I'm not originally from the south and part of what aggravates me by being a transplant is the absolute butchering of commonly used words. Today, I got to hear "Missouri" pronounced mizz-ur-uh. Look, for those of you that do this, I can't tell you how wrong and annoying it is. It's not cute, it's not clever, it's just damn silly, but most importantly, it's annoying! It's not Missour-uh, It's not Cinncinat-uh, not Mississipp-uh, you don't vacation in Hawai-uh, or Miam-uh, or even Tahit-uh, and we didn't learn more about peace from Ghand-uh. What's worse is that I've heard the town Nixa pronounced, "Nixy". Yeah, Nixy, Mizzuruh, real cute. I hear this shit from people who are quick to correct me when I take it upon myself to pronounce the town Lebanon, Missouri as, "Leban-NON" instead of "Leba-NUN"(allegedly the correct way) as I also say Spokane, Missouri as "Spo-CAN" instead of, "Spo-CANE". I give up. Perhaps I should move to MexEEco.
I am the Complaints Department Manager and I approve this correctly pronounced message.
18 comments:
My pet peeve: Ink Pen. It drives me NUTS whenever I heard that because...WHAT THE HELL OTHER TYPE OF PEN IS THERE?! I posed that question to a native southerner once and they said 'well, there's the kind of 'pin' that you where on your shirt.'.
LOL! They have to say ink pen down here because pen and pin are pronounced the same way!
i shouldn't complain, though. I don't pronounce my t's unless they are at the beginning of a word. Really, it's a Central New York thing. Mitten is pronounced mi'en, kitten is ki'en and Clinton is Cli'en. You get the idea. Clinton doesn't get a a first N or a T!
Hey, what happened to my capital I?
Kim, the kinds of pens: *ehem*
State pen
Federal pen
Open
pig pen
Phnom penh
play pen
fountain pen....I can go on and on, you know I can.
OK.. the one that makes me cringe is when ppl pronounce ASK as AX. It gets my undies in a bundle!! I hate it, hate it, hate it! It's ASK.. NOT AX, dammit! Enough said!
You know what Southerners love?
When Yankees come down here to visit and try to fake a Southern accent.
I grew up in Southeast Missour-ah. It never occurred to me there was any other way to say it. I will keep saying it Missour-ah because to me, that's the right way. I'll just try not to talk about it if I run into you in the 'hood. ;)
But it does drive me crazy how Ozarkians don't use the words "to be" the way they should be used in a sentence. It is "this needs TO BE fixed" not "this needs fixed."
Also, it's Illinois with a silent "s."
When I first moved down south, I wrote Jeff Foxworthy a letter and asked him, "Where is yonder and why is everyone going to carry someone there?" And for that matter..." Why do peoples cars Jake down here and Jerk up north?" Please stop my confusion on this matter.
Isn't the Miami in OK pronounced "Miam-uh"? Ever notice how often people mispronounce Campbell street as "camel". I hate that one.
I went to Dictionary.com and both pronunciations for Missouri are correct. Missour-ee and Missour-uh. How about that one? I still hate the -uh ending. It sounds stupid to my ears.
How about all for oil? 'I need a to git a pint of all for my car.'.
Ok, yeah, yeah...so there is more than one type of pen, BUT not when they're specifically asking me for something to write with! In that case they do not have to ask me for an ink pen!
I'm a northerner who has lived in the south for 11 years. I don't have to fake a southern accent, I'm pretty good at putting one on. (I guess technically that'd still be faking it, but I am really good at it if I want to be!).
my mom always said "earl" instead of oil...she's from Greenwich Village, NYC.
we say whateva in my house instead of whatever like they do in the valley : )
New Yawkas talk funny, and it irks the shit out of me when people deliberately try to sound like they are NOT New Yawkas.
Thats all I got for now.
Cas : )
Wow everyone, this stuff is HAD KOA!
how about when people say "pacific" instead of SPECIFIC.
"I was tryin to be as pacific as possible" WHAT THE...?
honey - pacific is an OCEAN.
or "mines", instead of MINE.
"Those gloves are mines!!!"
honey - mines are where the dwarves made their living.
I thought I didnt have anything left, but I guess I did.
How about adding s's to everything? I know people who shop at TargetS and WalmartS and they call kids named Even EvanS....
Caspar, I'm from Upstate NY, as you know, and we don't sound like what people think of when they think of New Yorkers. So, it really drives me nuts when people do a fake NYC type of accent thinking they are sounding like me when I don't sound at all like I'm from NYC! The north, yes, but more like Wisconsin or Ontario...NOT NYC!
CDM, I had to say what you just typed several times to figure out what it was. All I could think of without saying it to myself was that you wanted to go camping at a KOA!
Heh.
How 'bout when people say "ideal" when they mean "idea." I once had an ENGLISH TEACHER who always said "I have a good ideal."
ENOUGH! I AM an English teacher! I stumbled onto this blog in search of something else, I actually teach a developmental writing class at the junior college in a pretty affluent area north of Houston, Texas. It's amazing what I'm encountering here after living over 30 years in California, and 2 years in, what did you call it Kim? "Central New York?" I'm familiar with the "missing middle consonant syndrome" (sorry, it's not just your t's , honey!)
One of the reasons we moved here is because this district touted how wonderful the schools were, and boy, there isn't a day that doesn't go by, that my daughter's jr. high website doesn't remind me that they are an "exemplary Texas school". However, I'm not seeing it on my end. Yes, people think that "y'all" is an actual word here. I have a student that spells completely phonetically - so that means I have to read his paper out loud or I won't be able to understand it: Let's do it together:
"Well, it was a buteful day, but hot and unconftbal. I wakd pasd the trees of the fressby golf course for bout 1/2 mile and saw cigert buts, bright, picnik tabls and a cok meshen..." Yep, I know, it's painful. How did this 22 year old graduate? No clue.
So, my point? While each area of the country has it's own "language" as you have so well pointed out, (one of my personal favorites is going to the "shore" in New Jersey, but the "beach" in California...) I'm sure you can at least understand each other, and while it may be annoying that someone says "ink pen" or uses a fake southern accent, or ax you for directions to the mou'ain. Thank the appropriate people in your life that you can at least communicate or better yet correctly fill out a job application?
Much like Spokane, WA, the proper pronunciation is Spoh-kan. Just as well, Lebanon, MO, is not pronounced the same way as the country of Lebanon. I don't think you are smart as you believe yourself to be.
STD muffin(much more appropriate) - You're one of those "1 click then post" kind of people aren't you? I'll bet you are from the are or are close in some way, shape or form.
See what it's like to generalize with just a knee jerk reaction? Feel free to be not be as smart as I just made you look. Have a blessed day.
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