Mispronunciation
Wednesday, May 21st, 2008 at 12:57 pmJeff Atwood, in stackoverflow Podcast #5:
So I like to put the disclaimer out there. Because I have a history of mispronouncing things a lot. I think it’s because I grew up in an area that was somewhat rural, and I read a lot. And I didn’t hear people using the words that I was reading, so I kind of had to imagine what they would sound like. And I think that got, at some point just, you know, it became second nature for me to pronounce things however I thought they should be pronounced and not look them up.
This is pretty much the exact excuse I’ve been using for years to explain why I never knew how to say things like “hors d’oeuvres”, and why I’ve always been irritated by people who say things like “could of” when they mean “could have.”
Tags: mispronunciations
May 21st, 2008 at 10:50 pm
Yeah, but “could’ve” is pronounced “could of” and it is the conjunctive form of “could have”
Wendy and I were at the market a few months ago and I asked, “Creme Fraiche?” when reading a label. Of course, I pronounced it “crem fraychee”, which was immediately followed by Wendy laughing at me and my unculturedness. I’d never seen “Creme fresh” written down anywhere
May 22nd, 2008 at 7:31 am
Whoops - I should have said that it irritates me when people TYPE “could of,” because it does sound the same when you say it.