Mis-pronunnsed.

Jason Kottke recently linked to an article about people saying words wrong on purpose. It’s quite a fun article, and the comments on Kottke’s post are great.

From the article:

I sometimes say “muscles” so that the ‘c’ has a ‘k’ sound (the same way the cartoon character Popeye says it), computor instead of “computer” (after Ned Beatty’s exaggerated pronunciation of “Mr Luthor” in the Superman movies), and I occasionally say benimber instead of “remember” because it was something my cousin Paul said more than 20 years ago.

Personally, I’m known to say aminals instead of animals, anyhoo instead of anyhow, supposably instead of supposedly, vegematables instead of vegetables, and skizzurs instead of scissors.

Yeah, I’m a freak like that. But now I know I’m not the only one.

Speaking in tongues

I recently joined the cast for a small community theatre production. As part of my role, I need to spend a good chunk of the production speaking in a Central Asian accent.

If you’ve never tried to adopt a realistic foreign accent before, you’d be surprised how hard it is to learn.

These links came in handy, at first:

• Speech Accent Archive
• International Dialects of English Archive

In the end, however, the best way to pick up an accent is to become completely immersed in the language and culture.

A few nights ago, I went out to a Persian nightclub right after rehearsal and met a new ‘friend’. Some may call it unnecessary salaciousness; I call it character study.