I know this should probably have waited until the off-season, but I decided to give it a whirl now.

Are there any words you hear people pronounce in a way that just annoys you? Maybe it’s just flat-out wrong. Or maybe the word can be appropriately pronounced in two ways, but you greatly prefer one over the other? I’ll just give you a few that bug me.

1) Species. Properly pronounced spee-SHees, not spee-sees. I’m not going to look it up right now, but I suspect both are on the “ok” list. But people who know what they are talking about pronounce it with the SH sound.

2) Negotiation. Again, this word is properly pronounced neh-go-SHE-a-shun, not ne-go-see-a-shun. When did we develop this aversion to the SH sound?

3) Often. The t is silent, people. The word is pronounced OFF-un, not OFF-Tun. Think about it. You don’t say listen liss-tun, you don’t say soften soff-tun. Again, I am aware that dictionaries are now offering both as “ok.” We all know that just means the dictionaries have given up, because too many people have been saying it wrong. On the plus side, I suppose if somebody says OFF-tun it at least suggest that the person knows how to read, at least.

4) Beijing. When did everybody decide that Chinese people speak French? The proper pronunciation of the city name is bay-JING, not bay-ZHING (trying hard to spell that God-awful pseudo-French sound that everybody seems to make when the word clearly calls for a freakin’ J). Ever listen (pronounced liss-sun, by the way) to Chinese people talk? Heard a lot of stuff that sounded like French? Yeah, neither did I.


There are a lot more, but I will stop here for now, because I want to know what pronunciations make you see red, if any.