We used to have a thread like this, but it got very long, and besides I can't find it.

So bring your irritating mis-uses or just funny typos here.

I have two to start off, one a pronunciation oddity heard yesterday on CBC Radio One. A news reader referring to Maoist guerrillas somewhere called them MAY-O-ist guerrillas. !

Sara Mayo: you have raised your own private army? You have been holding out on us?

Second, a writer of a letter to the editor of today's NY Times refers to democratization as a "bottoms-up process."

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Forgive the agism, but in my day, le tout Canada knew how to pronounce Mao. *mutter mutter*

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In my day too, skdadl... I heard that selfsame CBC newsreader and grumbled to myself.

Back in my Ottawa Valley "home," in the early 80s, I listened for lack of anything better to an Ottawa radio station called CHEZ-106 FM. (I only realized how bad it was when I got to Toronto and was able to hear some real music, but let that pass). They were always good for some Les Nessman-isms.

One time a DJ played some pop-reggae band, Third World or some such outfit, and afterward said "You know, I'm a big reggae fan. Been a reggae fan since Day One."

Thing was, he pronounced it with a soft G and accent on the last syllable, like "re-ZHAI." He wasn't joking, either.

[ 20 June 2004: Message edited by: 'lance ]

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How long ago, al-Q? Forgive the agism, but in my day, le tout Canada knew how to pronounce Mao. *mutter mutter*

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My personal peeve, the one that just makes me grit my teeth and miss whatever follows, is when anouncers mis-pronounce Tsawwassen (south of Vancouver) as Tawasin. These same people would never refer to Tsar Nicholas as a tar, or a tidal wave as a tunami. So, why convert the ts of Tsawwassen to a t?

[ 20 June 2004: Message edited by: Cougyr ]

[ 20 June 2004: Message edited by: Cougyr ]

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My personal peeve, the one that just makes me grit my teeth and miss whatever follows, is when anouncers mis-pronounce Tsawwassen (south of Vancouver) as Tawasin.

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A few Vancouver pronunciations have shifted over the years. I'm thinking of my late father-in-law, who was born in Vancouver in 1925. When a local names ended in -ano, he would pronounce it as though ending in -yno, as "Kit-si-LIE-no," "Ca-pi-LIE-no," etc. (I say etc. even though those are the only two examples I can think of). He insisted that was how people said those words in his youth.

Come to think of it, I picked up this habit from him.

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It stung my ears everytime through the Cup run when an announcer said Ig-nal-eee.

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When I was a kid, the legendary Foster Hewitt came out of retirement to do play-by-pley for the 1972 Canada-USSR hockey series. I don't remember this bit, but apparently he simply couldn't pronounce the name "Cournoyer."

An Aislin cartoon in a book I have (Hockey Night in Moscow, by Jack Ludwig) has Hewitt taking so long to stammer out an approximation of Cournoyer that the Soviets have grabbed the puck, shot and scored before he manages it.

[ 20 June 2004: Message edited by: 'lance ]

(I don't know what I was thinking, all right? Geez).

Anyway, I frequently guffawed at the spectacle, but never so loudly as when George H.W. Bush (41) said he'd worked in the "oil bidness" in Texas.

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An Aislin cartoon in a book I have (Hockey Night in Moscow, by Jack Ludwig) has Hewitt taking so long to stammer out an approximation of Cournoyer that the Soviets have grabbed the puck, shot and scored before he manages it.

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I have that cartoon in a book about the '72 series.

You should have heard Foster Hewitt when Tsygankov got near the puck!

I just checked the DVD of the series. Hewitt pronounced Cournoyer's name in a different manner the first three times he tried, but he eventually settled on "Corn' - oi - yay".