100 most mispronounced words in English?

Question

such as aks instead of ask or nuclear....

Answer 1

Folks have different lists of the "top 100" (though with a fair amount of overlap). Try these two:

http://www.yourdictionary.com/library/mispron.html
http://www.alphadictionary.com/articles/mispronounced_words.html

By the way, the explanations of "aks" on these lists is itself mistaken. "Aks" is NOT an "old error", but a dialectal variant that goes back to Old English. (And the modern dialect of American English that uses it is directly descended from a specific dialect in 17th-century England. ) It just happened the "ask" won out in the battle for "standard English".

"Close" as a pronunciation for "clothes" is likewise more dialectal than a mistake. I suspect there are a few others on the list with a similar explanation.

A few notes on other responses:

Main point -- be careful not to assume every variation is one of "right vs. wrong". There are dialectal/regional variants which should be treated as perfectly acceptable. And sometimes YOUR pronunciation has less foundation!

Contra one answer, the T in "often" IS silent!! (as it is in "soften", "hasten," "fasten", "chasten" vs. "oft", "haste", "chaste" and "fast"... and a number of '"stle" words as well --wrestle, castle, etc. ). The pronunciation of the T is a recent mistake, based on the spelling (and ignorant of this pattern).

Related to this (though not the standard) -- the swallowing or dropping of the T in "international", "winter", etc. is dialectal.

"Crick" is dialectal (as are most of the words where the only difference from the standard is a slight change in the vowel.)

For the Bush bashers, "nukyaler" is ALSO the way Eisenhower and Carter pronounced the word. (Oddly, I never heard anyone in the media go after Carter about this... and he worked on a nuclear submarine!)

Answer 2

100 Most Mispronounced Words

Answer 3

Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilico volcanoconiosis I had to seperate it to make certain that all of it to positioned up.....does not positioned up finished in any different case (aka "Black Lung" that coal miners get) reported: new mono extremely microscopic silico volcano coni osis galvanize your persons and pals! cause them to think of you're a genius! Order yours at present for decrease than 3 hassle-free funds of $19.ninety 5......

Answer 4

One thing that irked me the most while living in Texas for college, people there always said "screet" instead of "street". AAGGH!!! Also, I have a friend now who cannot, for the life of her, pronounce the word "fruit". She pronounces it like this: "fyoot". Has anyone ever heard that before??

Answer 5

February - most people say "Febuary" as if it were like "January"
ignorant - many older people say "ignernt"
sandwich - some people say "samitch"
they - it might be a black English thing but I'm always hearing "dey"
library - someone else listed this one - people say "liberry"
drought - older people often say and spell it "drouth" to rhyme with "mouth"

That's all I can think of right off the bat

Answer 6

Used to play lots of basketball at this one city court where my friend Cooper and I were the only two white guys....and one word that HAS to be on the list is "Quenty" for "Twenty"

Answer 7

Bollyball for volleyball and Valentimes' Day instead of Valentines' Day

Answer 8

When people replace N with M in Valentine's Day! It's not Valentime's!

Answer 9

picture! that is so annoying. I actually had some lady write it out as "pitcher" at work the other day. Good heavens, what is the world coming to?

Answer 10

library (lieberry), often (offin), international(innernational), spaghetti (skeddy), Tortilla (like it looks instead of with the y for the ll's), Bebe (no one knows the right way.), Pumpkin (punkin)