One of my pet peeves is word pronunciation. Not that I am a linguist by any stretch of the imagination, but at least we can work on the ones we know about. In a previous post I mentioned one of my favorites, NUCLEAR. The correct pronunciation is like “new-clear” and not “new-Q-lar.”
Another one that I have even heard mis-pronounced in movies is CAVALRY. The word is pronounced like “cav-all-ree” and not like “cal-va-ree.” Cavalry is a group of mounted soldiers, and Calvary is a hill near Jerusalem where Jesus was crucified.
Here is my favorite, and one that is almost universally mispronounced by everyone, as did I for many years, REALTOR. It is pronounced like “real-tor” and not like “real-a-tor,” as most of us do. Even folks who deal in realty (real-tee, not real-a-tee) screw this one up.
There are others, like the difference between ASK and AXE, but that is another story.
About Me
- Robert
- Grew up in Sacramento, CA. Our family moved around like a Gypsy troup and I attended different schools every year, and sometimes two in one year! In our family the "Work Ethic" was praised above all others and, consequently, I was not encouraged to attend college, and only graduated from the University of Redlands later in my life. After High School I hitchhiked from San Francisco to New York City and sailed from there to England on the original Queen Mary. I visited with relatives in England for six months before I sailed home on the original Queen Elizabeth, thus having the distinction of sailing on both of the original Queens. Shortly after returning home, I served four years in the United States Air Force as a Radar Technician, met and married my wife, Gail, and settled in Riverside, California.
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