I'll begin today's wrap-up of my endless series on common mispronunciations and fractured expressions with a seasonal entry.
"Halloween is for All Hallows' Eve," a voice mailer complained. "It is Halloween, not Holloween."
I've never thought about it, but she's absolutely right. I hear Holloween all the time.
I intend to take a rapid fire approach to get as many more in as I can, but since I've harped on unnecessary quotation marks and solicited your photos of examples — I threw one of them in today — I'll share a story from a reader who said this is one of his pet peeves.
"One of the BIG TIME newspaper publishers (it may have been Hearst) back in the 1920s had a running battle with his senior editor about using quotation marks to put emphasis on a word. The editor agreed that they do, indeed, add emphasis, but in a negative way. The publisher just would not agree to that point of view.
"The editor cooked up a phony front page, with the headline: Hearst Seen Leaving the Hotel with His 'Wife.' That was the end of the argument."
Now, rapid fire:
• "Radio commercial for The Morning Call: I didn't realize it is now pronounced MORN-in Call. I always thought it was Morn-ing CALL." Radio commercial for Air Products: Used to be AIR Products. Now it is Air PRO-ducts. And my least favorite, from the post-game IronPigs radio shows, it once was WILKES-barre. Now it is Wilkes-BA-rre."
• "A family member always pronounces wrought iron as 'roth' iron. And for years my husband would pronounce 'forsythia' as 'forcynthia.' I always teased him about having a former girlfriend by that name! But just recently I heard another person also mispronounce it. Maybe a PA Dutch thing?"
Someone else also sent me "forcynthia," so it's more common than I realized.
• The overuse of the words 'actually' and 'basically.' Other is media's misuse of the word troops. A troop is a group of something, so they're misusing it, making sound like more soldiers are being killed than actually are."
• "Deteriate for deteriorate."
• "Almost anything in a Dutchy accent, but especially words that end in 'ter.' Winter becomes win-der, Do not En-der, etc."
• "It's mirror, not meer."
• "Alls I know is that I really enjoy your columns."
• "Shi-ver-LAY instead of she-vrow-LAY."
• "Over the years I've been annoyed by people's use of 'up,' 'down' and 'over' in reference to a geographical point. Examples in Allentown: I'm going down to Philly tonight. I was up in New York last week. I was over in Jersey yesterday. And even worse: I was up in Philly last night."
• "I am a restaurant owner. One of my customers routinely mispronounces his order, no matter how many times we repeat the order, pronouncing it properly. My customer loves our Buffalo Caramari ('care-uh-marry'). I'm pretty sure he can pronounce the letter L, as he drinks Lite beer, so I guess he just has a mental hiccup when ordering our calamari. He has recently discovered crab rangoon, so now his complete order is for Buffalo Caramari and Crab Rong-Gong. Drives me bonkers!!!"
• "I am English and have been living in the U.S. nearly eight years. I must confess that some of the things people say over here drive me mad. Yes, one of those is 'I could care less' — totally nonsensical. Also totally nonsensical is 'me either.' The proper expression is 'me neither.' Another thing, why the dislike of the word 'and'? Over here people say 'go see' or 'come look.' "
• 1. The overuse of the word epic: 'A storm of epic proportions.' 'This was an epic performance.' Not everything that excites you will go down in history. When you overuse a word, it becomes trite and loses its punch. 2. The use of 'impact' as a verb where the word 'affect' would suffice. 3. This is a new one from the Weather Channel: calling a temperature of 100 degrees 'the century mark.' A century is a unit of time, not temperature. Grrr."
• "It's ORANG-OO-TAN, NOT ORANG-A-TANG, which sounds like a space age refreshment. How many people know that a RIG-A-MA-ROLL really is a RIG-MA-ROLL?"
• "Confusion over subjective usage, or subjectivitis: If I WAS a rich man, etc. Partial pronounial non-objectivitis: He taught him and I a lot about grammar. Anti-hamletitis: The question needs answered."
• "I have found another twist on the word 'interesting' here in Iowa. Out here it's 'intresting!' And gosh often sounds like 'garsh,' and wash comes out 'warsh.'"
• "I worked at a large local credit union for many years, and there was a woman from Texas who always thought the word 'worthwhile' was 'worthwild.' When it turned cold, the 'wind chill factor' became 'windshield factor.'"
• "When I was growing up in the '40s and '50s we would always say NO-TRA DAME. Somehow, that has morphed into NO-TER DAME. Everybody says it that way now. Why? Don't aks."
Thanks to all you Grammar Policepersons who participated. Your enthusiasm really impacted me.
bill.white@mcall.com 610-820-6105
Bill White's commentary appears Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays.
