Welcome to the second posting dealing with serving effectively as grammarian at a club meeting. In part I we considered incomplete sentences; let us turn our attention here in part II to mispronunciations.
A mispronunciation is, quite simply, the errant pronunciation of a word. The speaker might emphasize an incorrect syllable, or wrongly use a different word that is similarly pronounced. People whose primary language is not English are, based on my experience as a transcriptionist and Toastmaster, more likely to introduce mispronunciations.
I present two examples below, one for each type identified above. Please comment on this posting and provide other examples for our mutual benefit.
- Incorrect syllable emphasis: There was an Indian man describing the details of his automobile accident, and when referring to someone in the crosswalk, he would say “puh-des-tree-uhn” rather than “puh-des-tree-uhn” for the word pedestrian. I figured it out, but it took some head scratching to realize what he was trying to say.
- Here’s one that I hear when referring to the non-traffic zone in the middle of a highway. Rather than say, “There was a median separating the lanes of the highway,” one says, “There was a medium separating the lanes of the highway.” They sound similar, but have quite different meanings!
A final thought: realize that regional dialects can be a factor here, as can slang. Examples of the former would include “Wooster” for “Worcester” and “crick” for “creek,” while examples of the latter would include “ain’t” for “isn’t” and “’cause” for “because.”
I suggest flagging by the grammarian of their usage, but not if the context allows/calls for it. Is the context formal or colloquial1? Example: I am giving a formal informational presentation about pollution of waterways and say, “Scientists agree that if individual Wooster property owners would cease dumping their used motor oil into the backyard crick, downstream flora and fauna would benefit, ‘cause it ain’t a good thing to do.” “Worcester,” “creek,” “because,” and “isn’t” would be the proper choices here, no? Let’s change the context a bit, though, to see when being “wrong” is right. In this instance I’m imitating someone from a rural down-south town named Worcester who is upset with the local waterway situation. His gripe to another person could rightly–and more interestingly–be as follows: “Them gosh-darned Wooster folk ain’t doin’ no thinkin’ at all, what with them a-dumpin’ their car oil in the crick, ‘cause they ain’t got no brains in their heads!” Yes, I also threw in a few other goodies, like “a-dumpin’” versus “dumping.” Do you see, though, how interesting and deliberate word choices can spice up one’s speech, even if they don’t pass the starched-collar grammarian tests?
I hope this helps you flag appropriately, while allowing the “gems” to be shared without reproach.
1“Characteristic of or appropriate to ordinary or familiar conversation rather than formal speech or writing; informal,” dictionary.com (14 May 2023).