Unintentionally funny mispronunciations.

[Chanlin]

Heheh....

Yeah I'm gonna leave the Vagina Mongolians alone. They have enough pressure on them as it is......

[myswtghst]

repsac I'm with you on the anime. I almost burst out laughing on "Lordost Wars." Didn't realize it was that hard.

And I am guilty of calling it Barnes&Nobles. I just like the way it sounds.

Darnit, I can't think of anything funny right now. Although, our techs like to call Case numbers CSR--which I can't figure out, because to me, CSR=Customer Service Rep (like me!). *shrugs* at least now I know what they mean.

[Kiwi]

a person at work says "disemble" instead of disassemble

actually she regularly butchers words, I try to block them out... well I try and block HER out!

[tintaglia]

I had these two from the same man

There he was telling me how great he was at fish keeping, when he told me he once had a tank full of booramies (at a guess I think he meant gouramis)
but he lost them as his phd was wrong

t'was soo hard to keep a straight face

[Noelegy]

One of my favorite former coworkers was a guy from India. I mention this because I learned quite a bit about India from him that I had not known, or rather I should say unlearned what I thought I knew. I was a vegetarian for eight years, and I worked with him during this time. We worked second shift, 2:30 pm to 11 pm, and as our building was located pretty far away from the restaurant district, we would all typically order out together.

That's the background for the night that he asked me if I wanted to order out with them. I said no thanks, I'd had a hot dog before I came in. He was neither Hindu nor vegetarian, and he was always interested in what sorts of foods I ate in my vegetarian diet, so he started asking me about veggie hot dogs. Then he went on to say that it was a good thing not to eat regular hot dogs, as it had been shown that the ingredients in them could make men incompetent.

I waited a moment, then realized what I'd heard, and carefully asked, "Do you mean 'impotent'?" We had a good laugh over that one... Normally his English was excellent, but everybody slips through the cracks sometimes.

[Noelegy]

The one that's been bothering me lately is having people ask for Microsoft's new operating system. It's called "Windows Vista." That's "vista," pronounced with a short i sound just like you'd hear in words like "kid" and "hippo." It is not a long i sound like you'd hear in "rice" and "fight," nor is it a long e sound like you'd hear in "green" and "feel." Some people have pronounced "vista" with an extra long e, as if it was spelled "veeeeeeeeeesta."

Maybe they were Spanish speakers? "Vista" in Spanish means "view" and is pronounced "vee-sta."

Which makes one of the streets in the local "View" neighborhood (every street name ends in "View") unintentionally funny: "Vistaview."

[HawaiianShirts]

Maybe they were Spanish speakers? "Vista" in Spanish means "view" and is pronounced "vee-sta."

I do get some Spanish speakers who pronounce it that way, but I can shrug that off because of their accent. I'm talking about all the people who speak English, including the African-American customers with the traditional Southern accent and the Western American white guys who dominate this area, one of whom was complaining to his buddy about "lazy Mexicans who don't bother to learn the language" just before asking me about "Veesta." I'm wondering if they're just trying to make it sound fancier than it really is.

[BookstoreEscapee]

I had these two from the same man

There he was telling me how great he was at fish keeping, when he told me he once had a tank full of booramies (at a guess I think he meant gouramis)
but he lost them as his phd was wrong

t'was soo hard to keep a straight face

guess he should have gotten the Ph.D. in Ichthyology (or would that be Itchy-ology? (sorry, gotta use the fish on that one..)

I've had plenty of people mispronouncing author names that are so well-known you'd think anyone would know how to say it. But I can't think of any right now.

Oh, wait - how could I forget that famous Greek philosopher, So-krates, the classic novel, Don Quicks-oat, and popular author of Jurassic Park and others, Michael Crich-ton?

It's so hard sometimes not to just bust out laughing.

[Gurndigarn]

Maybe they were Spanish speakers? "Vista" in Spanish means "view" and is pronounced "vee-sta."

Which makes one of the streets in the local "View" neighborhood (every street name ends in "View") unintentionally funny: "Vistaview."

Kinda like Torpenhow Hill ("HillHillHill Hill").

[Rubystars]

"Marbo reds"
"Pale Male" (Pall Mall)
etc

Someone asked me for Mall Ball lights one day. I thought they said Pall Malls.

Other funny things:

"I want some Preppin" = "I want a propane exchange."

"I wan Prippin" = same as above

"I want a change" = "I want to exchange this."

"Queertors" = quarters

"Koo-art-ays" = quarters

"Kwah-tahs" = quarters

"Times" = dimes (I thought he was asking for the New York Times)

"Kuck-Skuh" = Corkscrew

"Where do racing" = "Where are the raisins?"

(The starting line is at the bread aisle)

[ladylabyrinth]

Kinda like Torpenhow Hill ("HillHillHill Hill").

Had to put this in here, just because of that *points to quote*.

From The Phoenix Guards by Steven Brust:
The Seroli, who departed the area to avoid any of the unfortunate incidents that war can produce, left only the name for the place, which was "Ben," meaning "ford" in their language. The Easterners called the place "Ben Ford," or, in the Eastern tongue, "Ben gazlo." <snip> The Dragonlords who had found the place, then, began calling it "Bengazlo Ford." The Dragons, wishing to waste as little time on speech as possible, shortened this to "Benglo Ford," or in the tongue of the Dragon, which was still in use at the time, "Benglo ara." <snip> ...Northwestern language gained preeminence, which rendered the location Bengloara Ford, which was eventually shortened to Bengloarafurd. The river crossing became the Bengloarafurd Ford, which name it held until after the Interregnum when the river was dredged and the Bengloarafurd Bridge was built. <snip> ...but the city was renamed Troe after the engineer who built the bridge, either because the citizens were proud of their new landmark, or because the engineer's name was short.

And regarding mispronunciations: I hate it when people say "for all intensive purposes." Just how intensive does the purpose need to be to fall under that umbrella?

And then there's just plain bad grammar or poor vocabulary. Had someone actually use "conversate" as a real word. No. Sorry, the root of conversation is converse. And there is no such thing as orientate, unless you're trying to be smart and talk about some powerful East Asian governor or ruler (Orient+potentate). We orient ourselves at an orientation, and that's all. I could go on for hours, but don't want to thread jack.

[MadMike]

While waiting or some yummy goodness in the form of buffalo chicken wraps at the local restaurant here, the woman ahead of me ordered nachos with jalapenos, only she pronounced it ja-(as in jag)la-(as in lug)pee-no and that last part was more like pennies without the n and e.

I was waiting in line at the local burrito place, behind an older couple, who was trying to decide on what kind of "tor-TIL-uh" they wanted. Eventually, the decided on "ja-LAP-en-o."

I had to hold my breath the keep from busting out laughing.

[AFpheonix]

Vagina Mongolians. Priceless.

Deep announcer voice: Yes, the Vagina Mongolians are a savage race, emerging from their caves smeared in blood, taking unwary men hostage and forcing them to listen to long readings of Simone De Beauvior's works while tied to anthills...

Do they have a predilection for shellfish? (hides)

Some of the ones I get on a daily basis: Most every customer manages to butcher the generic name of whatever it is they're calling in. I've come to be nearly fluent in Numbnut.

Atenenol = Atenolol
hydr...hydroc....my water pill = hydrochlorothiazide
metrrrpllll - metoprolol
little white pill- just about everything they have on file
chol..choles...here, let me spell it for you = cholestyramine powder

[Imogene]

I was on a conference call the other day with my boss and some people from Leipsic, OH. Leipsic is pronounced Lip-sick (according to the people there).

Leipzig?

Well, it will show my nerdiness to say this but...

My biggest peeve was at an Anime store, hearing other customers ask for things like:

Inu-Washa??
"You know nothing about this fabled dog washer, do you? Where the hell in the title did you find room to put a W? 'Repeaten ustedes: Inu- Yasha! Literally, Dog Demon! And, no, Sesshomaru is NOT hot! He's not freaking awesome because he hates InuYasha, and InuYasha does NOT love Kagome! No, no, no, no, no! Bad fan-girl! Inu x Sessh is just wrong, and not because it's incestuous, or gay... no, it's an explosion of hotness just waiting to call forth the flood of fan girls, few of whom can actually pronounce the title of the series they're lusting after!"
/ex-anime overlord
//hired, originally, because the store manager didn't like answering Dragon Ball questions
///only knows characters, and even that knowledge is shaky

[Zinjadu]

Air Miles Card - air mail card (yeah, I'll send you somewhere by airmail, idiot), air meal card (you're expecting a meal to come flying in?)

Jicama - j pronounced as in joe - ji CAM ah

our Artisan bread - artesian bread (no, dummy, it does not come from a freakin' well!!!)

Interac (debit machine) - interact (there is no second 't', moron)


I know there's more, but that's all I can think of right now . . . I'll just blame it on the meds. . .