Tuesday, April 15, 2008

Someone call Professor Higgins

A while ago I was at a meeting where a man was giving a very technical presentation. He was presenting his design in front of a very big group of important people. He was preparing for a national conference where he was scheduled to make a very important contribution to the existing technical knowledge base.

Yet,


when he described one part being stuck between two other parts he described it as being "sammiched."

Not "sandwiched" but "sammiched."

Really?


When people pronounce words wrong I have a real hard time taking what they are saying seriously. Happens all the time when people say "impordent" instead of "important"


Anyone else have similar experience?

13 comments:

Mrs. Architect said...

Totally!! I couldn't agree more!

MrsEm said...

Rob says "nakin" instead of "napkin"

Anonymous said...

I had a nursing school instructor who would say dem instead of them. To top it off, she would not use the word in a grammatically correct way. She would say, "What do dem patients feel who have just been diagnosed with terminal cancer?" She was forever using dem instead of those. "Can you hand me dem syringes?"

TRS said...

I don't like it either but I view those sorts of mispronunciations as area colloqialisms.

I learned to say 'yuse guys, up nort and down sout from my dad!
My boyfriend is from Pittsburgh,PA and he tells me the pronunciation of dem, der and dos (them, there and those) is prolific up der.

More troubling to me is the creation of combined words. I cringe when someone tells me how flustrated they got. Or how they met a nice guy and they conversated for hours.
Agggghhhhh. I hate that!

Heather said...

I live in Utah. People say dumb stuff all the time here.
The ones I hate:
ecspecially
Sen-nence
supposebly
probly
I also hate it when people type ect. instead of etc. because then they usually also pronounce it ec-cetera instead of etcetera.

I'm glad to know I'm not the only one who is peeved about this.

Whitney said...

I was in an interview once and the guy interviewing me would say "billun" and "millun" instead of "billion" and "million." I mean, honestly. How could I have ever taken that job and thought, "Hot damn! This company is going places!" The answer? Never. Not ever.

Alicia said...

'Nuke-u-ler' vs 'nuclear' - an oldie but goodie.
And like Heather probly or prolly drive me nuts & I actually have a friend who types out prolly in her emails. I don't have the heart to tell her that it makes her look dumb but really?!
I also have a hard time when people put apostrophes in random spots just because, however, that is another story!

Mrs. Case said...

Ugh. "Pitcher" instead of "picture"????? Drive sme nuts and is said by my step mom constantly.

Another one from my dad's side of the family is "irrigardless". Um, there's no such thing as that word and my entire family has to hear about it from me when they try and use it in a sentence. Ugh.

Far From Perfect said...

Ending a sentence with "at" bothers me.

Anth said...

Li-berry instead of library.

And of course, Or-i-gone instead of Or-i-gun.

I have a really hard time not assuming stupidity in people who mispronounce basic words.

Kim Dubois said...

Oooo! I love this game. My favorite is the elimination of the dipthong. It happens a lot in Utah.

Instead of, "I got a really good deal at the mailman's yard sale," you would hear, "I got a rilly good dill at the mellman's yard sell."

I've even seen "For Sell" written on car windows. It's awesome.

Kori's House said...

My dad says "tomorrel" instead of "tomorrow" - this is extra fun when singing the Annie song - tomorrel, tomorrel I love ya...

Anonymous said...

eXpecially.. because we all know there is an X in the word...
And any grammatical error. Such as, but not limited to: " It don't matter" "Where you at?" " I borrowed him my phone"... I could go on and on.