• On Good Things Utah this morning – The English language can be complicated, and pronouncing words correctly can be difficult, too. I’ve had my fair share of mess ups, and I’m a native speaker! Mispronounced words are everywhere, and you might not even realize it. Members of an online forum have collected the simple words they hear mispronounced the most often. How many of these have you been guilty of saying wrong?
    • Espresso
      For certain words, a letter may sound different than it looks. But for others, like espresso, the pronunciation is exactly like what you see on the tin. Instead of pronouncing the “s” at the beginning of the word, many have heard it replaced with an “x.” So instead of “espresso,” we get “expresso.” This flip-flop can go for other words that start with “esp,” too. For example, one user shares that their wife and her entire family say “expecially” instead of “especially.”
    • Supposedly
      This is another instance of letter swapping. Instead of pronouncing the “d” as a “d” at the end of the word, it will become a “b.” Funnily enough, pronouncing it this way makes it a whole new word. So, instead of saying “supposedly,” which means something is generally accepted or believed, it becomes “supposably,” which means it may be assumed. To put it in simpler terms, “supposedly” = “allegedly” and “supposably” = “possibly.”
    • Etcetera
      I am confident enough to admit that this one gave me a lot of grief in my early years. When using the abbreviation, I would always swap the places of the “t” and “c”, making “ect.” and not “etc.” Luckily, I’ve finally learned my lesson. But enough about me, let’s go to the pronunciation! Again, we hear a lot of people pronounce the “t” as an “x” or even as “ck.” And before anyone says anything, the word can be spelled as “etcetera” or “et cetera.”
    • Nuclear
      There are quite a few in the forum who brought this one up. It seems many people like to replace the “-lear” in nuclear with “-cular.” Many have been reminded of Homer Simpson’s adamant belief that the word was pronounced this way whenever they hear it.
    • Asterisk
      I’m beginning to see a pattern of replacing one or more letters with “x.” In mispronunciation, land “asterisk” goes by “asterix.” So, instead of talking about everyone’s favorite little star symbol, we end up talking about a French cartoon warrior. We hope you tune in for these Hot Topics and so much more this morning on GTU!