Why do Americans say words wrongly?

[Wildeybeast]

This has been a bugbear of mine for ages and I've never been able to figure it out.

Whilst we can perhaps excuse common words like 'aluminium' on the grounds of regional variance, there really is no excuse for pronouncing names wrong. The only Americans I heard get Novak Djokovic's name right during the whole US Open were the ones working for the BBC. And Notre Dame is another one that often bugs me. Now I appreciate that learning how to pronounce words from other languages/countries can be tricky, but over here we generally make the effort to at least try (even if it's just so we can say the name of our latest foreign footballers or to stop the French sneering down their garlicky noses at us). Americans don't seem to bother and I'm curious as to why. Do you not realise you are saying them wrong or do you simply just not care? Any trans-atlantic explanations gratefully received.

[Deadlift]

[url]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=om7O0MFkmpw&feature=youtube_gdata_player[/url]


This may be right up your street then

Either way it's " I couldn't care less" not bloody "I could care less"

[Mr Mystery]

Congratulations is spelt, and indeed pronounced with a t, not a d.

Moscow. The 'ow' is as per Crow, not Cow.

Iran, Iraq. It is a soft I just as 'it'. Not a harsh I.

Van Gogh is pronounced Van Goff, not Van Go.


Silly numpties!

[Sean_OBrien]

A lot of it probably goes back to the mixing of all the different "English as a Second Language" cultures during the last few hundred years. Many of them brought with them phonetic pronunciations of the various words...as formal ESL classes didn't exist at the time. After that it just stuck.

Even within the US, you have a lot of regional dialects (though to be fair...the same exists in England) regarding how the same words might be pronounced. Some like the Cajuns have a very heavy cultural dialect, while others in the upper Midwest pick up small bits and pieces from our Canadian neighbors (no doubt linked to similar immigrants during similar periods of time).

[DarkLink]

This has been a bugbear of mine for ages and I've never been able to figure it out.

If you lived a few thousand miles away from a nation that you have effectively no interaction with, you'd pronounce things wrong as well. Novak Djokovic is Serbian, right? I don't even know what a Serbian accent would sound like. Vaguely russian is my best guess. Way to think that one out, dude. Maybe you should start thinking about things from other culture's points of view on occasion.

The only foreign culture that America regularly interacts with, outside of hollywood and world news, is really Mexico and spanish-speaking immigrants. America is not as multi-cultural as Europe is, for the simple reason that we are literally an ocean away from everyone else. We have spanish speaking neighbors (mexico) and then an english speaking neighbor (canada). That's it. And America is a big place, about the size of Europe in its entirety (minus Russia, obviously). You guys can hop on a train or boat and be chatting with foreigners in a few hours. We have to catch an international flight.

[wittdooley]

You mean, like, besides the fact that any word that retains it's spelling across languages (Notre Dame) is going to be pronounced in a way that reflects those vowel and consonant sounds in said language? Obviously it's going to sound "more correct" in it's language of derivation.

I don't use a "t" sound at the end of "ed" words so I don't spell them as such. I SPELLED a word with an "ed" because when I say it, it ends in a D sound.

American English phoenetics are a mess because of the many regional dialects we have (just like England). Spelling is, quite frankly, an entirely arbitrary thing. Phoenetically, character and karekter are pronounced the same. We arbitrarily assign the "correct" spelling based on the country of origin. Thats why we spell phone with a PH even though a dictionary tells us its pronounced fone.

Anyways. That's that.

[teplicuss]

I am the worst speller in the world, mostly cause i grew up very poor and simply had other things on my mind besides school. Mostly not getting shot in Philly as a kid would be on the top 10 list. But from a laymans point of view, with a neighborhood full of black , jewish, poor irish and a giant neighborhood full of asians maybe 8 blocks away, i learned pretty quick what real diversity was all about. Now i have a Philly accent, and it is harsh to say the least. I say words such as" yous, dwag, woter," and many others that really tells others that im from the north east. Does this make me stupid or simply uneducated about the world?..no, matter of fact as an American i speak 3 languages( Russian, spanish, and Romanian), ive traveled more places then most Europeans, owned a buisness by the age of 22 and i still have a problem spelling and pronuouncing things.
My point is this, true diversity is more about being good to others, trying to make people smile, and when ya screw up..ya laugh at yourself and try harder next time. But if you think that Americans screw up words and mis prounounce the english language, you should see others trying to speak our language. And every other culture who comes over here, and i work with tons of them, we bust thier balls, but at the end of the day im buying the guy a beer and we laugh about it. I think Euro's need to kinda back off a little, talk about being kinda intolerant.

I lived in Euroupe for about 3 months. To be honest , besides london and a few big citys..most people were white. You guys think cause you get a few people from a country living next to you , your now an expert at all things about them. I find this funny, come to my old neighborhood..where there are 1,000 of differnt people and over a million african americans from all walks of life. I do not think England or any other country in Euroupe is more culturaly diverse then we are. We have more people from other coutries who live and visit us then anywhere else. The volume alone of natonalitys and races is awesome. We have been dealing with diversity in our country for close to 250 years..we might screw it up, but compared to your 50 years, i think we are doing better everyday.

As for the language issue, we are not you, and to be honest , like all groups of people we say things differntly. Hey next time you hear one of us say somthing thats not right in your head, ask an indian guy or an asian guy to say the same thing. Ill put a hundred dollers down all 4 of us say it differnt.

PS...the spelling errors are for you, enjoy

[Drunkencorgimaster]

Here's a tip for many of you Brits (not all, but way too many). There's no bloody "R" at the end of either "Obama" or "America."

[DarkLink]

And why are you complaining about Americans when you spawn accents as indecipherable as this: [URL]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4LJw6PAi5Q8[/URL] (Yes, I know Brad Pitt is American, but these actual british guys aren't much better: [URL]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=leAHf5-Wx4E[/URL], [URL]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KH_kOjsXakM[/URL]).

You complain about Americans changing the spelling of words, like dropping all of those completely unnecessary u's, but can't even seem to speak your own language. Ironic.


Edit:
Besides, complaining about the language another country uses is about as silly as, well complaining that not everyone in the world speaks your language with your accent, for your convenience. I don't hear many Americans complaining about how all those russians speak russian, or the french speak french, or how funny a british accent sounds for that matter.

[eldargal]

The thing that bothers me is the way news (and many other 'ewe' sounds) is pronounced nooz, yet they don't pronounce you 'ooo' and there are some others like that as well. The rest I just brush off as regional dialects and I'm, generally it is things like 'could care less' which irritate me because that is you saying the exact opposite of what you think it means.