a restaurant with a friend and he pronounced "chipotle" chi-po-tul .

                        I tried to correct him, but he was certain he was right and what can you do? <shrug>
                        The best karma is letting a jerk bash himself senseless on the wall of your polite indifference.

                        The stupid is strong with this one.

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                        • #42
                          Quoth MadMike View Post
                          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."
                          Anyone else ever see Jim Gaffigan's bit from when he worked at a Mexican restaurant?
                          I'm bringing disdain back...with a vengeance.

                          Oh, and your tool box called...you got out again.

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                          • #43
                            decoupage - craft term for applying and sanding varnish over pictures that are glued to a box/suitcase/hatbox etc

                            it has only one correct pronounciation

                            dek-coup-arge

                            it is NOT day-ka-page or day-ka-parge

                            its not called modpodge either, thats a BRANDED product that you may decoupage with
                            I wasnt put on this earth to make you feel like a man ~ Mary Bertone

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                            • #44
                              Quoth aqutalion View Post
                              A friend of the family used to work for that company, and he would complain that people were always pronoucing it no-KI-a, like it was a japanese word, when it was supposed to be pronouced NO-ki-a (it's the name of a river somewhere in Scandinavia, I forgot where).
                              Town AFAIK not river, in Finland a bit west of Tampere .

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                              • #45
                                Y'all gonna hate me, I can't pronounce anything correctly I'm extremely weird, I speak purely on memory not by sounding out the word. Add on top of that, I don't hear the same way y'all do So the faster I talk, the stranger my pronunciations. Don't even bother trying to understand me when my mind takes a vacation.
                                I've lost my mind ages ago. If you find it, please hide it.

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