You Pronounced That HOW?

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I supposed that no matter what part of the country you live in, people from other parts pronounce words that just sound wrong.

For example, I live in north Florida, and everyone I know pronounces the word 'either' (and 'neither') as ee-ther. But in so many moves and TV shows, I hear it pronounced as eye-ther. And that just sounds wrong!

Also, I grew up pronouncing 'often' as offen, with the silent 't' as in soften, hasten and listen (but no one says soft-ten or list-ten or haste-ten). So when I hear off-ten, well, it just sounds wrong!

And it irked me to no end when, back in 1978 there was the mass suicide at the Jim Jones compound in Guyana, and everyone was pronouncing it Guy-ana, even though everyone who knew any Spanish at all knew it was pronounced Gu-ya-na (but, of course, like almost everyone else I pronounce Cuba as Q-bah even though the correct way to say it is Coo-bah. And as an aside, President Kennedy, who pronounced words like fathah and brothah, etc., pronounced it as Q-ber - go figure!).

And one more example -- how many times have you heard someone who is delighted at an outcome say voilá! and pronounce it wah-LAH, when, in fact, being a French word, it should be pronounced as V-wah-LAH. (And let me say for the record, after taking three years of Spanish in high school, I think French words have the most screwed up spelling of any language I can think of.)

I could write endlessly about such "mis-pronunciations", but I guess you get my drift.

Also, in this essay, I wrote pronounce, and it's many derivations, thirteen times, including in the title and in this paragraph.

That's all.

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