Monday, September 29, 2014

Words

Words I Do Not Pronounce Consistently *
  • Economic (eh and ee)
  • Route (ow and oo)
  • Caramel (car and care)
Words Some People Think It Is OK to Pronounce Either Way, But They're Wrong
  • Mueller (miller always, never myoo-ler**)
  • Lawyer (law-yer, not loyer)
  • Pecan (pick-ahn, obvs)
  • Syrup (not sear-up)

Words I Cannot Pronounce
  • Muir (as in Woods)

*VOTE!

**It makes me cringe that I even had to type that out. Actually, all of those but "loyer" are pretty awful.

4 comments:

dennisj said...

Votes:

1. EH-conomics. But is it FYE-nance or FIN-nance?
2(a). r-OW-t: when i'm talking about a directional path
2(b). r-OO-t: roads and abstract paths
3. definitely CARE-a-mel. CAR-muhl drives me nuts.

I stand by:

MYOO-ler

LOY-er

neither PEE-can, nor pick-AHN. it's pick-AWN

SUR-rp

Words I cannot say: Marlboro and Albemarle. Something about the combination of R, AW, B and L makes my brain shut down. I think over 1/2 the times I had to show my ID when buying a pack of cigs was because of the way I asked.

BEM1212 said...

A) I also go back and forth on each of these, possibly with no rule to speak of. But I'd say >50% of the time I'd go with:
Eh-conomics
R-out-e
Car-mel

B) Mueller - that is an Austin-specific issue. I think sometimes Myoo-ler is correct. (but even in Austin be careful; if you want Mueller bbq you don't want someone picking up Bill Miller bbq)
LAW-yer duh
pick-an duh
sur-up duh

C) Words I cannot pronounce:
Usually, iron. I overthink it before I get to it in a sentence. Like I see it coming and it stresses me out.

BEM1212 said...

TO CLARIFY, on pecan: I think we are saying the same thing but that is pih-kahn'.

BEM1212 said...

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