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Which American mispronunciation of an English word annoys you the most?

Posted by Few_House_5201@reddit | AskABrit | View on Reddit | 101 comments

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101 Comments

katlaki@reddit

Not sure if it is mispronunciation but using then instead of than.
View on Reddit #77350710

Dark-Faery@reddit

Their use of a/an in front of words, it winds me up so much. If you're going to speak English, speak English
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sixsik6@reddit

I'm with you on this. Drives me nuts
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OkTechnologyb@reddit

Can you give an example of what you mean? A/an is the standard indefinite article, so it's widely appropriate in context.
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sixsik6@reddit

"Craig was attempting to pick up an television set"
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jetloflin@reddit

How do Americans misuse a/an?
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dobie_dobes@reddit

Yeah, I’m confused too.
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ExpectedBehaviour@reddit

The curious tendency to over-emphasise the second syllable of names, particularly non-English ones.
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SeparateFly2361@reddit

What’s an example?
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nibor@reddit

Niche. Soft s not hard ch. Of course it’s borrowed from French but at least we tried to keep the pronunciation.
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Liam030201@reddit

Iran and Iraq on US news
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Radiant_Thing1784@reddit

Worcestershire sauce 🤦🏻 Warder instead of water They can’t say my name “Gareth” ffs it’s not that hard! At a family gathering in VA I was introduced to some people who called me DARETH, DARREN? And each attempt had a question mark 🙄 Just to add I live in Wales and have married an American immigrant and she can say all of the above because she fucking tries!
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dobie_dobes@reddit

Wait who says “warder”? I’ve never heard another American say it that way. “Wahdder” yes.
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FeeCommercial1095@reddit

I e heard many many Americans say warder They have laughed at me for pronouncing it correctly with the t
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Radiant_Thing1784@reddit

Depends which part of America they are from I guess 🤷‍♂️
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mewikime@reddit

"Valentimes". My wife (among plenty of others) does it. It does my head in. 🤯 And by the end of February I've forgotten. But then come mid January, fucking Valentimes comes around again. 🤦🏼‍♂️
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daganscribe69@reddit

Creg for Craig. Buf it only really annoys me when it's used to label something that isn't theirs. I don't give a fuck how Craig's List is pronounced, but nobody called Daniel Creg played Bond.
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SnooMacarons9618@reddit

Buoy. For a long time I had no idea by what they meant when they said boo-e. They even get it right in buoyancy.
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IamTheEagle@reddit

Wait, you guys pronounce it like boy?
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GroundbreakingAsk730@reddit

Because thats how to you say buoyancy its said like boy not booeyncy
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JeffersonRP96@reddit

We do indeed
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DeliciousUse7585@reddit

Craig
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No_Needleworker6786@reddit

Came here for this, best friends husband is Craig and when I visited I had to use their version or he wouldn’t react or hear me talking to him 😐
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FoolishDancer@reddit

He sounds like a jerk.
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Capital-Dog9004@reddit

How is it pronounced in America?
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GroundbreakingRing42@reddit

Creg
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Capital-Dog9004@reddit

🙄
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Simmo2222@reddit

Graham is Gram
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JockSporran@reddit

“Ass” which is a type of donkey, when it should be “arse”
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Few_House_5201@reddit (OP)

This is my one and the reason I asked the question.
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ray-chill123@reddit

Pronouncing things that have a T as if they have a D. E.g 'wader' instead of water or 'budder' instead of butter
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BeEccentric@reddit

Craig
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Rtozier2011@reddit

Pronouncing 'thorough' as 'furrow' instead of 'furra'.  Also the tendency to pronounce 'Birmingham' as 'Birming-HAM' rather than 'BIR-mingem'. But I suppose they do have their own version. It would seem rude to use the British pronunciation about the Alabama city. Like the British character who calls the American Bernard 'BER-nad' in >!Lost!<.
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Apricot_Oasis@reddit

Joe Lycett did a documentary last year, where his mission was to go to all the Birminghams in the world, a lot of which are in the USA. They seemed baffled by our pronunciation of it here.
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viruswithshoes@reddit

‘pittsBerg’ not ‘Pittsburrow’
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Ruby-Shark@reddit

"Meer" for Mirror.
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thesaharadesert@reddit

- Squurl instead of squirrel - Creg instead of Craig
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FeeCommercial1095@reddit

Those are Texans !! I know. I lived in Texas
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Slow_Cherry3571@reddit

Mirror… or should I say myre
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Wonky_bumface@reddit

'Twot'
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ray-chill123@reddit

This one kills me. Why steal a word and purposely say it wrong??
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FeeCommercial1095@reddit

I also hate hearing verbs said badly. I seen instead of I saw etc
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Mr_Coastliner@reddit

Probably 'erb' instead of 'herb' or the ones who say 'caarmel' instead of 'caramel'
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romeo__golf@reddit

The silent H in herb is actually correct. The word comes from Latin, where the H was already silent, and transitioned through old French where it stayed that way. When it reached English we also pronounced it without the H in the same way we don’t pronounce it in honour, or hour. It wasn’t until the 1800s when dropping an H in words was seen as a marker of low social class that a “hyper correction” occurred and people started using the H in error, in the same way that some people say “haitch” instead of “aitch” for the letter H. It was an attempt to sound more educated and for whatever reason it became the common usage. As recently as the early 1900s written examples of “an herb” exist.
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FeeCommercial1095@reddit

I hate when I hear them say haitch ! Sounds ridiculous
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OkTechnologyb@reddit

This reminds me of "gotten" and "fall" for the season, which were once standard in Britain and simply didn't fall out of favour in the US.
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Mr_Coastliner@reddit

I believe the Latin H was pronounced but the French struggle with that one. So the silent H is just an accent picked up by French speakers
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TheFirstMinister@reddit

An arrogant, myopic statement.  It's not mispronounciation but linguistic drift.  Americans don't drive on the wrong side of the road, but the different side - it's the same with language. Ditto English spoken in Ireland, Australia, South Africa, etc. 
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Few_House_5201@reddit (OP)

Why so rude?
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leeeeebeeeee@reddit

None of this is serious. We know. This idiot thinks he’s educating.
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OwnStruggle9260@reddit

Aluminium 
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trevpr1@reddit

This is elementary.
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_Smedette_@reddit

The **English** chemist who named it used multiple spellings and initially decided aluminum. Four years after that (and being bullied by a *French* scientific journal) he published a textbook using aluminium.
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ten-toed-tuba@reddit

Spelled differently, though.
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bisondancer@reddit

Rout instead of route
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trevpr1@reddit

Especially since they can pronounce it correctly when they want to. The song Route 66 is proof.
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trevpr1@reddit

Lever. Rhymes with fever, not never.
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DoftheD@reddit

MF Legos
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Jaded_Leg_46@reddit

Data
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dobie_dobes@reddit

I think that one is pretty well split down the middle.
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Pure-Dead-Brilliant@reddit

“Math,” instead of, “maths.”
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Capital-Dog9004@reddit

Does my head in
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hakohead@reddit

This one is great! American here, so “maths” always sounds either wrong or internet slang to me
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BakhtiariBob@reddit

Niche, they usually say nitch instead of neesh
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dobie_dobes@reddit

I only ever hear “neesh.” Could be regional.
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number1millipedefan@reddit

? Where I'm from in the states (Colorado, most people have a pretty "standard" American accent) everyone says neesh. never heard anyone say nitch. I'm sure people must say it in some region, but I wouldn't say Americans "usually" say nitch
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Dazzling_Scratch_645@reddit

Aluminum instead of aluminium
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Jo-Wolfe@reddit

Alexa drives me mad with that Alexa add aluminium foil to my shopping list And in a nice English accent she says Aluminum foil added to your shopping list Bezos has programmed that deliberately to irk me Oh yes Water Yoghurt Route - on an army exercise we were planning a withdrawal and an American Liaison Officer asked 'do you have a rout' 'no, it's not a rout, it's a withdrawal, we're working out a route'
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BorisHawthorn@reddit

Twat
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andyone100@reddit

Merry, Mary and Marry mostly sound the same in the US, but distinctly different in the U.K.
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OkTechnologyb@reddit

Philadelphia is one of the few places in the US where these words are pronounced differently.
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canada11235813@reddit

Let me AXE you a question.... are you against NUCULAR weapons? Let's discuss it at the LIBARY over an EXPRESSO. If not, I could care less.
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hakohead@reddit

As an American, all of those irritate me too
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ASAPRockii@reddit

https://youtu.be/Nth4RqqmQZ4?si=jX8qsPVDCCOrjLQV
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Daisy-Fluffington@reddit

None. It's just linguistic drift, not misprounciation.
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nicknoxx@reddit

Just because you're right doesn't mean it's not annoying.
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weedywet@reddit

Route
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Routine-Cicada-4949@reddit

When they say FOOTBALL as S\*cc\*r. Does my head in. Seriously though, it's not actually an English word but the way Americans say Italy sounds like a chicken being strangled.
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WitchyWoo9@reddit

Oregano
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NaughtyBhy@reddit

The addition of extra letters for no reason! eg unbeknownST etc!! 😡
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strictly-no-fires@reddit

I couldn't care less about them pronouncing ordinary words differently but I think with proper nouns like names and placenames its a bit different. Like if you emphasise the "ham" in birmingham or nottingham that's just flat out wrong. Although, if it's out of ignorance you can't really blame them. The only two that actually annoy me off the top of my head are Graham and Craig.
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MarcelRED147@reddit

Gram and Crreg. Yeah that's just confusing. Mark to an extent but I dunno how to explain that one and it isn't as cavemanesque.
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unoriginalusername18@reddit

Also seems to be a trend of inappropriately abbreviating foreign-to-them place names (at least on the reddit travel subs aha). Like I would only abbreviate a name if I knew that was a locally-done thing. But there seems a commonly made assumption it's fine.
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Dark-Faery@reddit

Buoy... It is BOY
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thehoneybadger1223@reddit

"Boo-ee" 🫠😭
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thehoneybadger1223@reddit

Caramel as carmel. It really grates on me. Also the name Craig gets pronounced as Cregg
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winston_C@reddit

foyer
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andyone100@reddit

Don’t they call a foyer a ‘lobby’?
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Even_Happier@reddit

Edinburgh. Buoy. Worcestershire. Deirdre. Quay..
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PM-DOG-PICS-PLZ@reddit

gram for graham
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andyone100@reddit

I’ve heard folks from the South pronounce Chaucer as ‘Chowser’.
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Fairy__Dust@reddit

All of them
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somnambulistsmusings@reddit

Croissant!!!!
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ThrobbingGristle@reddit

That’s a French word. But yes, I do agree.
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PureString@reddit

Solder. Why pronounce it ‘sodder’ ? It sounds like they’re swearing about a woman.
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Wrong_Duty7043@reddit

Skedule instead of schedule with a ‘sh’, and anyways for anyway. Also not pronunciations using the worlds normalcy, obligated and conversate, instead of normality, oblige and converse.
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lesleyjv@reddit

Acclimate instead of acclimatise
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lucylucylane@reddit

Carmel it's caramel
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Royal_Damage5006@reddit

Booey - buoy Do they pronounce buoyant as booeyant ?
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BuncleCar@reddit

Leeezurrrr for leisure, notty for naughty, and don for dawn.
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qualityvote2@reddit

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