What causes people to so badly mispronounce words sometimes?

I would have to say the culprit has to be in most cases, peoples accents.

I wonder if they’re actually hearing “slitching” instead of “slipping,” even though it makes no sense.

Speeth impedimenths.

I agree, both speech impediments and accents. I want to say that people are more cognizant of their speech impediments, though. The first time I realized I had any bit of a New England accent was when I was in Tampa and someone pointed out how I said the word “drawing”. I was pronouncing it “draw-ring”. It took a few seconds for me to even realize what the person was trying to get at, and then my mind was blown. I heard nothing wrong with the way I was pronouncing it. I suppose someone could just as well hear “slitching” as “slipping” in an analogous way.

Some people simply do not understand the almost sacred value of words as symbols of concepts.
Thus, they do not give a shit.
Sort of like people who use deodorant rather than bathing.

With the song I just think they are singing the wrong word.

With bral it’s just the tongue being a little lazy probably, if she is very young she will probably grow out of it. Especially if the person doesn’t know how to read. Once they see the word they are more likely to pronounce it correctly assuming they don’t actually have a speech impediment.

Sometimes it is dialect or accent. Everyone around them says it that way, so they do too.

Nah. She’s a gramma, @JLeslie. She doesn’t read well either. When we go over there it kind of freaks me out that there is not one single book, or magazine or anything in sight!

I think some people just say it out of habit. There’s a woman at my job that says “vegetaboos” instead of “vegetables.” No sound of an “l” anywhere at the end. Other people in my area say “sang-wich” instead of “sandwich.” I think that’s just a habit for them.

I think there are others that say things incorrectly because they think it’s funny. I know there are examples with people I know but I have to try to remember what they are.

From a non-native speaker’s point of view:

When we learn a new language, we: 1. Try to find a pronunciation in our language that sounds similarly to the learned language’s pronunciation, and 2. If there is no equivalent pronunciation, try our best to imitate the sound. Often 2 doesn’t really work because it is hard to imitate the sound correctly due to our influence of our native language. For example the pronunciation of “th” in “think”. I still can’t keep my tongue out between my teeth.

Even in my language some pronunciations just take too much effort from native speaker. For example in my language there are two similar pronunciation “s” and “x”. “S” is stronger and just takes too much effort of the tongue to pronoun, so most people use “x” instead. I agree with the accent and the speech impedimenths, and I aslo want to add “some pronunciations are too difficult and people are just tired”.

They need to be taught the correct way of speaking. Some might have a speech impediment and need professional speech therapy.

Either my lousy accents or alcohol. Pick em.

Ah relly dunno.

If she doesn’t read well, and comes from a family, or even a community, of people who don’t read much, that is possibly their dialect.

My family pronounces “wash” as “warsh”. When I was in elementary school, I spelled “Washington” as “Warshington” and the teacher corrected me. When I sounded it out “Warsh-ing-ton” and asked why there was no “r” she just rolled her eyes and walked off. It wasn’t until I was 22 and in my first real job, that a woman said (in exasperation) “I hate it when people pronounce words like “squash” as “squarsh.” It’s so backwards.” That was the first time in my life I realized that I did that – I added an “r” and most people did not! I had never heard it before. After that I could hear the difference between how my family pronounced those words and how most other people did. It seems incredible to me now, that I could have been mispronouncing those words and never knew it, never heard it.

Sometimes it’s regional dialect, but not always. I never heard Washington said as “Warshington” until I moved to Eastern Washington. In Boise, Idaho, we say “boy-see” while others in other places say “boy-zee.” I’ve seen children who don’t pronounce their r’s and, if never corrected, will continue to omit the r’s while adults. And just plain ignorance plays a part sometimes.

Does your sister’s friend apply their brakes whenever they approach a SLOP sign? ;-)

speech impediments and accents or simply low interest in correcting or unable
to distinguish… Notwithstanding I do not believe your examples are true…

I have friends who say warsh as in warsh the clothes. Their families are from Ohio, but the majority of my Ohio friends say it correctly.

My mom adds an r to the end of words ending in a. Classic Bronx, NY. Idear instead of idea. Words that end in r she leaves it off sometimes. The stove burner she would pronounce more like burnah. Hers isn’t extremely exaggerated, but she never really lost it even living outside of the Bronx for years.

My husband still sometimes says yellow like jello. Mexican thing. Y’s sound more like J’s in Spanish in Mexico, but he can say it correctly.

Some sounds are extremely difficult to learn as an adult. If you live in a community of people who immigrated here, and everyone around speaks English in that accent or dialect, it might influence how you speak. Children born in America who are surrounded by “American” accents learn that accent usually, and not the old world accent. Even if the community is very diverse. If the community is full of people from one country, then that often does have influence.

Then there are countries that simply do not teach the correct sound. For whatever reason Japan teaches L to sound like R.

“Warsh” is a funny example. My friend’s mom used to say “warsh” and she also pronounced margarine as “marga-reen.” She said “si-reen” for siren, too. She was from Connecticut. She used to say “hamburg” for hamburger.

@zenzen… You don’t believe my examples are true? What do you mean?

Did you say examples or exampers?

@zenzen: Exampo. LOL

egg sample

Egg sampler.