Thursday, November 30, 2006


Is it or Is it Not the Right pronunciation?

There's always conversation about how we pronounce our words. For many years and still today , I had been accused of talking white. When I was younger, I learned to speak to different groups by turning it on and off. Mostly as a teen I didn't want to be accused of thinking I was better or that I was trying to be white. That was so stupid to me. But you learn to pay the game.

As an adult, I hear folks correcting each other all the time. You always hear that you pronounce a word this way or that way. Even in St. Louis we argue a lot about how to pronounce Missouri.

Here are some other words that folks pronounce differently.

Interesting: IN-tris-ting or IN-tur-uh-sting or IN-tur-ES-ting.
Nausea: NAW-zee-uh or NAW-shuh
Visa: VEE-zuh, not VEE-suh.
Thesis: (singular) THEE-sis; theses (plural) THEE-seez.
Ketchup: Ketchup or catsup
Mirror: MIR-ur or MEER-ur.
Alumnae: uh-LUHM-nee. Do not say uh-LUHM-ny.
Genre: ZAHN-ruh, not JAHN-ruh
Library: LY-brer-ee.Don' t say LY-ber-ee, as if the word were spelled liberry. There is no berry in library.


The big one for us is Missouri. Should we say Missour-ee or Missour-uh. Everyone pronounce it differently from the President, Gorvenor of our State, and all the politicians. If you attend an event and they are talking about Missouri and even if 20 people are on the podium, ech person will pronounce it differently. How confusing......



5 comments:

Luke Cage said...

Heyyyy! Miss Rose, is Alumnae pronounced as alum-nee? I'll tell you a story. 2 words jacked me up in a spelling bee and both times were because the reader didn't pronounce the way the words were supposed to be pronounced throwing me off and disqualifying me twice. One word was backgammon. (don't ask-smile) The second was Alumnae. And the reader pronounced is as Alum-NY.. this word has baffled me since, and I always here it pronounced with -NY even today. Which is correct luv???

Brotha Buck said...

My wife always laughs at me because I pronounce feet as feets. Get your feets off the couch!

princessdominique said...

I know the feeling of being accused of talking white.

Clare said...

I always find it funny how Americans pronounce words differently than us over here. Tom-ay-toe and Tom-ah-toe springs to mind :).

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