A third-grade teacher from Michigan reports that one of her young students pronounced the word crayon as “crown.” There’s more than one regional variant in the United States, though. Others include “CRAY-ahn,”...
Gail from Minden, Nevada, notes the difference between pixelated, which describes images composed of tiny pixels, and pixilated, which is pronounced the same, but means “drunk” or “confused.” Pixilated derives from the idea...
Anna, who lives in the San Francisco Bay area, wonders if it’s okay to pronounce the word measure as ‘meΙͺΚΙr (rhyming with “hey sure”) instead of ‘mΙΚΙr (rhyming with “treasure”). This pronunciation is...
Mark from Newport News, Virginia, says his mother, who grew up in Fancy Farm, Kentucky, often used a puzzling phrase. To ask how close he was to completing a task, she’d say what sounded like How much do you like? In parts of the Southern...
Growing up in Thibodaux, Louisiana, Ashlie was accustomed to using many Cajun terms, such as sha bΓ©bΓ©, a version of cher bΓ©bΓ© meaning “poor baby,” ya mom βnβ βem for “your family and circle of friends,” and lagniappe, meaning...
David, a rideshare driver in Virginia Beach, Virginia, wonders about all the residential developments he sees with names containing the word quay. Usually pronounced KEE, quay is another term for “wharf.” The use of quay in these names...