Category: Grammar Nazism

Just for the hell of it, I’m going to dive into the murky waters of proper pronunciation of words, using this stupid article as a kick-off:

Experts from Unscramblerer.com have revealed the UK’s most mispronounced words.

‘Our research about the most searched for mispronunciations gives an interesting insight into United Kingdom’s culture,’ a spokesperson for the site explained.

‘Exposure to new words through media, music, pop culture and social platforms drives curiosity.

‘People often look up pronunciations if there is a gap between how a word or name is spelled and how it sounds.’

Yeah, well if we’re talking about actual English, fair enough.  But then the idiotic writer lists a few words that aren’t actually English but Gaelic, and they’re names withal — which means I don’t care if I’m mispronouncing them.  (If people want to foist on their children names that contain more vowels than consonants, or vice-versa, they should either stay in their home country or accept the fact that outside fucking Ireland, nobody will know how to pronounce Naimh, Saoirse, Eowyn or Aoife.)

I think David Mitchell has the right idea.

Even better is that when it comes to foreign words used in English, the article contains one egregious example of silliness.  I refer here to the word “gyro”, which according to the DM is supposed to be pronounced “yee-roh” — except that it isn’t.  The proper pronunciation is “chee-ro”, the soft ch consonant pronounced as in the Scottish word for lake, loch  (and not lock, either).  I will confess to using yeeroh  on occasion, but only because the person to whom I’m speaking may not know what the hell I’m talking about, and the essence of communication is that the other person can understand what you’re saying.

And I don’t want to talk about gyros anymore, because just the thought of that peppery grilled lamb meat stuck in a soft (never crispy — that’s Mexican) pita bread with tzatziki sauce and tomato makes me want to eat a dozen of them.  (Back in my pro musician days in Johannesburg, there was a little Mediterranean snack bar called the Paradise Restaurant which sold said delicacies on a 24-hour basis and which were my staple after-gig food.  Great Caesar’s aching stomach, how I miss them.)

Where was I?  Oh yeah, pronunciation.

Until quite recently, I didn’t even know what this “acai” stuff was;  I thought it was some kind of vegan shit.  Also, “Qatar” is some oily Muzzie shithole that one flies through en route* to somewhere decent, so I don’t give a rat’s ass how it’s “properly” pronounced.

And if you don’t know how to say the word “spaghetti” then you shouldn’t be allowed to vote.

*that’s “ahn root” and not “ehn rowt”, you fucking peasants.

This is enough to make me groan and reach for another:

The Cambridge Dictionary has accepted 6,000 new words into its English language canon this year – including slang inspired by social media discourse.

Oh, that’s just wonderful.  Now instead of looking ignorant, I can just go there to learn all about skibidi.

Stop the world, I want no more part of it.

I know I said I wasn’t going to do the Speedbump thing anymore, but that’s only because I was sick of correcting stupid spelling- and grammar mistakes.

But this is different.  (My game, my rules.)

Specifically, I want to address an editorial quirk that has me reaching for the 1911:  this nonsense of using the plural “they/their” instead of “he/his” or “she/her”.

Now there are times when this device is appropriate, e.g. when using generalities such as “Anyone should be able to call their congressman an asshole”, where usage of “his” instead of “their” might be taken to mean that only men may call their congressman an asshole, which is clearly not the case.  (We used to be able to use “his” in these cases, where the word was understood to mean either sex, but it seems that in our ultra-sensitive times, even innocent words like “mankind” can be adjudged as sexisss by the Ultra-Sensitive Set.)

Anyway, here’s a perfect example where this androgynous practice becomes ridiculous and in fact can cause confusion:

(I’m not at all interested in the content of the article, of course.)

Note that the use of “they” and “their” could easily be interpreted that both Ore and his sister committed suicide, which isn’t the case — unless they dressed him in tiny Pride pants and read out a statement of his sexuality after he popped the magic pills, that is.

But that didn’t happen.  Only the sister whacked herself, so the headline should have been written as follows:

Simple, with perfect clarity.  But this woke nonsense of using the impersonal plural terms has the effect of confusing the issue — not that the cloth-eared editors and writers could care, because who needs clarity when feeeeelings are at stake?

Tossers.  And a pox on them for making me irritated enough to have to write about this bullshit.

Via Reader Sean F., another gem:

Everyone likes to tell us that if we adopt very strict gun control laws, no one who isn’t supposed to have firearms can get them. It’s so naive it’s almost adorable, or it would be if it wasn’t our rights they were idiotically talking about trampling on.

Instead, it’s very troubling because their nativity is likely to get someone killed.

This is known as “killing the message with illiteracy”.

FYI:  the words are “naïve” and “naïveté”.  We English writers don’t often use verbal modifications such as the acute accent (é), and the diacritic / umlaut  (ï) hardly ever.  But the latter should be written when the compound vowels need to be expressed individually, e.g. “nah-eev” instead of “nave”.  As I recall, I learned this back in 1965, in sixth grade from our English teacher, Mr. John Ball (MA, Oxon),.