Are you a Feb-U-ary or Feb-REW-ary kind of person?

Welcome to the wonderful world of dialects. Many countries have them. I lived in Germany for six years, and they have at least three distinct dialects, the main two being the northern (low) and south (high) German. The country of England also has dialect boundaries, even the city of London having borders where pronunciation is different for the same words. So sorry for being one of the lower types who recognize that every person's history is different, and one's dialect will reflect that person's history. But now I'm curious - answer honestly now. When you start asking a question starting with "Don't you ..." do you pronounce it as "dohntyoo" or "dohnchyoo?" When you say a word like "kitten" do you actually pronounce it as "kitten" or is the "t" sound suppressed, replaced with a very short stop, "ki'en?" Instead of the "t" in "it is - " don't you actually say "id iz? - " Do you really, in your usual informal conversations? I left school a LONG time ago. I'm an adult, been coast to coast in my country, the United States of America, and yes, there are different dialects here also. Know what a person from Boston use to start his car? "khakis." time to grow up - not everyone is from Oxford.

I'm mostly bad... but it is a PIC-ture, not a pit-cher and its ASK not axe... I do know how to say li-brary - not li-berry, but sometimes I'll say it wrong for a reason - so, do you say PIN the same as PEN?

Arrrgh! This is like asking a centipede in what order he puts down his feet! I am also a stickler for good pronunciation and I have been wandering around the house for at least a quarter of an hour muttering the name of the shortest month to myself under my breath. I come to the conclusion that I actually most often say 'Febry' (two syllables) most of the time and that occasionally this verges on 'Febbery'. It seems that many people of my acquaintance (some of whom are educated and intelligent) do say 'Feb-yew-ry' (three syllables) in normal speech. The science of linguistics has a name (I believe) for the reversal of phonemes in colloquial speech, though I forget what it is and it doesn't matter anyway because some scientists have an inordinate love of jargon: it makes them incomprehensible except to the cognoscenti and that, in turn, makes them feel special. It's a phenomenon which is not confined to English and it doesn't necessarily imply a lack of education: it is really a feature of dialect. I wish I could find an article I read some years ago in which the phenomenon of phoneme reversal () was discussed in some detail. Things that really do annoy me tend to be written words - 'flourescent', 'viola' (for 'voila'), 'Carrot's £1 per lb'. It also took me a long time to get my head around the pronunciation of 'leisure' as 'lee-zher' (I pronounce it with a short 'e' to rhyme with 'pleasure').

I have to agree, it is annoying when people mispronounce things all the time, it makes them sound really stupid. Though now it's actually just become fashionable among young people to do it, like the mispronunciation of ask you pointed out. The language is slowly getting dumbed down as fewer people are bothered by it, words are losing their meanings and correct pronunciations all the time.

Hi there GDTimothy I must agree with you on all but one, I hold my hand up and admit to jewellery though I say it like jewry haha maybe it is my accent I don't know! Yeah the one that really really gets me though is when people say axe instead of ask that really grates on my nerves!!

Well, I actually do say Feb-U-ary.. I believe that's How I was taught it her in my neck of the woods. But I agree with everything else you wrote - those are all pet peeves. I also have a story from a couple days ago. I work answering phones and a woman called up and upon giving me someones name -kept saying Motton Austin. I said "what's the first name?" she repeated Motton.. ??? "Can you spell that?" M-A-R-T-I-N.. OMG! I had to bite my tongue! She was from B-ah-sten (BOSTON). Anyway another that bothers me.. SODER not soda and recently even all TV shows I have been watching.. I have gotten this a lot ANT in stead of AU-NT!!! An ANT is something I squish. An Aunt is a dear relative.

Herro GDTimothy Guess I'm one of those who doesn't know what dialect they speak since I was born in California, raised there, however, have adopted Texas as my home. Do I have Texas accent. No, not really. People consistently ask me where I am from. Now let's talk about "creek" or "crik" I didn't look it up, however I pronounce using the first "creek". I say "ask", I had to say February out loud to listen to myself. I say "Feb-REW-ary". I think I'm pronouncing words by dictionary. I know I say "Picture". My "hello" is misspelled on purpose. It has been my "verbal icon" for years. Prosperous mylotting

Oh, good word rant! I can deal with the Feb-U-ary pronunciation as long as they KNOW how to spell it! The rest are horrors to hear, especially A-X-E! I allow for accents and regional pronunciations, for the most part, but not knowing correct spelling and grammar does annoy me. I get especially annoyed at news errors, verbal and print. Like you with Bush ... learn proper pronunciation when you are in the limelight!