One of my favorite examples of these is the first act of the This American Life show "A Little Bit of Knowledge." If you haven't listened to it, I recommend it.
My own stories aren't nearly as amusing, but lately I realized yet another of my own mistakes.
For my entire life, I have thought that the phrase "for all intents and purposes" was "for all intensive purposes."
I admit, this is maybe not the most logical of my mistakes. Still, there are at least two others that I still think are better alternatives to the actual phrases. These include:
- "Put the metal to the pedal," rather than "put the pedal to the metal." In my mind this expression came from the expression "lead foot." If you want someone to speed up, you would want them to put their lead foot to the gas pedal. Logical, right?
- "Play it by year," instead of "play it by ear." This is sort of a more long term "take it day by day." You know, a "we'll see how it goes," kind of thing.
I also mispronounced quarter (qwatter) and salmon (with the "l") until I got to college and was corrected (more than once I'm sure) by my classmates. I have no excuse for this, except that a certain family member (you know who you are) pronounces them incorrectly too.
Like I said, if you haven't heard the This American Life episode, you should listen to it. And feel free to leave your own stories in the comments!
6 comments:
One that drives me crazy (though people say it all the time) is "I could care less." I SHOULD be "i couldn't care less, implying that the speaker does not care! I teach my students to say this the right way - someday, they will change the world!
When I was younger, I thought the expression "with a grain of salt" was "what a great assult". LOL!
First of all, I can't believe it's not "for all intensive purposes"!!! What?! I was right there with you. Second of all, after much coaching and teasing, Andrew has finally stopped saying "qwatter". Just as of last night I think.
Well it was last year sometime that I learned that the prickly animal is pronounced porcUpine, while I spent my whole life saying porcYpine (even though I knew it wasn't spelled that way). And don't forget Kjersten learning that turkey is not pronounced churkey.
Alli - It is your New England upbringing to blame for the "qwatter" pronounciation, not your mom!! And I think I say "salmon" just fine- I said it to auntie today and she said I said it right. I always remember that song "forever in blue jeans" and I used to sing "reverend in blue jeans". I thought it was cool for a reverend to be in blue jeans!! :) love mom
My Grandmother came from Sweden. She had 2 grandaughters named Jan and Jeanne. To her we were Yan and Yeanne (sounds Chinese). What's it madda. Gram
I'm with Erin on "I could care less." Okay, so you care a little bit then?
My favorite mispronunciation stories are about my Scandinavian friends, one of whom thought "laugh" was pronounced "lath," and the other, who pronounced "VCR" and "video" as "Wee-CR" and "wideo," respectively. Though I'm sure I have mispronounced many things and have misused many phrases in my lifetime, nothing is coming to mind at this exact moment.
Oh! Just thought of one. I was driving to Wisconsin with my family one summer -- I was probably eight -- and I saw a lovely gazebo out on the grassy knoll of a university. I said, "Ooh, look at the pretty gazooby!"
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