New Rule: If you are going to USE a word on tv, at least know the pronunciation

[SoCalDem]

Today's words are:

epithet..it's EP-i-thet..yes there IS an "h" in there, folks

It's NOT..

epitaph.. that's for a deceased person

NOT..epitat...something to do with lace-making, perhaps?

NOT epitet.. Tet was epic, but not in this context


and then we have

hyperbole

It's NOT...

HYPER-bolly...some wacky Indian movie maybe?

It's hy-PER-bow-lee..The "bow" ?..think Clara Bow..not a ship's "bow"

.............................................

I know it's yet another nit to pick, but if newswriters are putting these words up on the prompter, they need to warn their news-readers ahead of time, just how to SAY these lesser-used words..or maybe use more common words they are not likely to flub:)

[KamaAina]

1. So what were you doing watching Fox, anyway?

:P

[Ian David]

2. Leave Shuster alone. He's going through Twitter withdrawal. n/t

[SoCalDem]

7. Poor david.. No more tweety-tweets for him

He got a little too much "honesty" in there for his bosses.. Not the first time he's gotten into a pickle for saying things.. I DO like him, but I still wish people would coach him on the pronunciation:)

[Greyhound]

3. It's not a nit, these people are paid huge sums of money and all they do is use words.

Is it really so much to ask that basic literacy is a requirement to speak for a living, and an exceptionally good living at that?

[eppur_se_muova]

43. I remember Brian Williams making reference to a "Wall Street wunderkind" ...

and he pronounced it as an English word, "wonder-kind". I'm inclined to blame the copy editor for that one, particularly if the teleprompter can't do italics for foreign words.

According to Wikipedia, foreign words should be spelled phonetically -- VOONder-kinnt, for example.

[upi402]

4. k/r I'm sure I'd make mistakes as well

... but some newsbabes make a lot of mistakes that are clearly a lack of familiarity. While Laura Flanders and Amy Goodman are relegated to the outskirts of journalism and Bill Moyers gets sacked.

[Bicoastal]

5. A few years ago, I thought that "rhetoric," pronounced Ree-TORE-ic, was one word...

...and something pronounced "redderick," which I never had actually seen in print, was another.

Man, was my face red when someone told me that it was just one word I had been mispronouncing for years! :dunce:

[kestrel91316]

14. Don't feel bad. Do you remember TV Guide? Sometimes a listing for a

particular time slot and channel would just say "To Be Announced". Until I was in my late 30's, I thought that was the name of some show, probably a fundie preacher's gig about biblical prophecy or some such dreck. Every time I tried to watch it to see if I was right, some other damned show was on, some rerun or movie or whatever.

True story. I was at home all alone when it finally dawned on me. I still turned beet red and almost cried I laughed at myself so hard.

[CTyankee]

28. I didn't know how to pronounce "hegemony" until just a few years ago.

I thought it was HEDGE-a-mony, but that was because I really never hear it used, altho I see it in print. Come to find out it's pronounced "hedge-EM-ony.

[Codeine]

40. One of my favorite words as a young teen was "annihilate."

Unfortunately I pronounced it "a-nilly-ate". For years.

Sigh. :dunce:

[SoCalDem]

42. My brother thought the prayer said "deliver us from eagles, Amen"

:)

[Manifestor_of_Light]

6. Nobody knows when to use A or AN.

AN in front of words that start with vowels, or H. As in "an historic moment". Even Obama messes that one up. They always use A.

They also do not understand subject verb agreement.
The one that bugs me is the commercial for The Nation Magazine that states, "Brains is back in the White House".


:shrug: :banghead:

[hex29a]

10. There is no brains in The Nation. It is a awful situation.

:silly:

[SoCalDem]

13. "Brains"... that's a quirky one , to be sure, but in fairness

"Brains"..... as in ONE brain with a lot of gray-matter/smarts.. like " That kid's got brains"..we all know the kid's only got ONE brain, but brains is often used as plural, even when referring to one single brain...so in that (technically incorrect, though) usage, "is" may be the "correct" combination for their headline.

They could have/should have said "Brain-power" is back in the white house, but the used the vernacular terminology that most people would pick up on, and not pick apart:evilgrin:

[hex29a]

20. I think you went to a lot of trouble to defend sloppy grammar.

I know it's common but it still sounds like fingernails on a green blackboard. :D

[Obamanaut]

37. Or, to expand the contraction in "That kid's got brains", we find

"That kid has got brains" and this is just as bad, since "That kid has a brain" is better all around.

[SoCalDem]

38. Colloquial v correct.. never-ending battle

:)

[Qutzupalotl]

29. From Merriam-Webster, regarding the letter H:

"The traditional rule about whether to use a or an before a word beginning with h is that if the h is sounded, a is the correct form (: a hospital; | a hotel). But if the accent is on the second syllable, ( | historic; | habitual), there is greater likelihood that, at least in speaking, 'an habitual' will sound more natural. One form is not more correct than the other, although some constructions may strike readers as pretentious or old-fashioned ( | an heroic act; | an humanitarian)."

[TuxedoKat]

8. These words aren't that unusual

I would expect your average well-read college grad to be able to read and pronounce them and use them with some frequency, especially in their line of work. You are right though, if they can't pronouce them right they shouldn't use them as they lose a great deal of credibility.

[kestrel91316]

9. I have been watching Outer Limits episodes on Hulu and this has got to be

one of my pet peeves (other than the appallingly BAD science in their sci-fi scripts) - they continually mispronounce scientific terms. They obviously made no attempt to find out how to say all those big words, and they butcher them with abandon.

[PCIntern]

18. I watch those too....

very cerebral...

[kestrel91316]

39. Don't the mispronunciations and grammatical errors drive you crazy??

They happen just often enough to irritate me.......but I love the show anyway, lol.

[SteppingRazor]

11. You know what's weird? (Example that the English language was crafted by the insane #5,243)

Yes, hy-PER-bo-lee is correct as a noun, but the adjective form is pronounced hy-per-BALL-ic.

[SoCalDem]

15. or as a newsreader would probably say......hyperbaric

:rofl:

[hex29a]

23. I before E except after C - in a weird society.

:D

[gratuitous]

12. It's not pronounced "new kew ler"?

Who will tell President Bush?

[SoCalDem]

16. fingernail----meet chalkboard

the odd thing about nuclear... as more and more people who should know better, used it incorrectly, it became an "either-or"..

Jimmy Carter was a NUCLEAR ENGINEER, who also says "new-queue-Lur".

[hex29a]

26. I heard a contemporary scientist say it the other day, I cringed.

And it seems that one of the Rs in February has been exiled to the Land of Illiterates.
grr

[SoCalDem]

31. my latest pet peeve? PERscription

More and more of the drug ads are saying it that way..gotta appeal to the undereducated amongst us:(

[a la izquierda]

17. hey, now, give the Irish from the Bronx a break...

my dad can't pronounce letter combinations such as "th," so my dad pronounces epithet as epitet.

[Subdivisions]

19. I think David is flingin' more slitch than Tweety or Rather these days. Poor guy. n/t

[Edweird]

21. Hyperbole is also hy-PER-buh-luh when referring to this:

[hex29a]

24. That's a hyperbola. Not same as hyperbole.

:D

[SoCalDem]

33. and then there is always this

pergola:)

[Edweird]

41. hypergola

[Edweird]

36. D'oh!

[hobbit709]

22. Some epitaphs could be epithets

[progressoid]

25. I have to buy larger pants because of my hyperbelly.

[elocs]

27. I would be happy if we could get a single pronunciation of the country of "Iraq"

since we've been somewhat involved there for some years now.

[SoCalDem]

32. I always wonder what Texans would say if people called their home

Teaks-Ass

[rampart]

30. Eyjafjallajoekull

please cut them some slack if they can't pronounce the icelandic volcano.

[CanisCrocinus]

34. Luke Russert, Boy Reporter,

was responsible for a couple of nice ones in the past 24 hours. "Colloquy" kept coming out "colliliquy" (rhyming with "soliloquy"). And when he was describing the House leaders walking arm in arm down the street on their way to the vote, he said "they just decided sporadically" to walk. Spontaneously, Luke...

[SoCalDem]

35. At least he has his youthful exhuberance to use as an excuse.

He's actually getting better.. I notice he's lost his chubby-cheeked look too:)