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I'm curious. I'm an amateur screenwriter that is always noticing trends, and usually turned off by most of them. Lately I'm hearing a lot of people (many younger) pronouncing things different. I need to know if I have been saying the words wrong for 37 years, or what's going on.
Here is a couple, and please add some of your own if any come to mind. If I'm wrong in how I pronounce it please tell me.
Refinancing- I say it as it's spelled
REFA-NANCING- How I hear it in commercials lately.
Didn't- Hard to type how I say it but there's a bit of nasal use.
DID-DENT- How most young people are now saying it.
Same with Wouldn't, Couldn't, Shouldn't.
Louisville- Louieville is how I say it.
LOW-VOL- How millions say it, but I have no clue HOW they got it that far off.
So clear me up on this.
The American pronunciation of words in the English language is generally agreed upon, however, when it comes to proper names, pretty much "anything goes".
The one that really gets me is pronouncing "important" as "impor-Dant". Of course, it really annoys me when people (predominantly younger females) acquire the manner of affected speech that could best be described as "faux upscale". Here is Rachel Cruze (Dave Ramsey's daughter), who is a good example of someone who has this phony speech pattern.
it really annoys me when people (predominantly younger females) acquire the manner of affected speech that could best be described as "faux upscale". Here is Rachel Cruze (Dave Ramsey's daughter), who is a good example of someone who has this phony speech pattern.
I actually find the poorly-groomed interviewer's speech patterns to be more annoying than Rachel's.
"Uber-popular" ? (My nominee for most annoying word usage of the day)
"Like...totally" ? (Did he attend Valley Girl University?)
In addition to needing a comb & a mirror, that interviewer needs to improve his own speech patterns...IMHO.
Expecting to hear correct pronunciations from the younger set is only slightly less silly than expecting a dog to display good hygiene practices.
And, for the sake of your writing, please make yourself more familiar with proper use of adverbs. Instead of "different", you should have used the word "differently".
Thanks, I don't get this either. I say DID-int. I also sure as hell don't say "axe", lol.
Hmmm. Dint, axe, axed and words with ail being pronounced as if they were ell, i.e. tail=tell, pail=pell were very common many of the Sicilian-American kids I went to school with in the 40's & 50's.
...The one that really gets me is pronouncing "important" as "impor-Dant". Of course, it really annoys me when people (predominantly younger females) acquire the manner of affected speech that could best be described as "faux upscale". Here is Rachel Cruze (Dave Ramsey's daughter), who is a good example of someone who has this phony speech pattern.
Because I have lived in Europe for more than a decade the English accents I am constantly hearing are those from the U.K.
I get snatches of U.S. English on the BBC news, and then a huge glut of it in the summer when the early twenties crowd of Americans vacations here. Thus, I hear much, much less American English than ever in my life, and what I notice all the time is the exact same sound that Ms. Cruze has in her voice - the unbelievably hideous front nasal quality of her speech. She has her tongue arched near the front of the roof of her mouth, forcing the air into her nasal cavity. It sounds like an endless traffic accident.
And it seems far more widespread among Americans (and especially women) than I remember it being when I lived in the U.S. It was very much the accent of the majority of people in the village where I grew up. I was mocked so much for it in college, that I made a point to try to get that tone out of my accent, which, of course, changes how vowels are pronounced.
Is this anywhere near what you are pointing out?
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