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Mispronunciations?
Mar. 21st, 2004 01:45 pmLanguage Hat rips apart a popular list of "common mispronunciations", which turns out to consist mostly of examples of accents that the author doesn't like, jokes, and some standard pronunciations damned by incorrect etymology.
Language Hat is so nonprescriptivist about usage (see the old post exonerating nucular) that I suspect![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
ronebofh would not approve. But as he or she points out, while there are cases in which a certain pronunciation will make you sound untutored, this list doesn't do a good job of collecting them.
As a prescriptive usage guide, I enjoy Bryan A. Garner's Oxford Dictionary of American Usage and Style... but, on the other hand, I've found some factual errors in his digressions on non-language topics, and I still refuse to pronounce "schism" as "sizm", regardless of what he says.
Language Hat is so nonprescriptivist about usage (see the old post exonerating nucular) that I suspect
ronebofh would not approve. But as he or she points out, while there are cases in which a certain pronunciation will make you sound untutored, this list doesn't do a good job of collecting them.As a prescriptive usage guide, I enjoy Bryan A. Garner's Oxford Dictionary of American Usage and Style... but, on the other hand, I've found some factual errors in his digressions on non-language topics, and I still refuse to pronounce "schism" as "sizm", regardless of what he says.