Hare's breath

Chyuld has been around at least since I was nine, which was when we moved to Lancashire. My mum used to complain about us saying chyuld but it's what everyone else around us said so we carried on until we moved somewhere else (mum's still in Lancs) and learned different pronunciations.

And chyuld instead of child!

There was an interview this morning with a highly respected CEO of a group of companies. Every reply to a question was preceded by,"So...". Grrrrrr!

Yes why do people pronounce it like that Lorna its so irritating.
Last night the BBC told us something was ' very unique'
The words 'diffuse' and 'defuse' have different meanings but are often confused.

Yes, and 'fith'.

Also I can't stand the modern way of saying sixth.To me 'sicth' sounds as though they've got a speech impediment

"Can I get?" drives me mad, especially when used by DD2, who should know better. Mercifully, her children aged 9 and 6 both say "Please may I have?" to the lady in the school tuck shop when we indulge them. If this is what they have been taught at school, well done the teachers!

Late to the party...

Something that is really bugging me is the use of 'like' as a substitute for 'as though' or 'as if'. You use 'like' to compare two or more things, not to say that something is likely to happen.

Baggs I think there is a very fine line to be drawn between local accents and mispronunciation. I sometimes wonder if we'll end up with a situation where interpreters are needed as we pass from region to region. (It actually happened in the 18th century)

Heard an American on a video clip say veehickle today. He did it more than once too. He was an excellent debater. Really excellent. Haven't heard someone argue anything so strongly for aeons.

I really don't know why but I loathe "mine" and "yours" as in "Are we meeting at mine or yours?"

I also hate "Mains" for Main Course on menus.

This makes me think of a Radio programme on Radio 4 I think on Thursdays(?) which I always hear as "Cross Incontinence"

Yes, but look at the things that the well spoken, well educated JR-M does say!

I hate it when people on tv (especially in the days of Cameron and Osborne) say 'gonna' instead of 'going to'. Do they think it improves their street cred? I think it was a waste of their parents' money sending them to private school. I bet Jacob Rees-Mogg doesn't say it.

BTW, bb, I didn't say you were snobbish. I said an attitude was snobbish. I've always thought criticism of pronunciation differences such as with 'garage' was a snobbish attitude and I always will.

Besides, both pronunciations are marked as correct in my dictionaries (yes, dictionaries plural) so it's a wrong attitude as well. Pedantry is irrelevant when there are two or more correct forms.

Is it really appropriate to criticise the speaker for simply not knowing some subjective 'correct' way to speak?

Nope.

Something I came across not so long ago, which is related but not exactly the same: when someone mispronounces not very common words, it's likely that they've learned them by reading them not by hearing them. Given how odd English spelling can be, it's hardly surprising if people get pronunciations wrong.

I thought vehicle was pronounced veehickle until my dad told me the correct pronunciation. I'd have been about eight and reading the word off a road sign.

He thought that a street that, as a boy, he cycled past regularly was called Gipton Appricotch. He liked it but wondered how it got that name. Then one day he read Approach ?

My husband is Welsh, bb, so I doubt it.

Baggs - Right there with you! I started this thread because I was surprised and sad at what I perceived as a Radio4 presenter's malapropism. It seems it may be an alternative although not one that is familiar to me.
Far to easy to judge those whose form and use of words differ from our own as 'posh' or 'common', 'lazy' or 'ignorant'. If communication is clear it really doesn't matter.

Ignorant means, in The New Oxford Dictionary of English,
'lacking knowledge or awareness in general; uneducated or unsophisticated.'

So many posts are apparently criticising speech they consider to be 'ignorant'. Is it really appropriate to criticise the speaker for simply not knowing some subjective 'correct' way to speak?

There are numerous ways of spelling and pronouncing words in the English language. I prefer to say garage with an 'a' and not 'garij' I may be pedantic but not snobbish Baggs . I am Welsh myself and probably pronounce many words in a way you might disapprove of. Enough said

I've met people (plenty) who had a snobbish attitude to northerners' short As (as in bath and grass, etc) and 'oo's in words like mug.

I've also met more who don't have that kind of snobbish attitude.

It's the attitude that's snobbish, bbevan. One can discard an attitude. Especially about something so unimportant as how people from different places pronounce certain words.

Well that is Scottish, if the man on the front has anything to do with it. Therefore different pronunciation ??

Wat about porage? (Scott's Porage Oats)

The different pronunciation is due to the spelling. Garage, Farage has one r. Porridge has two .

Baggs never, ever have I been called snobbish. I feel quite insulted

Do the people who say gar'äzh (or geräzh') rather than gar'ij also say por'äzh when it is spelled porage? Or do they stick with porridge like normal people??