Wednesday, March 16: Tune It Or Die!
NO EXCAPE
by Rob Lopresti
You are, it goes without saying, a wonderful person. Nice, reasonable, easy-going, and a general pleasure to be around. So why is it, that every once in a while, you will be in a conversation and find yourself losing your temper, biting your tongue, wanting to shout . . .
(No, I am not talking about getting into an argument with someone who has an idiotic opinion about politics, or thinks the Jersey Shore is a good program. It is perfectly reasonable to get angry at them. I’m talking about . . . )
You want to shout: “The word is library! Not liberry! It’s a building, not a fruit. Look at how it’s spelled, for Pete’s sake!”
Ahem
The point I’m trying to make here is that some of us wordie types react badly to mispronunciations.
KUOW, a Seattle public radio station, used to have a show called Sandy Bradley’s Pot Luck. Every week they would play a song from some part of the Evergreen State and then Sandy would solemnly intone “There IS no R in Washington.” If that seems a little odd or even surreal (Sure, and there’s no M in zebra. What’s your point?) then you have obviously never heard someone pronounce the first syllable of that word as though it rhymes with harsh. It doesn’t.
It happens that the university where I work has a vibrant and fascinating social network run by the liberry – Sorry! – so I recently asked the users there if they had any special favorites (or unfavorites), mispronunciations that made them cringe.
To be fair, some said absolutely not, and thought the subject was ridiculous. Others said that the examples I gave were not mispronunciations but dialectical variations. Maybe so.
But from the students and my friends I did compile an interesting assortment. The single biggest offender was the unwanted X. I refer to an es or esc or isk turned into an X sound. So we get:
ax (for ask, arguably a dialectic difference, a common African-American pronunciation)
asterix (not meaning the French cartoon character)
ex cetera
expresso
Here are some other classics:
acrost
a PRO pos (for apropos)
artic
Febuary
indict (rhyming with strict)
mischeeveeous
nucular
Peace Corpse
pre madonna
sherbeRt
tex(t)
They also brought up a few examples that were not mispronunciations so much as the repeating of mondegreens (mishearing a word):
anotherwords
for all intensive purposes
Sylvia Wright coined the term mondegreen but I first read it in William Safire’s language column in the New York Times. I also remember Safire writing about interviewing Jerry Brown and hearing him mispronounce a word. Safire was in a quandary. Here was a governor and presidential contender who didn’t know how to pronounce a word. Should he correct him (and risk insulting him) or let him make the same mistake to bigger audiences?
Safire chose a third path. He used the word in his next question, using it correctly. Brown immediately said “Oh, is that how it’s pronounced?” A useful technique, perhaps.
This reminds me of another bit of useful advice, from the grammar expert Will Strunk: “If you don’t know how to pronounce a word, say it loud!” Strunk’s most famous student, E.B. White repeated this command with enthusiasm: “Why compound ignorance with inaudibility? Why run and hide?”
But which pronunciations make you want to hide? Go ahead. Espress yourself.
Here are some I find cringe-worthy:
divisive — di-VISS-ive (wrong) v. di-VYE-sive
influence (verb) — in-FLU-ence (wrong) v. IN-flu-ence
(cf. af-FLU-ent (wrong) v. AF-fluent)
patina — pa-TEE-na (wrong) v. PAT-in-a
preventive — pre-VEN-ta-tive (wrong, note supernumerary syllable) v. pre-VEN-tive
Pronounciation.
I hate when people say “ValenTIME’s Day” instead of ValenTINE’S. It’s a sweet TIME, but not that sweet.
You’re right, there’s no R in Washington. It moved to Chicago.
(I don’t hear Chicargo as much as I used to, but I still hear it now and then.)
And don’t forget short-livvved v. short-lived.
GREAT column!
It goes both ways. I am of the mind language is always evolving. When at a spelling bee, the always perfect announcer said the word to be spelled was (and his pronunciation, which I am sure is correct): deck-l. The young girl looked scared and most of us was wondering what THAT word meant. He took a breath and with a very pained expression said, “Most people pronounce it dee-cal.” The girl immediately smiled and said, “D-E-C-A-L. dee-cal.” The crowd cheered. Sure, we were probably incorrect, but that is how the word is used by just about everyone, so maybe sometimes the people using the language may have a point. Oh– and she won the speeling bee and went onto regionals where she won there, too.
The problem with the “language is evolving” argument is that it begs the question—mispronunciations don’t arise from the language adapting to new needs, they are the product of ignorance. Now, I have no problem with “dee-cal” as a pronunciation of “decal”, which (to steal from Rob above) may be looked at as an American dialectical variant, and picking on children is odious. But before you ever use an unfamiliar word, a short trip to the dictionary is always a good idea.
One of the most universally mispronounced English words is forte, which should be pronounced like Fort Hood but to which everybody adds a non-existent French accent mark to make it FOR-tay. This one is so well entrenched, the correct pronunciation just doesn’t sound right.
Thanks for a wonderful column, Rob!
When I was learning English in high school back in Germany, we were actually taught to pronounce it Febuary. An example, no doubt, of what philosophers of law call the normative power of the factual.
Not sure this counts as a mondegreen, but whenever You Sexy Thing by Hot Chocolate plays on the radio, I hear “I believe in milk rolls” rather than “I believe in miracles.”
And Jon: I’ve often heard that complaint about forte, but I it seems to me that, since the final “e” is pronounced in the original Italian, it’s not only admissible but mandatory to pronounce it when the word is used in English. No?
Yo! I’m from New Yawk. We say it how we say it, even while drinkin’ our expresso in Febuary or some other mont’.
I ain’t axing you to like it, just don’t get mischeeveeous or we’ll go all nucular on ya.
Terrie 😉
I don’t know if this counts, but here goes …
When I watch TV I have the closed captioning on. I’m not hard of hearing, I just want to be sure of what people are saying.
Every now and again, I’ll see a caption which doesn’t match up with what’s being said; certain ones turn up with regularity.
One in particular:
“If you think I’m gonna do such-and-such, you’ve got another thing coming!”
That is supposed to be “another think“, isn’t it?
Captioners also seem to have a problem with “one and the same”, which they often turn into “one in the same”.
I had a number of other examples of these “reverse mondegreens”, but they seem to have fled my increasingly leaky memory.
Anybody out there have more?
Jon,
When I was young I loved using the word forte (FOR-tay). It made me feel grown up just as smoking did. Until someone corrected me. Forte is pronounced FORT?! How can you wave a cigarette in your hand and ask somebody what they’re fort is? I stuck to FO-tay for the drama of it all.
. . . it seems to me that, since the final “e” is pronounced in the original Italian . . .
Alas, Hamilton, you fell into the trap. The etymology of the English forte is not Italian, but French, where the (monosyllabic) word means “strong”—hence the meaning of a “fort” meaning a “stronghold”. In fencing terminology, the “forte” (one syllable) is the strongest part of a sword’s blade, just above the hilt.
The identically spelled word in Italian is indeed pronounced in two syllables, but it means “loud”.
Mike, “ . . . you’ve got another thing coming!” is a perfectly good English idiom and therefore correct. “Another think” ain’t.
Um, Melodie, macushla, speaking of misspellings, I’m sure you meant “their” instead of “they’re”.
JLW:
If you think “You’ve got another thing coming” is good English idiom just because it’s good English grammar, then you’ve got another think coming. Grammar and idiom are pretty much independent.
Zeke, mi amigo, I do know what the difference between grammar and idiom is. The reason I called it an idiom is because the expression is idiomatic, i.e., particular to a specific language. Lots of idioms are not grammatical, and I know that, too.
My interpretation is that the expression “another thing coming” does not relate to the process of thought, but to the nature of expectation. You could just as easily have said, “If you expect her to be grateful because you did the dishes, you have another thing coming,” i.e., something other than gratitude.
Now, I know that there is a theory that the expression began as a deliberately ungrammatical joke, which may be true. In particular, it was so identified by Professor Emeritus Paul Brians of Washington Sate University in his book, Common Errors in English Usage, but not having read the book, I do not know what he offers as evidence that the joke preceded the expression.
The “think” construction was used by Wallace Irwin in a jocular poem in 1901—before that, I’m not aware of its history. I can say I never heard the “think” version until I an adult, but that the “thing” version was pervasive all the time I was growing up around me and has the advantage of being more general. This kind of reminds me about the controversy about whether it should be “the Devil to pay” or “hell to pay”. Purists will claim that the former expression is the original and that the word “devil” refers to the longest seam between strakes on a ship—but the textual evidence clearly shows that the expression was not first recorded in a maritime context. In fact, the “hell to pay” construction appears about the same time.
My feeling is that because “another think coming” can be traced to a specific joke by a specific man, it is not an genuine idiom, and is most likely to be a witty play on an already existing expression.
But, hell—oops, I meant Devil—I could be wrong.
Yes, James, i did mean their. Compulsive? Obsessive?
And that small ‘i’ is because of you.
I never heard “another thing coming” to the best of my meory (or hearing), but the think version is very familiar.
Incidentally, in 1913 William Sulzer the governor of New York said in a speech: “If you think I will not fight then you have another think coming.” So the phrase was in popular usage by then.
Can’t find any examples of the “thing” version that old. That proves nothing,of course.
Jim, I’m more than happy to defer to you on matters linguistic, and I’m sure your etymological derivation of forte from the French is correct.
However, English “Arithmetic is not his forte” goes into French as l’arithmétique n’est pas son fort, but into Italian as la matematica non è il suo forte. So it would seem at least odd that English “forte” should derive from French “fort”, given the additional -e at the end.
As for fencing terminology: The use of “forte” there might well be unrelated and indeed be the feminine form of the French adjective “fort”. After all, the French word for blade is “lame”, which is itself feminine. So “the strong blade” would be la lame forte.
Back to think v thing… my wife says she has never heard “another think coming.” I say I have never heard “another thing.” Someone’s hearing needs checking. Probably mine. But that’s my story and I’m sticking to it.
I’m with Rob on “another think coming”–I’ve been hearing that expression for many years, and until this discussion started, I don’t think I’d ever seen or heard “another thing coming.” (My wife agrees with me.) As for forte, I will retire from the discussion, as both Hamilton and Jim are clearly playing in a higher linguistic league.
Zeke, Rob, and Jon: I yield regarding “think” v. “thing”. Apologies to Mike. As King Solomon put it, Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall.
As far as the origin of “forte” goes, my source is the OED (as with almost all things linguistic, my flawed thinking cap notwithstanding):
Note that the addition of the ultimate “e” is attributed to ignorance.
As far as the pronunciation goes, I can’t reproduce the citation here precisely because it is printed in the International Phonetic Alphabet and the CB blog software doesn’t recognize the font, but essentially it indicates “for-ti, for-tay, formerly fort”.
Every time in my life that I’ve heard “another think coming”, the construction was always the same:
Think was used as a verb in the first clause (“If you think you’re gonna win this argument … “), and then as a noun in the second clause (“… then you’ve got another think coming!”).
If a different word, such as expect, was used in the first clause, the second clause would be worded differently (“If you expect to win this argument, you’re in for a major disappointment.”)
Of course, the whole point of the post is that many people hear words spoken aloud and write down what they think they hear.
Remembering the AFI tribute to James Cagney so many years ago?
In his acceptance speech, Mr. Cagney, referring to his wife of many years and his younger brother, said this:
” … and my wife Bill, my brother Bill …”
It was common knowledge in Hollywood that Mr. Cagney always called his wife (whose name was Frances Willard (I think)) “Bill”, which was a childhood nickname, and he also had his brother William, whom he would differentiate by saying “brother Bill.”
I can’t tell you how many write-ups of that speech I’ve seen that quote Mr. Cagney as saying “Am I right, Bill?”, as if he’s just referring to his brother (and has forgotten to mention his wife at all).
If you can track down a recording of that speech, listen closely and see if i’m not right.
And for that matter, play it back next time you hear somone say “another think coming”.
Defense rests.
I arrived late for this party, but I’ll add my two-cents. I’m guilty of a few of the errors that Rob mentioned (namely “mischeeveeous” and “Febuary”), but even when I’m saying them incorrectly, I know I’m doing it. Those will be hard ones for me to change.
I agree with JLW on forte, but I also recognize that when most of the English speaking world mispronounces a word, it eventually becomes correct. Look what happened to coupe.
Re. “another thing/think” its a simple case of consonant assimilation. The “g” at the end of “thing” gets assimilated with the “c” at the beginning of “coming.”
It wasn’t until I was a teenager that I realized it was “for all intents and purposes.” I guess I wasn’t listening intensively enough.
“If you think you’ve won this argument, you’ve got another thing coming!”
What, exactly, would that thing be?
The only way this sentence makes sense is with think as a verb, followed by think as a noun.
End of rebuttal.
I have accidentally said “self depreciating” instead of “self deprecating.” Owch. And my Grandmother used to say both “another thing coming” and “another think coming.”
Conrad Haynes wrote several mysteries about Harry Bishop, a college professor with a shady past (something about spying). In one of them, Sacrifice Play, I think, various students and colleagues keep correcting his pronunciation of forte. Of course, he’s right and they’re wrong…
Like Steve, I’m late to the party, but offer a few observations. I grew up in the shadow of my mother’s family that included a line of teachers in east-central Indiana. That area has a European way of pronouncing certain vowels: I weesh for feesh on a deesh. Poosh through the boosh in Coosh. I argue this is not ignorance, but an early regional way of speaking that may be predicated on older pronunciations. Similarly, in pockets of Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley, we hear Scottish vowels: I’m going oot and aboot.
patina
Perhaps for that reason, patina is pronounced there as pah-TEEN-n?(schwa), but here I stumble across a curiosity. My print OED is at my house and I’m not, so I usually depend on the Oxford Electronic Dictionary that’s integrated in my Mac. It gives only one pronunciation for the word (as above), with the accent on the 2nd syllable and a long E instead of a short I.
think/thing
(Not à propos of anything in particular, I also grew up with ‘another thing coming’ while ‘another think’ was treated only as jocular.)
forte
Like many of you, I pronounce forte with two syllables, but that pronunciation is not French. The French masculine is ‘fort‘ and the feminine is ‘forte‘. I can speak only about French (not Italian), but for forte to be pronounced fort-ay, it would have to be spelled forté, which it’s not (not like pâté, sauté, and the famous Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité).
The French have a saying that Parisians swallow the tails of their words. For forte, it means we elide (don’t sound) the feminine ending when the word following starts with a vowel, but pronounce it unaccented like fort-uh(schwa)… if the following is a non-H consonant like bête noire. In une forte odeur (a strong odor), the trailing e is elided. In à forte pente (high pitch), the trailing e is pronounced as uh (schaw), not long A.
Then we have this curiosity: the Oxford-Hachette French Dictionary © 2005 (Oxford University Press), offers forte /’for:teI/, US /fo:rt/. In other words, the Hachette suggests the British pronounce the word “fort-ay” while North Americans say “fort”!
pot pourri
One of my pet irritations is potpourri pronounced as pot pour-I instead of poe-purr-ee.
One of my pet peeves: fith instead of fiFth