Thing is, 'jaguar' isn't an English word -- it's Portuguese, and it's pronounced "yag-war" with a kind of hhh sound on the y. So in this case at least, the Americanized version is closer to the correct pronunciation than the Brit version is.

poor UG, he was trying to sound to bright, then he got the plural of ignoramus wrong.

Hearing someone say paradigm as para-digm made me laugh out loud, tertiary as ter-ed-it-ory just worried me.

personally i'm jag-u-ar and if the portuguese have a problem with it they can send a fleet.

Was it someone who had only read the word before? In which case they have my sympathy - I know I've come out with some of these myself before.

Distantly related - I am still wary of the word oxymoron, after our cruel English lecturer told us the correct pronunciation was "ock-ZIM-erron". Which lets face it, makes as much sense as the way you pronouce hyperbole. I will still avoid saying it - the correct pronunciation sounds wrong to me.

A Fleet? :eek:

Or maybe a fleet of man-o-wars (men-o-war?).

Sundae Girl - I am with you on the reading vs. hearing it spoken issue.

I remember a particular incident in 5th grade. We all had to take turns reading out of a book that the teacher picked for the day. I was (am) so incredibly shy - especially about public speaking, so naturally my deepest fear was that the teacher would call on me to read out loud. As my classmates would read their section, I would pre-read the next one just in case I got picked.

I had a "thank god" moment when the section I thought I had mastered was assigned to another kid... He read it, and he said a word that made me look back down at my own book and think "what? "

For some reason I saw the word debris (day-brees) as a word that should be pronounced derbis (der-bis).

Talk about a sweaty palms

misogynist

Sorry for departing from the theme, I just had to share the laugh!

That's okay, your classmate got it wrong too. It's pronounced deh-bree.

Day-brees is the plural. It's spelled the same.






im a liar

One of my friend's from high school used to speak about how horrified she was when her third or fourth grade teacher insisted on correcting her pronounciation of "anemone."

No matter how much my friend protested, the teacher made her say it Annie-moans.

A gifted program kid, my friend was never again certain about the ability of teachers to teach from that moment forward.

Good for her!

"samwich" or "sangwich" drive me nuts. (From the same folks who bring is "axe yew a keshun" and other delightful ebonic tidbits.)
My mom adds letters, like Jerry Steinfeld, and Ski-doo.
Then there's one of my personal favorites" "Whether or not." No. It's just plain "whether." There's no "or not" about it. Right up there with Eggspecially in my book.
My husband has a few good ones that he uses frequently, but I have purposely blocked them out of my English-degree maniacally grammar oriented mind. If the self inflicted cloud lifts, I'll bring them to this fun little feast of a table.

Hi, Queenie! Missed ya!

Thanks for trying to save me UT...

Clodfobble - you know, the funny thing is that after seeing your reply I said the word debris (mentally of course..... I never talk to myself), and it fit better with the way you described it.

Oh god. I am wrong in telling you all how I was wrong! Jezzus I am such a tard.

Where's the extra letter in Ski-Doo? Or is she talking about personal watercraft instead of snowmobiles, and she means Sea-Doo?