Don't use a word if you can't pronounce it correctly!

When I lived in France, I heard of some body called Penny lope (she was French) and it took me a couple of seconds to rearrange it in my mind!

Bradford Lass: none of it really matters.

I beg to differ. If pronunciations start to diverge like this, where will it stop? In the end it will end up with everyone speaking practically a different language and no one will understand what the other says. In this day and age, accurate communication is already deteriorating and many disagreements (and worse) are only due to unnecessary misunderstandings.

I don’t know why it should matter particularly if a word is mispronounced and I hope I’d never embarrass or demean someone by calling attention to such a thing.

That said, some years ago I was helping a daughter get settled in a new house and we were both reduced to giggling heaps who had to leave the room every time the decorator referred to his spatoola (rhymes with Petula). He was kindly instructing us on how to fill in hairline cracks with his trusty tool. (No pun intended)

My grandmother told me that for years she thought unhappy people had eyes full of "unched" tears instead of un shed tears!

Before we were married, my DH and I stayed with an aunt and uncle of his while visiting the area. His aunt was telling me all about a lovely meal they'd recently had in a local restaurant and praised the wonderful merring-gyoo that was served for dessert .
My DD and I have always, between ourselves, jokingly called a gilet a gillit, with a hard 'g'. I really should be more careful, though, to remember not to say it in company. I've caused raised eyebrows on more than one occasion and feel sure my explanation, that it's a joke my DD and I share, has not been believed

It is hard to employ NZ infant teachers as their phonic sounds differ from the ones thw DfE expect schools to teach!

When I was a student we acquired a new Professor of Prosthetic Dentistry, all the way from NZ.
He was immediately nicknamed Bruce (after the Monty Python sketch) and we all suddenly had to make dintures for our patients instead of dentures.
As soon as Bruce appeared in the clinic or lab, students would start asking each other in loud voices where their pins and pincils had got to.
I have to say that Bruce bore all this with great good humour

or Rip my corsets off I seem to recall from school!

MiniMoon, my mother used to call Rimsky-Korsakov Rinse-a-corffee-cup. In fun, of course.

My multi- lingual dad did not have an accent to me but others commented on it and asked where he was from. But I did tease him when he asked for a scissor or help to find his trouser!

My Dad used to do voluntary work for his Church. He had to enter names into the register, he always pronounced it red-chester. We never corrected him.
He used to mis-pronounce words just for fun. A favourite was Rip-your-corsets-off for Rimsky-korsakov.

Apparently my German gt grandfather struggled with the English pronunciation despite living amongst them for many years.
Daughter to rhyme with slaughter and laughter to rhyme with dafter and just when he thought he'd got it right he spotted a theatre billboard advertising " new show starring FloraDora. Pronounced Success " he despaired.

PECS as I live in NZ, I'm eternally grateful I'm not called Peggy.

None of these things irk me too much but do notice: mischiev-i-ous
Booey rather than buoy (boy)
"Can I have a panini?" (panini is plural not singular) "May I have a panino?' is correct apparently.

My mother in law used to refer to a mort-gage but when I looked up its origins, it means 'death pledge' so maybe she was right.

I used to say (when a child) muncipal for municipal. There was a charming show, ages ago, with young children reading unusual words. Predictably the producers had one little lassie saying 'Grand Prix'.

And how many people say the "Moet" of Moet & Chandon and "mo-ay"? He was Dutch and his name is said Mo-ette.
But in the end, pedant though I am sometimes (English teachers often are) none of it really matters.

I regularly mispronounce words and place names deliberately, just so that my OH can correct me. I get a laugh at him, and he can feel clever.

Mr GG and I have just come back from a late lunch. Our waitress informed us that she "telepathetically" knew we wanted the wine list Grrr.

Another great one from NZ I was watching one of the motorway police series and as they were dealing with a crash there was a shunt in the next lane and the policeman said that he hated rubber knickers

Oh, yes, Pecs - NZ vowels can be a mite startling to UK ears. IIRC a NZ friend used to,pronounce 'six' like 'sex' and vice versa. (No, autocorrect, I did not mean Versace there!!)

Just remembered , "its just a phrase he/ she is going through,"
about children, but of course this is wrong use of a word and not pronunciation.

Just heard another one - reckernise. This goes with ‘deteriate’. Both are sheer laziness.

I think it matters - though I wouldn’t point out a mispronunciation to anyone other than family members. Speech generally is getting sloppier and lazier, often because of the ‘it doesn’t matter’ attitude. There’s no reason not to try to get it right.

Is it really so important that someone pronounces a word or phrase in the way that you personally think is correct? Surely accepting individual differences, personal histories, local or regional variations and international differences is so much more important than correcting someone for not being like you? I would consider corrrection of a perceived mispronunciation by somebody other than a family member or a very close friend to be incredibly rude and patronising. Language is primarily about communication not oneupmanship.

Haha! My DD has a pal from NZ who is an accounts manager for Pret a Manger which they pronounce Prit ah Mon- jaay! Also could not call the baby Ben as it sounded like Bin when they said it! Some NZ vowel sounds are very different!

Would you correct an adult, though? (Not one of your own adult children, which is IMO a bit different.)

Some years ago we had an Aussie girl, daughter of old friends, staying here with her boyfriend. Both were graduates, 21-ish. .
After their first day out in London I asked whether they'd enjoyed themselves. Yes, etc. etc. etc. - and they'd had lunch at Pret A Manger (pronounced as in Away in a Manger!)

I didn't correct them - I knew that learning French at school is not so common in Oz, but did wonder afterwards whether
I should have. Would they have been embarrassed? Or would they have preferred to know, to avoid any future embarrassment? (Assuming they might be the types to be embarrassed about such things.)

My mum was from the NE so many words were pronounced differently to neighbours in London. I remember at school friends laughing at me for showing I had a plaster on my knee and not a plahstah! Sometimes it is dialect and not mispronounced! Do you think latte is more Italian the further away you get from the South's 'long a' ?

That's how I say it seasider, but I hear most other people say lahtay.