A Lesson with Miss Pronunciation

"Listen up, class."
-Miss Pronunciation

It's time for AMAZE-ing Words Wednesday! Today’s word lesson will be taught by renowned language arts instructor, Miss Pronunciation. Miss Pronunciation will present the incorrect and correct ways of articulating some commonly mispronounced words in the English language. Without further ado, I hand our virtual classroom over to Miss Pronunciation.

AUTHOR

Arthur is a lovable aardvark featured in children’s books by Marc Brown and the PBS series of the same name and/or Dudley’s Moore drunken character from the movie Arthur (1981) which co-starred Liza Minnelli and gave John Gielgud a Supporting Actor Oscar. An author writes books. Please do not confuse the two.

ASK

An axe is a tool wielded for cutting down trees or butchering family members (e.g., Lizzie Borden). To ask is to inquire, query, request information.

ATHLETE

An ath-a-lete does not exist. Unfortunately, the additional syllable is often added by those simply unaware of the proper two-syllable version, athlete, or by such athletes who have been knocked in the head too many times.

ET CETERA

I believe that Excetera, or Ekcetera, is Superhero Elektra’s younger sister whose ninja skills didn’t quite make the cut to get her own comic line. Et cetera, pronounced [et set-er-uh], is the Latin phrase meaning “and so on” and is used to indicate more items in a list without naming them specifically.

Pic from Kevin at deviantart.com

IDEA

An ideal is a standard of perfection or excellence, while an idea is a notion or thought which pops into your mind like that light bulb above the cartoon character's head. What would be ideal is for people to pronounce idea without the added “l” since it is rather unnecessary and somewhat confusing.

LIBRARY

Libary is the command given to your dog Barry when you wish him to play dead for the amusement of your neighbors. A library (note the "r") is a public institution which collects and loans out books to residents who go the trouble of procuring a library card.

New York Public Library

MISCHIEVOUS

Mischievous is a word almost no one knows how to say. However, it does not have an ē sound anywhere in the word (no mischievEEous). Those who mispronounce it demonstrate a mischievousness all their own. Personally, Miss Pronunciation believes that the problem could easily be avoided by changing the spelling of this word altogether to mischuhvus.

PICTURE

A pitcher is what one uses to pour liquids into cups and glasses, as in “Bring me and my buddies another pitcher of beer!” If, however, you have too many pitchers, you and your friends will not be a pretty picture for long. Not only will your speech slur such that you can no longer get a “k” sound in before the “ch,” but nearby tables will ask you to leave or call the cab for you. (Drink responsibly. Or not at all.)

Johannes Vermeer's The Milkmaid
A piCture with a piTcher

SPECIFIC

The Pacific is an ocean or the region of islands in that ocean. Specific is something identifiable and particular. You may wish to be more specific in using this word by making sure that you include the requisite “s."

SUPPOSEDLY

If the good-looking guy across the hall asks whether you get ESPN because he wants to watch the game at your place, do not answer “Supposably I do.” That will be the last “I do” you say to him if he possesses pronunciation skills. In fact, he will supposedly find another young lady in the apartment building whose couch is comfortable and whose speech is clear. “Oh well,” you say, “I didn’t want a sports-obsessed couch potato anyway!” Perhaps, but you might want to shift that “b” to a “d” just in case the guy you adore wants to know if the Caribbean cruise passes through Acapulco, to which you would say, “Supposedly” as you pack your carry-on to join him.

Miss Pronunciation thanks you for your attention and hopes that this lesson has been enlightening and entertaining.

What other words have you heard mispronounced? Do you struggle with certain word pronunciations yourself? (Undoubtably Undoubtedly, it can be hard to break a habit!)

Wednesday Words: What is Lorem Ipsum?

While looking through templates for my blog, I read the words Lorem Ipsum perhaps 4,622 times – or at least it felt like it. Have you seen them?

What is Lorem Ipsum?  Well, it’s dummy, or placeholder, text historically used in the printing business.  You can find it on software templates now as well, including blog templates.  Lorem Ipsum appears to most to be nonsense wording, such as:

Ea eam labores imperdiet, apeirian democritum ei nam, doming neglegentur ad vis. Ne malorum ceteros feugait quo, ius ea liber offendit placerat, est habemus aliquyam legendos id. Eam no corpora maluisset definitiones, eam mucius malorum id. Quo ea idque commodo utroque, per ex eros etiam accumsan.

From what source did this odd nonsense language originate? Lipsum.com explains that the lines come from The Extremes of Good and Evil by Cicero, written in 45 B.C.  The line begins, “Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet . . .” Roughly translated, Lorem Ipsum means “Pain itself.” The essay from Cicero addresses the partaking of pleasure and the avoidance of pain. If you want to see a full translation of the passage, click HERE.

Odd to think that the words “pain itself” were chosen to grace the pages of printing, newsletter, and blog templates. And why choose text from over 2000 years ago? Why not use the lyrics of Rapture by Blondie? Plenty of those are nonsense too.

Just because...

Typically, Lorem Ipsum generators use a vocabulary of over 200 Latin words somewhat randomly arranged.  (Check out Wikipedia’s entry on Lorem Ipsum as well.)

Lorum Ipsum is not the only dummy text around, however. If you much prefer English gobbledygook, you can try Malevole’s text generator. Or Lorem Ipsum Generator 3 permits you to choose what language your gibberish appears in. The Sitepoint website links to other dummy text generators as well.

Why on earth does this fascinate me? I find words of all kinds intriguing, and the use of placeholder text indicates that words and letters are important even if they mean nothing at all.

It’s a bit like hearing a toddler babble. Young children try out sounds and combinations of sounds until they stumble upon something that seems to have meaning to the adults around them. Then they repeat it. The goo-goos and ga-gas are like placeholder language, until the real thing replaces the babbling.

Moreover, we understand at some basic level that the presentation of text is important, so that we want to see how the words look on the page even before we have specific sentences ready to go. Admittedly, Lincoln wrote the Gettysburg address on an envelope, but it still matters how a printed page looks if you want readers to devour it.  Using Latin or other dummy text reminds us how key it is to have our words be accessible to others. It is not enough to speak brilliance to ourselves. We want others to read our words.

Frankly, I’m glad that there was placeholder text so I could view how the blog page would look once I came up with something to say.  Have you used Lorem Ipsum or other dummy text for any purpose? What do you know about text generators? Might you ever use them? Do you know Latin? Do you think it matters how text is presented to readers? Is content or presentation more important?

Wednesday Words: Euphemistically Speaking

When someone dies, we often say something like, “We lost Uncle Eddie.” In my quirky little mind, I always think, Lost? Like our car keys, an umbrella, or what? If you lose something, you look for it. But we aren't looking for Uncle Eddie. We know where he is. And we aren’t going to reach between the couch cushions and recover his soul like last week’s change. But saying that we lost someone sounds so much better than saying they died. It’s a euphemism.

What other popular euphemisms are there? There are plenty when it comes to death: passed on, kicked the bucket, no longer with us, etc. But other topics are also too sensitive for us to use frank wording to express our thoughts. How about the following?

Assisted living facility – Nursing homes, or old folks’ homes, had a bad reputation, so these places needed a better moniker for their business. Assisted living facility at least conveys what happens there, but the phrase doesn’t roll off one’s tongue.

Correctional facility?

Correctional Facility – If you’ve been saying that your cousin is in a correctional facility, face it: He’s in jail, prison, the slammer. We all hope that the experience corrects whatever was askew to begin with that landed him in jail, but regardless, he’s locked up like Tweety Bird in a cage.

Electronic surveillance – It's spying with a camera or bug, plain and simple.

Esthetician – Waxing someone's nether regions is a hot job these days (no pun intended). I suppose calling your personal hair-yanker an esthetician is preferable to other options, like Follicle Remover, Hair Hijacker, or whatever. I don't what it should be called, but somehow “esthetician” makes it sound much nicer.

Exotic dancer – It's not that exotic really. You can find strippers just about anywhere. I've never visited a strip club, but my understanding is that their dancing ability also varies in its quality, so dancer isn't necessarily an accurate term either.

Indisposed – If you call someone and receive the message that he/she is “indisposed,” you might hear the flush in the background soon after. But it is a whole lot better than some of the terms I heard boys call it back in junior high. And we use other euphemisms as well like “using the bathroom,” “taking care of business,” “answering nature’s call,” etc.

Laid off – This euphemism can join “let go” and “downsized,” along with the ridiculous “right-sized” term, to express that your company fired you. Getting fired stinks, and changing its name doesn't help the person without the job. It just makes the company feel less guilty for kicking an employee out the door.

Over the hill – Exactly when this proverbial hill peaks, I’m not sure. (If you say 40, I’m crawling through the internet, finding you, and smacking you upside the head.) But at some point, when you are truly old, you have to call it something. I plan to call it “chronologically misrepresented” – as in my age won't indicate how young I really am.

Preowned – Your car is USED. If you can’t say that aloud, buy a new one.

Sanitary landfill – Growing up, we called it the dump. I don’t know what’s so sanitary about it. It's refuse, trash, waste – all heaped in a pile on some discarded piece of land.

Genesis: Illegal Alien

Undocumented worker – When did this term overtake “illegal alien”? I don’t think the Genesis song would sound nearly as good with “It’s no fun being an undocumented worker.” Fun doesn't even rhyme with that! Immigration policy aside (and I do not discuss politics here!), the term isn’t exactly clear who we are talking about.

What other euphemisms have you noticed? Which ones do you think are appropriate? Which ones seem completely ridiculous? Do you have any euphemisms to suggest? Why do you think we use euphemisms, instead of saying what we really mean?

Wednesday Words: Rock Band Names

If you want to have a lot of fun with words, learn to play a musical instrument, form a band, and then name it! One of the interview questions I want asked of bands is how they chose their name. Were they inspired by a person, a place, or a thing? Did they choose it out of a hat or consider the possibility for hours on end before arriving at their moniker? Did one person name it or did all of them agree?

Some band names are rather straightforward – like Heart, Train, and Alabama. Others are a mouthful like Credence Clearwater Revival or Toad the Wet Sprocket.

Here are a few curious rock band names and the origin of those names:

10,000 Maniacs – Originally The Burn Victims, the band changed its name to 10,000 Maniacs based on the low-budget flick Two Thousand Maniacs. According to one source, Steven Gustafson said none of them had seen the 1964 horror movie and thought the title was 10,000 Maniacs.

ABBA – ABBA is an acryonym for its four members: Agnetha, Benny, Björn, and Ani-Frid. It's catchy and means “father” in Hebrew.

Butthole Surfers – I hate this band name, but you do wonder where they got it. It's based on an early song they did with the same title. The band called themselves many irreverent or even offensive names and eventually stuck with this one.

Def Leppard – Originally called the Atomic Mass, Joe Elliott joined the band as vocalist and suggested changing the name to Deaf Leopard – which he had come up with at school. Joe also changed the spelling to match up with Led Zeppelin's name – you know, misspelling.

Duran Duran – This 1980s band was named after the villain in the movie Barbarella, starring a scantily-dressed Jane Fonda. Dr. Durand Durand is the inventor of the Positronic Ray. I have no idea what happened to the extra D's when the band adopted his name.

Foo Fighters – World War II pilots from the United States War described anomalous balls of light they saw flying alongside them at high altitudes “Foo Fighters,” based on the Smokey Stover comic strip phrase, “Where there's Foo, there's fire.” So essentially, the Foo Fighters are named after UFOs.

Hootie & the Blowfish – Hootie & the Blowfish were named after two friends of lead singer Darius Rucker – one of whom looked like an owl and the other who had fat cheeks.

Led Zeppelin – When Jimmy Page formed the band, Keith Moon, The Who's drummer, commented that the band would go down “like a lead balloon.” Band member John Entwhistle remarked that it would be more like a “lead zeppelin.” The spelling of the first word was changed, presumably to prevent anyone from mispronouncing it “leed.”

Lynyrd Skynyrd – Lynyrd Skynyrd is a butchering of the name Leonard Skinner, a gym teacher at Robert E. Lee High School in Jacksonville, Florida, where three of the band members attended. Apparently, Mr. Skinner did not appreciate long hair and sent each of these boys to the principal, resulting in their suspension. All those y's were used to avoid the legal trouble involved with matching his name too closely.

Mr. Mister – Why the two misters? It was an inside joke about the Weather Report's album Mr. Gone, in which there are references to Mister This and Mister That. Then it simply became Mr. Mister.

Nickelback – Thank Starbucks for this one. Before stardom, band member Mike Kroeger worked at the local coffee shop. Whenever a customer ordered a $1.45 coffee and handed over $1.50, he had to give them a nickel back.

Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark – Andy McCluskey and Paul Humphreys chose their name by combining various words Andy had written out as part of song ideas and lyrics.

Pink Floyd – Pink Anderson and Floyd Council were two blues men who inspired founding member Syd Barrett.

Smashing Pumpkins – Seriously, I could not get a straight answer on this one. The band has given various responses to the question, none of them making any more sense than the “Smashing Pumpkins” moniker itself. Does anybody out there know?

The Grateful Dead – Originally called the Warlocks, that name was being used by another band also. Presumably, Jerry Garcia found the phrase “grateful dead” in a dictionary one night, which refers to a spirit who is thankful to a living person who has helped him find peace. From the Egyptian Book of the Dead: “Amidst the sullen darkness, there shown a solitary light. For it is known ‘neath the sands of the pharaohs that deep in the land of night, the ship of the sun is drawn by the grateful dead.”

Thompson Twins – Growing up, I could never figure this one out since there were three of them and no one was a twin. But the band is named after Thompson and Thomson, Scotland Yard detectives in a Belgian comic book series called The Adventures of Tin-Tin. Though not related, the two fictional characters are at times referred to as twins.

Three Dog Night – Vocalist Danny Hutton's girlfriend saw a documentary on indigenous Australians who used the expression “three dog night” to refer to a night so cold, one needed to sleep with three dogs to stay warm. Appropriately, the band had three lead singers.

ZZ Top – It has been theorized that they were named after two brands of cigarette rolling papers – Zig Zag and Top. However, guitarist Billy Gibbons stated that it was a combination of blues men Z.Z. Hill and B.B. King which led him to ZZ King, and then – figuring that B.B. King was on top – ZZ Top.

What band names do you like? Have you ever considered what you would name a band? Do you like knowing the origin of band names? Be sure to also check out Erin Brambilla's post on What Would You Name Your Punk Band? with a link to a band name generator.

Prickly Pronunciations

These words all rhyme:

New

Cue

Lieu

Woo

Do

So how do you spell the “oo” sound in English?  Um, it depends. 

The English language represents a mixing of cultures because it has borrowed words from many other tongues and pronunciation has evolved.  Often, this leads to confusion about pronouncing words in general because there aren’t standard rules for many letter combinations.  We grabbed words from everywhere, so the word may have been anglicized or the spelling from the original source might remain in some form. 

I have often been glad that English is my first language because learning it later in life would probably feel like picking grains of rice out of pile of mud – tedious to say the least.  I read a poem to this effect a long time ago and saved it in my files.  It’s a brilliant summary of the difficulties of pronunciation in our English language.  Take a look. 

Recovering Sounds from Orthography

Brush Up Your English 

I take it you already know

Of tough and bough and cough and dough.

Others may stumble but not you,

On hiccough, through, plough and through.

Well done! And now you wish, perhaps,

To learn of less familiar traps. 

Beware of heard, a dreadful word

That looks like beard and sounds like bird,

And dead – it’s said like bed, not bead.

For goodness's sake, don't call it deed!

Watch out for meat and great and threat:

They rhyme with suite and straight and debt. 

A moth is not a moth in mother,

Nor both in bother, broth in brother,

And here is not a match for there,

Nor dear and fear for bear and pear,

And then there's dose and rose and lose –

Just look them up – and goose and choose,

And cork and work and card and ward,

And font and front and word and sword,

And do and go and thwart and cart.

Come, come, I've hardly made a start. 

A dreadful language? Man alive,

I'd mastered it when I was five. 

The funny thing is that most people do master English – more or less.  We’re not all great spellers, and we have to scratch our heads now and then to think about which letters to use.  But we mostly get it. 

So how do you make the

ē sound now?

Why is that?  First, we typically learn the sound of a word before its spelling.  So while the spelling may strike us as unusual, we still know that [throo] is a word which we now associate with “through.”

Second, although we are often taught as children to sound things out, it is better to memorize whole words.  And what’s the best way to memorize words?  Well, if you read a lot (whether novels, comic books, magazines, online, etc.) and practice writing words correctly, pronouncing and spelling them becomes second nature. 

What pronunciations do you find particularly quirky in the English language?  What amazes you about our ability to master our native tongue?  If English is your second language, has pronouncing words tripped you up at times?

Wednesday Words: What's Your Pet Peeve?

What is your greatest pet peeve in common language usage? 

No, not that!
Anything but THAT!

I polled some friends and here are a few I heard:

• Confusing words like your and you're; to, too, and two; idea and ideal
• “Anyways” instead of Anyway”
• Ending sentences with a preposition
• Misuse of lie/lay, that/which, due to/because of
• Redundancies like “Return back”
• Mispronunciations like “arthur” instead of “author”
• Problems with compound possessives – “My wife and I’s kids” instead of “My wife’s and my kids”
• “Yeah” instead of “Yes, ma’am” (maybe that’s a Southern thing)
• “Like,” “and so on,” “and all,” “all that,” “you know” peppered throughout speech 

But the winner of my informal Facebook poll would be the person who agrees with my all-time pet peeve.  (Good job, Amy!)  My own vote is the oft-used phrase, “I could care less.”  Well, I reply, then do. 

You see, what people are actually trying to communicate is that they don’t care at all.  The original phrase, therefore, is “I couldn’t care less” – as in “I could not possibly care any less than I currently do because I don’t care at all.”  If you “could care less,” then that means that you care some! 

In this case, I do not accept that the phrase is simply changing; the argument that language is fluid and always evolving, that the correct word or phrase is what people most commonly use.  Because the phrase simply doesn’t make sense in that way. 

Whenever I hear it, I feel like Wolverine’s claws are scraping against the language center of my brain, ripping apart all that is good and holy.  And half of the time, it is from someone I don’t know well, so I can’t interject, “Hey, that’s wrong!” without risking weird stares, societal ostracizing, or getting pushed onto my keister.  (Though I can be found from time to time yelling at my TV or radio, “I couldn’t care less!!” to someone who has misused the phrase yet again.)  Also, adding rudeness to poor language usage falls into the “two wrongs do not make a right” category. 

So do you have your own language pet peeves?  What are they?  How do you handle it when you hear them?

Wednesday Words: Are You Game?

I am outnumbered in my family!  Living with three boys, I am often sucked into playing a strategy board game in which I feel like I’m plotting a geometry equation or preparing for the next World War.  If the choice was left to me, we would play word games A LOT!  I know I’m not the only one out there with this predilection.   

Why are word games so engaging?   As I’ve said, language is rich.  Word games rely on the ability to rearrange letters to make a word or to know definitions of obscure words or to describe a word without using any form of it.  The desire to communicate with another player or simply play around with words themselves drives the success of these games. 

Here are a few of my own favorites:

Scrabble – The quintessential word game in my opinion, but that may stem from my grandmother’s insistence that we play the game every time we visited her.  She kept her Scrabble set out on a Lazy Susan on her dining room table, ready to go whenever guests graced her home.  The game involves using seven letter tiles to form words and then placing them on a checkered board.  Scoring is determined by the value of the letter (e.g., E=1, K=5, Z=10) and bonus points available on certain board squares (e.g., Double Letter or Triple Word scores).  I’ve played everything from “at” to “myriad” and in between.   

Apples to Apples – I was first introduced to this board game at a couples’ retreat.  There are two piles of cards – one with adjectives and one with nouns.  An adjective is thrown out each round, and players compete to throw out a noun card which best describes the adjective played.  For instance, “Notorious” might be met with cards saying “Lizzie Borden,” “Richard Nixon,” “Aliens,” and “My Mother-in-Law.”  A judge in each round chooses his favorite, and the player whose card won gets a point. 

The pace and enjoyment of this game depends entirely upon the knowledge, quick-wittedness, creativity, and fun-factor of your players.  I’ve played with overly serious people and counted the minutes (no, seconds) until we were done, and I’ve played with loose and fabulous friends that made me fall off my chair with laughter.  Anyway, it’s a great game for a large group of friends, and my family enjoys the Apples to Apples Jr. version (for 9 yrs+) as well. 

Catchphrase – I have only played the electronic version of this game.  Sitting in a circle with all the players, you divide up into teams (every other player is how we’ve done it), and try to guess a word described by the person holding the Catchphrase contraption.  Meanwhile, the clock is ticking . . . literally.  When the time is up and the buzzer goes off, whichever team is holding the game gives a point to the other team.  It’s like Password or Taboo in that you are describing a word provided, but the race against the clock and the randomness of the buzzer keep the game moving.  It’s always a kick when I’ve played this one with a group of women.  It’s particularly fun to have people hurriedly trying to explain, gesture, and yell to get someone to guess correctly! 

Hangman – No board needed!  Who hasn’t played this one?  It’s a perennial favorite.  And it should be.  It’s fun for both sides.  Choose a word, draw the gallows, and if the other player can’t guess it, you hang ‘em high.  Or try to guess a word by throwing out letters before you get hung.  It’s the perfect waiting-room activity for you and your child.  And you can vary it to teach names or words you want others to learn.  For instance, studying mythology?  Use Hangman to have a group of students guess the Greek god you’re thinking of.  I can recall hours of playing Hangman as a child with my sisters and friends, and I’m still tickled when someone sits next to me and draws it on a piece of paper. 

What word games do you enjoy playing?  Do you have any new or obscure recommendations?  As I look at my short list, I realize I need to add to my repertoire! 

Now back to my family playing word games.  Lest you think that I am merely attempting to sway the stakes in my favor, my logic-minded, non-talkative husband beats me in Scrabble almost every time.  In fact, the first time I pulled the box out, I blabbed on and on about how I had played so many times growing up.  I was sure I would defeat him so badly that he might actually cry.  Instead, he played a word with all seven letters on the Triple Word Score, cinching a landslide victory that smarts to this day. 

But the fun is in the playing!  I’ll be back at it again soon.  How about you?

Wednesday Words: Shakespeare Shares

How many people can say that they coined phrases that will still be in use over 400 years after they introduced them?  Only a handful, I would think.  But I have discovered that William Shakespeare is to credit, or blame, for numerous phrases and proverbs in our English language.  Here are just a few:

•                    Eaten out of house and home (Henry V, Part 2)

•                    Fair play (The Tempest)

•                    Foul play (Love’s Labours Lost)

•                    Good riddance (Troilus and Cressida)

•                    Hair stand on end (Hamlet)

•                    Heart’s content (Henry VI and The Merchant of Venice)

•                    In a pickle (The Tempest)

•                    Jealousy is the green-eyed monster (Othello)

•                    Love is blind (Merchant of Venice)

•                    One fell swoop (Macbeth) (by the way, fell = savage or cruel like felon)

•                    Pound of flesh (The Merchant of Venice)

•                    Salad days (Antony and Cleopatra)

•                    Send packing (I Henry IV)

•                    The short and the long of it (The Merry Wives of Windsor)

•                    Though this be madness, yet there is method in it ("There's a method to my madness") (Hamlet)

•                    'Tis high time (The Comedy of Errors)

•                    Wear my heart upon my sleeve (Othello)

•                    What the dickens (The Merry Wives of Windsor) (dickens = hell)

•                    Wild-goose chase (Romeo and Juliet) 

Minneapolis, MN Restaurant

There are other sayings that Good Ol’ Bill popularized, even if they weren’t his own, such as “It’s Greek to me” (Julius Caesar) and “All’s well that ends well” (All’s Well that Ends Well).

I had no idea how many commonly used expressions Shakespeare is responsible for!  I have tried to imagine another person who has had such an influence on English.  The only book I can think of that would rival The Complete Works of Shakespeare for infusing words and phrases into the English language is the Bible – which is actually a collection of sixty-six books written by forty authors.

How have Shakespeare’s words become so popular in our society?  How is it that a 16th/17th century poet and playwright still exerts so much sway over our language today?  I have to wonder if any other single person will ever match Shakespeare’s impact.

What Shakespearean phrases do you most like?  If you want to see more, here are a few websites to check out:

www.pathguy.com

www.shakespeare.about.com

www.nosweatshakespeare.com

Did you know that many of our expressions emanated from the Bard’s writing?  Can you think of anyone else who has been a significant contributor to our language?  And while we're at it, what's your favorite quote or play from William Shakespeare?