Talk:List of words commonly mispronounced

Tannin, I'm afraid that I consider your new page to be (a) largely needless duplication of material from List of words of disputed pronunciation, and furthermore (b) inherently non-NPOV. Oh, and you referred to this list as "a list of definately wrong ones". Is "definately" the correct spelling of "definitely"? ;) -- Oliver P. 05:27 Mar 8, 2003 (UTC)

Don't ever, ever, ever take my word on the spelling of anything!! Oh, and you are quite right, I forgot to remove the words that are not disputed (listed here) from the list of words that are disputed (listed on the other page). I'll attend to that now. Tannin

But... but... I don't even agree with the existence of this page! I'm hoping that the salvageable material from this page can be transferred to the other one, and this one turned into a redirect! -- Oliver P. 06:04 Mar 8, 2003 (UTC)

Removed: nuclear - often mispronounced nucular

This implied that nu-kyu-lar isn't an accepted pronunciation, when it is according to Mirriam-Webster. -º¡º

It is "generally" not an acceptable pronunciation, according to the dictionary.com (http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=nuclear) entry.

It sure wasn't accepted when I was in school, and saying "nukular" among educated people certainly could be a source of embarassment. Pronouncing the word as written is not considered wrong by anyone. Mkweise

Well there you go, even the dictionaries disagree. Who are *we* to say this pronunciation is wrong "beyond dispute"? -º¡º

Exactly my point!!! -- Oliver P. 06:22 Mar 8, 2003 (UTC)

How common is the mispronunciation of Arkansas? Is it that common? -- Zoe

In the States, I should hope that almost everyone gets it right. In other parts of the world though, I should think it is very common indeed to say it the way it looks. I doubt that more than ... oh ... maybe 30% of Australians would know the right way to say it. I assume that (e.g) South Africans or Scots are the same. Tannin

The problem is, in the state of Arkansas, it's pronounced Arkansaw, but in the state of Kansas, it's pronounced ArKANsas. Nobody can say that either is more correct that the other. -- Zoe

Ahh! I thought arKANsas was just what ignorant foreigners said, not knowing any better. In that case, it should go on the other list, I guess. Tannin

I'm with Oliver. By definition, if a pronounciation is wrong (IE, my pronounciation of gesture with a hard 'g'), then it's not common. If a pronounciation is common, then it's not wrong. Hence, redirect... Martin

That sucks. In particular Zoe's sneaky minor edits suck. (Examine the page history.) Look, this is not a page I particularly care about, but this business of imposing a POV by force when there is no consensus is getting out of hand around here. Tannin 14:13 Mar 8, 2003 (UTC)

You're totally right Tannin - I'm sorry. :-( Martin

Thankyou Martin. The silly thing is .... this is such a harmless and trivial page! We seem to manage allright on at least some of the really big issues - for example, I don't see any active edit wars on the Iraq Crisis, or abortion, or any of several other major ones. Well ... maybe it's better to have our arguments over an issue that I for one ain't going to lose any sleep over. Tannin

But where are you getting your "correct" pronunciation from?!? Minute is pronounced mi-nyute in the UK. cferrero 14:20 Mar 8, 2003 (UTC)

More complicated that that: a small steak is a "minute steak" - and it's generally (in my experience) pronounced like the time, not like mi-nyute. Martin

I'm open to discussion on that, Cferrero. I'd suggest that a sensible way to do it would be to take the leading dictionaries - let's say OED, Merriam-Webster & Macquarie, and regard any pronunciation that any one of the three lists as "OK".

(In VFD I replied to your earlier mention of this point with: Seems to me that if either Merriam-Webster or OED list a particular variant, then that variant must be regarded as one of the correct ones. (It might not be correct in both UK & International English, but if it's correct in either one then it's a valid variant usage.) If it's not listed in OED or Merriam-Webster or Macquarie, then it just about has to be incorrect. My feeling is that any word consistently pronounced in a way that none of the major dictionaries recommend has got to be an interesting one!)

Tannin

What about the word commonly in the title of the article? Sorry to be pedantic, but I've never heard Antarctica pronounced Antartika. It sounds like a variation of metathesis, in the same way as asked is often pronounced aksed. And methathetical pronunciations are mostly local/regional, rather than global. Would you say that metathesis is mispronunciation? cferrero 14:46 Mar 8, 2003 (UTC)

Would it be acceptable to keep the title of this page, which I like, and put a disclaimer at the top stating something like "All 'correct' pronunciations are accurate according to the OED, Merriam Webster, American Heritage..." etc. -- Ô¿Ô