Are You Making These Common Mistakes With Mispronounced Words?

Do you say "I want to "AX" you a question?" or "I want to "ASK" you a question"?

These are just 2 of the MOST mispronounced words spoken. They're said by doctors, lawyers, even college professors!

I often want to tell them "spell especially" for me", but, I don't dare do it!

I had one instructor - TEACHING A CLASS - and she was wonderful! She knew her stuff and she was the sweetest, most patient person in the world! However, literally about 20 times a day - she would say "pacifically".  She was meaning to say "specifically"!

I felt bad for her because she was an African American woman and there were mostly Caucasian - high level government employees in the room.

I truly contemplated for weeks about talking to her about this very sensitive subject, but as much as it hurt my ears, and as much as I cared for her and about how she was presenting herself, I just didn't have the heart or the nerve to do it!

To this day - when I think of her - all that I think about is "pacifically".

She left a lasting impression on me. Fortunately she had a much nicer, brighter, wonderful side to her personality as well. But even with this wonderful nature of hers - I truly thought of her speech as a desecration to the English language and hoped that she would one day get stronger and improve her speaking skills.

In the near future - I will post a page with more of the most commonly mispronounced words for you to review and consider practicing.

People Are Talking - ABOUT YOU! . . . What Most People Won’t Tell You!

Therefore, with love and the truest desire to help anyone interested in improving their image, it needs to be known that nothing sounds worse than someone using the WRONG word incorrectly!   Misuse of a word - no matter how small or simple makes one sound (with much thought put into this to avoid hurting feelings) many would say "stupid" or "unintelligent", "dense", "brainless", "dumb", "ridiculous", etc. and the list did go on and on and on! This is why I am doing this site! We don't know what we don't know!

Knowing the right word and using it properly are two entirely different things and also very important..

It’s what they call “The Elephant In The Room” syndrome (a problem or difficult issue that is very obvious, but is ignored for the convenience or comfort of those involved).

We’re talking two different scenarios here.

1). A person often will use a word that is so wrong that it is not even related to the topic of conversation!

2). A person may say a word and they may in fact have the right idea - but they say the word in the wrong way or use the wrong pronunciation of the word!

Either way sounds just as bad!

When this is done - some listener(s) will display a look of shock and horror - while others will pretend like they didn’t hear it - out of respect for the speaker.

Your more articulate speaking people will want to approach the speaker and point out the error that was made but usually won’t for fear of embarrassing the speaker or even worse, rejection.

You do have to be careful how you approach someone that you feel may not receive your unsolicited advice well. I personally would like to think that one would appreciate this very important and caring information because you are helping to them “save face” and keep them from further embarrassment. However, there are those that just don’t accept “constructive” criticism well at all and they will - unfortunately continue to look and sound foolish when they speak.

I hope that this site might be a way to help anyone that would like to improve their knowledge and their grammar. Believe me, it is not just the uneducated - or under educated people that have this problem. I’m amazed at the professionals that I have met that cannot speak or spell well at all. As someone said to me recently - “it makes you want to cringe!”