Words that make you cringe

The Aluminium/Aluminum debacle is a wierd one where the word doesn’t fit with the other "iums’ like “sodium” and “lithium.”

English is stoopid.

Guilty (And correct)
:raspberry: :raspberry: :raspberry: :raspberry:

'Erbs.

Sweet baby jesus and the orphans, erb is SOOOO cringeworthy.

And what’s wrong with ‘niche’ as ‘neesh’? Hey, both sides of the pond do fake Frenchified pronunciation when it suits them - how about a fillet of fish, anyone?

While I’m here, I’d like to nominate ‘maaaaan’ on the end of a sentence. Oh, oh, and ‘awesome’ too outside the relevant context (i.e. awe-inspiring), but I think someone may have mentioned that already.

‘Like, that show was awesome, maaaaan.’

I generally have no preference with accents, but the above makes me want to run and hide.

I do confess to using the Americanism ‘X sucks’ on occasion though - that definitely has a ring to it.

How funny! As I was reading through the last few posts, I was just thinking that I must mention the grating Americanish pronunciation of herbs, with the aitch dropped like the gutter speech of a semi-literate cockney (if you want to try to ape the French, go the whole way and get the vowel sound correct as well), and there I find you’ve already added it to our collection. On reflection, I think that 'orrid butchering of the word makes me cringe more than any other crime against pronunciation.
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Herb is the short form for a man named Herbert. Unless you delite yourself in the slaughter of Herberts and then adding them to your food, you should pronounce the word correctly as erb. :raspberry:

And 'Erb is the cockney short form of address for a bloke named Herbert. :raspberry:

And 'Erb is the cockney short form of address for a bloke named Herbert. :raspberry:[/quote]
OK, so if a cockney is in an ESL classroom (where he belongs) and he’s doing an adjacency pair excercise with a picture of Herbert as choice a and a picture of some herbs as choice b, which one will he choose if the teacher says “erb?”

And 'Erb is the cockney short form of address for a bloke named Herbert. :raspberry:[/quote]
OK, so if a cockney is in an ESL classroom (where he belongs) and he’s doing an adjacency pair excercise with a picture of Herbert as choice a and a picture of some herbs as choice b, which one will he choose if the teacher says “erb?”[/quote]

You guys are all wrong. Basil is an herb and the h is silent.

Herb is my dad and the h is pronounced. There is no other correct answer.

If my dad were a vegetarian one could say “Herb is an erbivore”. But he’s not, so you can’t.

I have always had an aversion to the word “turpentine”.

But it has to be said when I hear American chefs on TV say “urrb” instead of “herb” it actually sends a shiver down my back. I didn’t know what it was until about a year ago… Eurgh. Creepy. And faintly ridiculous. “Urrb”. Ha! Tee hee! “Urrb”. GAHAHAHAHAHHAHA!!! :roflmao:

Sorry.

Urrbivore. Urrbacious. Urrble burble burble. Reminds me of the Swedish chef on the Muppet Show.

Promise I won’t mention it urrgain, I mean urrbulurrbulurrb. Oops. :astonished:

And 'Erb is the cockney short form of address for a bloke named Herbert. :raspberry:[/quote]
OK, so if a cockney is in an ESL classroom (where he belongs) and he’s doing an adjacency pair excercise with a picture of Herbert as choice a and a picture of some herbs as choice b, which one will he choose if the teacher says “erb?”[/quote]

You guys are all wrong. Basil is an herb and the h is silent.

Herb is my dad and the h is pronounced. There is no other correct answer.

If my dad were a vegetarian one could say “Herb is an erbivore”. But he’s not, so you can’t.[/quote]

Erhu, you are right and you are wrong. In YOUR home country it is pronounced 'erb. In the rest of the world it is pronounced Herb.

“Does, '‘My friend Herb grows ‘erbs,’’ sound right to you? This is a US oddity generated by the melting pot (mixed dialects). Initial [h] is always pronounced outside America and should be in all dialects of English.” (From t’internet.)

'erbal tea h’anyone?

And 'Erb is the cockney short form of address for a bloke named Herbert. :raspberry:[/quote]
OK, so if a cockney is in an ESL classroom (where he belongs) and he’s doing an adjacency pair excercise with a picture of Herbert as choice a and a picture of some herbs as choice b, which one will he choose if the teacher says “erb?”[/quote]

Cockneys don’t use herbs. Herbs are irrelevant to their lives. If a cockney wishes to add flavour to his food, he’ll use salt, pepper and ketchup to do so. So he’ll go for the picture of the bloke, and if the teacher tells him the other one’s a herb too, he’ll say “Dunt look like no 'Erb wot I know.”

And 'Erb is the cockney short form of address for a bloke named Herbert. :raspberry:[/quote]
OK, so if a cockney is in an ESL classroom (where he belongs) and he’s doing an adjacency pair excercise with a picture of Herbert as choice a and a picture of some herbs as choice b, which one will he choose if the teacher says “erb?”[/quote]

You guys are all wrong. Basil is an herb and the h is silent.

Herb is my dad and the h is pronounced. There is no other correct answer.

If my dad were a vegetarian one could say “Herb is an erbivore”. But he’s not, so you can’t.[/quote]

Erhu, you are right and you are wrong. In YOUR home country it is pronounced 'erb. In the rest of the world it is pronounced Herb.

“Does, '‘My friend Herb grows ‘erbs,’’ sound right to you? This is a US oddity generated by the melting pot (mixed dialects). Initial [h] is always pronounced outside America and should be in all dialects of English.” (From t’internet.)

'erbal tea h’anyone?[/quote]

Good ole Tom, getting all dictionary on me. Here is some additional reading for you:

Maybe this means we should call a truce.

Is this Frenchification the fault of Noah Webster and his new-fangled dictionary? Some dictionary writer must have inserted "u"s into words in Hengland wot were never there before.

“Pepper” is surely regarded as a kind of herb? See, Cockneys are more sophisticated than people think.

Maybe we should add an “H” to the front of your name?

“Pepper” is surely regarded as a kind of herb? See, Cockneys are more sophisticated than people think.

Maybe we should add an “H” to the front of your name?[/quote]

If I was a spice girl, then yeah. But an Erhu is an instrument, not a spice.

You’re spicy enough for me. The prefix stays.

In Jamaica it’s pronounced “'erb”…

Erhu: Truce.

[quote=“IandI”]In Jamaica it’s pronounced “'erb”…

[/quote]

Actually, it’s Ganja.

Isn’t it?

In Whistler it’s called erb.

And I wouldn’t even call it smokable. Look at it, there is hardly any bud there. You are just asking for a headache!

Aye, it looks like the work of the badman science masters of Babylon playing woth I & I medicine mon.

Free the herb!

HG