I once worked with a woman who loved and collected giraffes. But she pronounced the word with a long “i”: gEYEraffe. The rest of us would talk to her about giraffes, always pronouncing their name correctly, but that never fazed her. They remained gEYEraffes. It actually became kind of endearing after a while, so from time to time I pronounce them that way myself. Who knows; maybe giraffes prefer it.
If you want this gEYEraffe to look in this book and find you a reason to be happy in the middle of your work week, please comment with a page number between 1 and 611, and another number between 1 and 25. And if you wish, you can tell me about mispronunciations you hear and like.
Could your gEYEraffe look up 222 no 5 please? Hope it’s a nice cool one…
PS FIRST!
“air hockey”
Which might not be cool in the temperature sense, but is cool to play.
page 24 number 2 please.
“railroad date nails”
I love it when I learn new things. Now I need to start looking for date nails for specific birth years. A new hobby!
Thanks Becky! If the gEYEraffe can reach down to page 574, number 5, I’d appreciate it.
The gEYEraffe knows no limits. And the book says:
“open-air beauty”
Not so much incorrect pronouncement, but my British sometimes comes out on particular words, and sometimes I get odd looks. Y’all say V-EYE-tamins here in North America, but I still say “vit” rhyming with “bit.”
Gar-ah-ge versus ga-ridge.
Other fun misnomers including getting blank stares when I ask for kitchen roll (paper towel), the infamous “Can I have a rubber?” question posed of the teacher (eraser), full stops at the end of sentences (period), etc etc. It’s amazing that we speak the same language at all.
Um, page 45, line 4 please.
I have a British client who always makes me giggle whenever he wants to stay at a Ren-NAY-sance hotel.
Al-EW-min-EEY-um (instead of Ah-LOO-min-UM) cracks me up, too. 🙂
Which way do you say “schedule?”
From the book:
“numerology”
Ha ha ha! When Dan and I were watching ‘Dancing with the Stars’ one year, one of the episodes did a kind of “Who do you think will win?” between the dancing, and one of the people was a numerologist. She introduced herself as practicing ‘the science of numerology.’ I thought Dan was going to turn purple, and he repeated it so loudly ‘The Science of Numerology?!’ that I said, for days, I knew numerology was a science because he said it so strongly. Then I ducked.
Shed-yule.
Dash would like 603 number 23
and I would like page 532 number 11
And Dash shall get:
“the last shy bloomings of wild rose in already fading brambles”
And for you:
“four hugs a day to fulfill ‘skin hunger'”
that Dash is such a poet … and as long as I have puppy hugs I’m okay!
Dog spooning is good, too.
601 #4 please. 🙂
“bringing slippers and wearing comfortable clothes to visit someone for tea”
(I wish we had tea time in the States.)
page 14, number 12 please
How about Chigago????
State and city pronunciations are always interesting! And speaking of which, from the book:
“Rural, Indiana”
“Rural” is one of those words I have a hard time saying.
me too! maybe it’s a southern thing
Don’t you just want to keep going with the “r”s?
Page 121, # 14, if you please.
PS – LOVE your new banner pic!
Thank you! I took that last February in NOLA. I’m trying to match each month’s banner with a photo I took in that same month last year. We’ll see if I succeed.
And from the book–and I have to say, this made me giggle, Mr. Five Star Hotel:
“pitching tents, setting the campfire blazing, and serving spaghetti with meatballs and tossed salad”
pitching tents
Not unless they’re on the grounds of a Four Seasons hotel.
Exactly.
GEYEraffes makes me think of Peter Griffin on “Family Guy” saying “fajEYEtas”. (He also pronounces the J.)
Page 456, number 7.
Jeffrey R.
(We won’t speak of how I used to think La Jolla was pronounced.)
And from the book:
“getting somewhere on time”
Ever since I heard someone on a nature program say ‘zebra’ with a short e sound, instead of pronouncing it ‘zeebra’, I’ve been saying it that way. There’s other pronunciations and word usages I’ve adopted, like saying ‘queue’ instead of line.
I think the differences are interesting and can be quite endearing. Of course, there are also some that make me twitch…