Words you feel silly saying properly

[MajorMantra]

Originally Posted by vernon
Try 'flaksid' instead of the widely used 'flassid' for the word flaccid and witness a lack of recognition on peoples faces





I never said one was wrong.

True that.

 

[Night Train]

Try saying Ikea, Iraq or Ibiza properly instead of Eyekea, Eyerak or Eyebeetha and see the looks on people's faces....

I like James May's 'Ip-od' instead of 'Eye pod'.

 

[Ashtrayhead]

Sauna ..... sowna or sorna
Audi ........ owdi or ordi

 

[Happiness Stan]

David Bowie as in Bow-wow or David Bowie as in tie a bow?

I bet no-one here uses the correct (or at least the original) term for a restaurant owner - restauranter.

Neither do I.

 

[Norm]

My cycle panniers are Vaude.

Not "vord" as it may look, as they are German - thus "fow-der" ('fow' like 'ow, that hurts!')

And the car maker from the same country is pronounced to sound the same as Brutus' wife "Portia", not Porsh.

 

[Over The Hill]

Wheeling out my old favourite
Gnu is "noo" with a silent G. It has been picked up as Ger-noo from the Flanders and Swan song which was full of added silent letters but somehow it has stuck like that.

My current gripe (well I recently noticed it) is Sally Traffic on the radio who says "the accident has now bin cleared" Almost every traffic report has a "bin" in it. I just have to say "been" every time she does it.

 

[XmisterIS]

One of my Psychology lecturers calls Gestalt "Gee-stalt" (instead of "Ge-shtalt").

Another one I absolutely cannot stand is the way some people pronounce 'controversy' as "contra-versy" instead of "c'ntro-ve-si".

 

[Ian H]

Another one I absolutely cannot stand is the way some people pronounce 'controversy' as "contra-versy" instead of "c'ntro-ve-si".

The accent should be on the first syllable: con'troversy.

 

[trekkie]

I struggle with most German words with a 'ch' in them, and end up pronouncing a 'k' sound instead. A recent example was trying to say "Gute Nacht" to my girlfriends German mum... but instead I prounced the 'k' to make it 'Nackt', so in front of my girlfriends family I told her mum "good naked" instead of "Good night"! :">

 

[threebikesmcginty]

The p is silent, as in bath.

 

[XmisterIS]

I struggle with most German words with a 'ch' in them, and end up pronouncing a 'k' sound instead. A recent example was trying to say "Gute Nacht" to my girlfriends German mum... but instead I prounced the 'k' to make it 'Nackt', so in front of my girlfriends family I told her mum "good naked" instead of "Good night"! :">

Lol! The ch sound is either like clearing your throat as in "nacht", or like a cat hissing as in "nicht".

The accent should be on the first syllable: con'troversy.

Ah! Now, my Dad was a linguist and he stressed the second "o". Then again, he was born in 1930, so perhaps his pronunciation was archaic.

 

[snorri]

My cycle panniers are Vaude.
Not "vord" as it may look, as they are German - thus "fow-der" ('fow' like 'ow, that hurts!')

How can Vaude look like vord and are you sure the Germans add an R on the end
I must have my German perfected for the summer tour.

 

[Auntie Helen]

It's not an 'r' at the end really, I didn't write that so well. It's more of an 'a', i.e. fowda (rhymes with chowder), but i wanted to show it isn't a silent 'e' like in French.

au in German is usually "ow" like "Bob der Baumeister".

The V at the front sounds like f (a W would sound like v)

Thus 'fowda'

 

[Arch]

My current gripe (well I recently noticed it) is Sally Traffic on the radio who says "the accident has now bin cleared" Almost every traffic report has a "bin" in it. I just have to say "been" every time she does it.

One of the presenters on Look North at breakfast time has a habit of saying, when the traffic news includes a closure due to a lorry shedding it's load, that there's a 'shedload' of whatever it is, instead of a 'shed load'. Always make me think, wow, that's a lot of stuff, instead of that's stuff that's fallen off a truck.

 

[MajorMantra]

It's not an 'r' at the end really, I didn't write that so well. It's more of an 'a', i.e. fowda (rhymes with chowder), but i wanted to show it isn't a silent 'e' like in French.

au in German is usually "ow" like "Bob der Baumeister".

The V at the front sounds like f (a W would sound like v)

Thus 'fowda'

I think the 'e' is a what's called a schwa. (Now that's a word I like.)

Matthew