Latest news with #mischievous
Telegraph
3 days ago
- General
- Telegraph
‘Despite the headlines, 'mischeevious' is not considered standard English'
'Mischievous'. It's a word that has come to define my week in quite unexpected ways, ever since I happened to answer a question from an audience member at the wonderful Hay Festival about changes to English that I find annoying. I explained that one bugbear I have recently overcome was the increasing use of the pronunciation 'mischeevious', since I have come to see the rationale for the change and to acknowledge its place in a long history of sound shifts that, for a lexicographer at least, are interesting to observe. The result was a right linguistic foofaraw, thanks to many a mischievous headline claiming I now consider 'mischeevious' to be entirely acceptable. I'm hoping I can set the record a little straighter now. The first thing to say is that a lexicographer's job is to chart the trajectory of words as they evolve. We are describers, not prescribers, of language, despite the understandable desire of many for some form of linguistic government. English has no equivalent to L'Académie française, a body that attempts to preside over the French language. English has always been an entirely democratic affair, subject to the will of the people, and it is inevitable that some of the changes it undergoes will prove irksome along the way. The fact that many of us are messing with the sound of 'mischievous' is clearly one. Despite the headlines, it is most definitely not considered standard English: in fact Oxford's dictionary of contemporary English offers unusually firm guidelines as to its usage: 'Mischievous is a three-syllable word. It should not be pronounced with four syllables with the stress on the second syllable, as if it were spelled mischievious'. Why, then, are we changing it? Is there any method to our madness? The answer involves a process that has informed linguistic evolution for centuries. In the case of 'mischievous', which comes from the Old French meschever, 'to come to an unfortunate end', the '-ievous' ending of the adjective is coming under the influence of such words as 'devious'. In the same way, it is becoming rare these days to hear reports of 'grievous bodily harm': I have heard 'grievious bodily harm' at least three times on news reports just this weekend. This is far from the only example of changing pronunciation, as readers will know all too well. 'Pacifically' and 'nucular' are two other repeat offenders. In the case of the former, 'pacifically' (already in the dictionary meaning 'peacefully'; the Pacific Ocean is the 'Peaceful Ocean') is judged by some to be easier to say, while the shift to 'nucular' brings it closer to such words as 'molecular' and 'secular' – there are fewer common words in current English ending with '-lear', with the exception perhaps of 'cochlear'. In each of these cases, familiarity seems to the catalyst. Similarly, it seems most people feel on 'tenderhooks' these days, rather than 'tenterhooks'. The latter were once a common feature in cloth-manufacturing districts, for they were wooden frames erected in rows in the open air on 'tenter-fields'. Wet cloth would be hooked onto them to be stretched after milling, allowing it dry evenly without shrinkage. Metaphorically, to be on tenterhooks is to be as taut, tense, and in suspense as the wool itself. Today, tenters are no longer a feature of our countryside, resulting in 'tenderhooks' being chosen for the job instead. I of course regret the loss of the story behind such words, but the joy of etymology is digging beneath the surface to discover these treasures of the past. Lest you feel your blood pressure rising already, there is some reassurance in the fact that such shifts are nothing new. If you've ever wondered what a Jerusalem artichoke has to do with Jerusalem, the answer is absolutely nothing: the name arose because English speakers in the 16th century struggled with the Italian word 'girasole', which means 'sunflower' (the Jerusalem artichoke is a heliotrope). It sounded a little like 'Jerusalem', so they plumped for that instead. At the same time, 'asparagus' must have proved equally challenging, for English speakers some 400 years ago decided to call it 'sparrowgrass' instead. The expression a 'forlorn hope' is a mangling of the Dutch 'verloren hoop', or 'lost troop', describing the vanguard of an army that fell in battle. It's hard to deny that there is poetry in our substitution. Slips of the tongue and ear are more common than you might think. Such words as 'umpire', 'apron', 'adder', and 'nickname' are the direct result of mistaken assumptions, for they began respectively as a 'noumpere', a 'napron', and a 'nadder'. In each case the 'n' drifted over to the 'a', since when spoken out loud it was hard to tell which word the letter belonged to. There are dozens more examples. 'Teeny' is an alteration of 'tiny', 'innards' is a take on 'inwards', 'manhandle' is a semi-logical riff on 'mangle', and 'tootsie' represents a child's delivery of 'footsie'. Other words that once wore their hearts on their sleeves have changed their sounds completely: a cupboard was pronounced with 'cup' and 'board' fully intact; only later did we decide it was a 'cubbard'. A 'ward-robe', or 'keeper of robes', is now more usually a 'war-drobe2. And let's not even start with a process known as 'haplology', where a word's syllable is swallowed entirely: who pronounces 'February' with the middle 'r' these days? You're more likely to hear 'probably' as 'probly', too, and a 'library' as a 'libry'. Even our idioms have taken a strange turn over the centuries. Why does 'head over heels' describe being upended by love when this is our regular bodily position? The answer is that the original was 'heels over head', meaning to turn a somersault, but at some point in the phrase's history the idiom was mistakenly (and fittingly) turned upside down. None of these changes mean we should no longer care. The opposite, in fact, for having bugbears means we are passionate about our words and wish to protect their beauty and clarity. What's more, when we mangle them, we run the risk of distracting our audience, and losing our meaning in the process. But it also feels important to know that language – and English in particular – has always been unpredictable and occasionally erratic, changing as its users wish it to, even if that is occasionally by mistake. I'll finish with one request: please don't shoot the messenger. I'm beginning to realise that there is a reason why I am occasionally called a 'minefield' of information.
Daily Mail
5 days ago
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
TOM UTLEY: Susie, the serene goddess of Countdown, has thrown in the towel - but I'm still manning the barricades against the language louts!
Et tu, Susie? Just as Julius Caesar thought his friend Brutus was the last man on Earth who would betray him, so I imagined Susie Dent would defend to her final breath the correct pronunciation of common English words. But no. This week, the serene goddess of Countdown's Dictionary Corner appeared to throw in the towel over the widespread mispronunciation of the word mischievous. So many people get it wrong, she declared, that it no longer bothers her to hear it pronounced 'mischievious', to rhyme with 'devious', as if it were spelt with a third 'i' after the 'v'. True, she was not saying the mispronunciation had now become standard English. Nor was she endorsing it as 'acceptable', as one or two mischievous headline-writers have suggested. But she did seem to regard the mistake with a certain detached, academic resignation, as if it were merely an interesting illustration of the way language evolves. My own instinct, by contrast, is to man the barricades against assaults on our language and 'rage, rage against the dying of the light'. Speaking at the Hay Festival, where she was promoting her new murder mystery, Guilty By Definition, Dent said: 'Something which used to rile me was people pronouncing mischievous as mischie-vi-ous. But now it's everywhere and there is a very good reason why people do. 'It's the way English people have always pushed out a pronunciation that is no longer familiar to them. We don't have any 'ievous' words any more, and they're pushing it to something that they do know, and that's 'evious'. 'So I have now decided it's a fascinating snapshot of how language works and it doesn't really bother me – not any more.' Well, all I can say is that it bothers me a lot. Indeed, far from becoming more tolerant as the years go by, I find that the older I get, the more such petty crimes against our language irritate me. Oh, I know that in this vale of tears, with wars raging in Ukraine, the Middle East and elsewhere, and our own country plunging headlong into bankruptcy, there are far more important things to worry about than the mispronunciation of a common English word. I know, too, that Dent, who is a far more distinguished student of words than I will ever be, is quite right to say that living languages evolve with the passage of time. After all, it's not only pronunciations that change, but spellings and even the meanings of words. To take one frequently cited example, the word 'silly' went through a whole range of meanings – including happy, holy, rustic, weak and lowly – before it settled on its modern definition as a synonym for daft. Meanwhile, I'd hate to think I'm becoming as pedantic as my late grandfather, a classics scholar, who insisted on pronouncing 'margarine' with a hard g (apparently it comes from the Greek word for a pearl, which is spelt with a gamma) and cinema as 'Kye-knee-ma', because its ancient Greek root begins with a kappa. As I may have mentioned before, he was also such a stickler for correct grammar that when my mother asked him if he'd like more spaghetti, he replied: 'Well, perhaps just a few'. (The word spaghetti, you understand, is the plural of spaghetto; strictly speaking, it's therefore wrong to speak of 'just a little spaghetti'.) But there must be at least some trace of my grandfather in me, since I constantly find myself wincing over common mispronunciations and grammatical mistakes. It sets my teeth on edge, for example, when I ask almost anyone under the age of about 35 'How are you?', and the answer comes back: 'I'm good'. Indeed, I have to bite my lip to stop myself from saying: 'I wasn't asking about your morals. I just wanted to know if you were well!' In the same way, it irritates me like anything when people ask at the bar: 'Can I get...', when the traditional form, on my side of the Atlantic at least, is 'May I have...' And why do so many of the young insist on starting every other sentence with the word 'so'? (Ask them what they do for a living, and the chances are they will give some incomprehensible answer, such as: 'So, I'm a local government project outreach manager.') Won't somebody teach BBC reporters, meanwhile, that singular subjects take singular verbs? I've lost count of the number of times I've switched on the news to hear sentences such as: 'The collapse in shares are sending shock-waves through the financial world.' Are it really? Or take the way in which many who are confused or ambiguous about their sexual identity like to be referred to by the plural pronouns 'they' and 'them'. What bugs me quite as much as any other consideration is the way this mangles English grammar. As for quirks of pronunciation, I suppose I should admit that some of my objections are merely snobbish. For example, nobody on BBC London seems able to say the word 'hospital' in the way I was brought up to pronounce it. Asad Ahmad and most of his colleagues give it three equally stressed syllables ('hosp-it-tool'), instead of rhyming it with little or skittle. (Mind you, some of them say 'littool' and 'skittool' as well.) It annoys me, too, that Sir Keir Starmer seems to have trouble pronouncing his own job title, rendering it more often than not as 'Pry-Mister'. And don't get me started on the Chancellor's hideous, grating pronunciation of the name of the kingdom she's bringing to ruin, which she insists on calling the 'Yew-Kye'. But some common pronunciations are just plain wrong. I'm thinking in particular of words we get from the French, such as restaurateur and lingerie. Again and again, you will hear the former pronounced as if it had an 'n' in it, and the latter as if it ended in -ay. Mind you, my late father regarded it almost as his patriotic duty to mispronounce French words. I'll never forget his rebuking me once for pronouncing Marseilles the French way, as 'Mar-say.' 'Mar-say, boy? Mar-say?' he spluttered. 'The word is Mar-sails! You don't pronounce Paris 'Paree', do you?' Other examples of common mispronunciations that are just plain wrong include 'Joo-le-ree' for jewellery, 'Feb-you-airy' for February and 'amen-o-knee' for that admittedly tricky tongue-twister, anemone. Meanwhile, Dent herself cites the widespread mispronunciation of nuclear as 'nucular', saying it understandably irks a lot of people, while observing with her lexicographer's detachment that she thinks this is influenced by such words as molecular and secular. She tells me: 'I'm certainly not saying 'anything goes'. Language needs to be fluent and articulate (and wherever possible, beautiful!) in order to be effective, and when we deviate from the standard it can affect the quality and comprehensibility of our writing or speech.' All she is pointing out, she says, is that pronunciations have evolved for centuries, as we have adjusted sounds that no longer seem familiar to those that are. 'It can be irritating of course, and many will believe it is a degradation of English, all of which I understand,' she says. 'But there is perhaps reassurance in the fact that this is nothing new.' Ah, well, I'm sure she's right on every count. But may not an old man rant?
Daily Mail
6 days ago
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
Mispronouncing mischievous is now acceptable, reveals Susie Dent... but do YOU know how to say it?
Countdown's Susie Dent has claimed that the common mispronunciation of mischievous as 'mischiev-i-ous' is actually now acceptable. Despite the pronunciation being deemed 'non-standard' by the Merriam-Webster dictionary, Dent believes it is a good example of how language evolves. In the English language, only mischievous and grievous end with 'ievous', while at least 10 words end in 'vious', including commonly-used words like 'previous' and 'devious'. Dent, who has been working on Countdown since 1992, put the mispronunciation down to a confusion or mimicry of the words 'devious' and 'previous', reports the Times. Speaking at the Hay Festival, Dent said: 'Something which used to rile me was people pronouncing "mischievous" as "mischiev-i-ous". But now it's everywhere and there is a very good reason why people do. 'It's the way English people have always pushed out a pronunciation that is no longer familiar to them. We don't have any "ievous" words any more, and they're pushing it to something that they do know, and that's "evious". 'So I have now decided it's a fascinating snapshot of how language works and it doesn't really bother me, not anymore.' However, the mispronunciation is pet peeve for many. Taking to X (formerly Twitter), Richard Dawkins wrote: '"Mischievous" has no third "I" and is pronounced with the stress on the first syllable. 'But a mutant 'I' + stress on 2nd syllable is spreading. As a mischievous memeticist, I'm curious about the selection pressure driving it. Is it easier to say? Or is some celebrity being copied?' Also taking to social media to share his frustration last week was author and children's laureate, Frank Cottrell-Boyce. He shared a post that read: 'Even people on Radio 4 can't pronounce "mischievous" now.' The pronunciation and spelling of 'mischievous' dates back to the 16th century, according to the Merriam-Webster dictionary. 'Our pronunciation files contain modern attestations ranging from dialect speakers to Herbert Hoover,' it added. During her talk, Dent also revealed the words that she loves but are no longer used as much. This includes the word 'respair', the word opposite to 'despair' and commonly heard in the 16th or 17th century, meaning fresh, hope or recovery. She also included 'ipsedixitism', which means a dogmatic assertion that something is true without providing supporting evidence or proof. The Countdown star went on to say that she believes people are afraid of dealing with her in case they take her of a 'a bit of linguistic pedant'. She revealed she once had a builder tell her that he 'could never bring himself to text me' because he thought she 'needed semi-colons in my text messages'. Dent previously spoke to MailOnline about the historic words she wants to see back in the English language. One of her many favourites is 'nodcrafty' which, despite being from the 19th century, is perfect 'for any Zoom meeting'. 'To be nodcrafty is to have the knack of nodding your head as if you're really following along but actually you tuned out ages ago,' she said. 'I think that's quite an important skill.' Another little-know word, 'apricity', describes 'the most perfect feeling' – the warmth of the sun on your back on a winter's day. 'There's only one record of it in the dictionary, from 1623,' Susie explained. 'It's almost like a linguistic mayfly – it just survived for a day it seems and disappeared. 'But weather forecasters are beginning to use it which is brilliant.' Commonly mispronounced words in English This list outlines an array of terms that people often find themselves stumbling over, or incorrectly pronouncing, according to literacy expert Mubin Ahmed. Mischievous Mispronunciation: mis-CHEE-vee-us Correct pronunciation: MIS-chiv-us 'Many people add an extra syllable, pronouncing it as 'mis-CHEE-vee-us,' but the correct pronunciation is 'MIS-chiv-us,' with only three syllables,' said the literacy expert. Schedule Mispronunciation: SKED-yool Correct pronunciation: SHED-yool Mubin said: 'In British English, 'schedule' is traditionally pronounced as 'SHED-yool.' However, the American pronunciation 'SKED-yool' is becoming more common due to cultural influences.' Pronunciation Mispronunciation: pro-nounce-ee-A-shun Correct pronunciation: pro-nun-see-A-shun 'Ironically, the word 'pronunciation' is often mispronounced. The correct form is 'pro-nun-see-A-shun,' not 'pro-nounce-ee-A-shun,' insisted Mubin. Espresso Mispronunciation: ex-PRESS-oh Correct pronunciation: es-PRESS-oh 'There is no 'x' in 'espresso.' The correct pronunciation is 'es-PRESS-oh', said the literacy expert. Arctic Mispronunciation: AR-tic Correct pronunciation: ARK-tik The literacy expert claimed: 'The word 'Arctic' has two 'c's,' and both should be pronounced. The correct pronunciation is 'ARK-tik'. Nuclear Mispronunciation: NOO-kyoo-lar Correct pronunciation: NOO-klee-ar 'The word 'nuclear' is often mispronounced as 'NOO-kyoo-lar.' The correct pronunciation is 'NOO-klee-ar', said Mubin. February Mispronunciation: FEB-yoo-air-ee Correct pronunciation: FEB-roo-air-ee 'Many people skip the first 'r' in 'February,' but the correct pronunciation includes it: 'FEB-roo-air-ee,' explained Mubin. Quinoa Mispronunciation: kee-NO-ah Correct pronunciation: KEEN-wah 'This superfood's name is often mispronounced. The correct pronunciation is 'KEEN-wah', insisted the literacy expert. Often Mispronunciation: OFF-ten Correct pronunciation: OFF-en 'While both 'OFF-ten' and 'OFF-en' are technically correct, the traditional pronunciation in British English is 'OFF-en,' where the 't' is silent,' explained the literacy expert. Zebra Mispronunciation: ZEE-bra Correct pronunciation: ZEB-ra 'In British English, 'zebra' is pronounced 'ZEB-ra,' with a short 'e' sound, unlike the American pronunciation 'ZEE-bra',' said Mubin. Library Mispronunciation: lie-BERRY Correct pronunciation: LIE-brer-ee 'The word "library" is often mispronounced as "lie-BERRY," but the correct pronunciation is "LIE-brer-ee"', Mubin explained. Salmon Mispronunciation: SAL-mon Correct pronunciation: SAM-uhn 'The "l" in "salmon" is silent. The correct pronunciation is "SAM-uhn",' revealed the literacy expert from UK-based Awesome Books. Almond Mispronunciation: AL-mond Correct pronunciation: AH-mund 'The "l" in "almond" is also silent. The correct pronunciation is "AH-mund"', claimed the expert. Debris Mispronunciation: DEB-ris Correct pronunciation: de-BREE 'The correct pronunciation of "debris" is "de-BREE," with the "s" being silent,' insisted Mubin. Controversy Mispronunciation: con-TROV-er-see Correct pronunciation: CON-tro-ver-see 'In British English, "controversy" is pronounced with the stress on the first syllable: "CON-tro-ver-see."', explained the literacy expert.
Telegraph
6 days ago
- Entertainment
- Telegraph
It's fine to mispronounce ‘mischievous' now, says Susie Dent
It is one of the most mispronounced words in the English language, causing purists to despair. A sizeable percentage of the population pronounces 'mischievous' as 'mischiev-i-ous', with the mistake even making its way onto the BBC. And now these grammar miscreants have found an unlikely champion in Susie Dent, the Countdown star and lexicographer, who has declared that 'mischievious' is now an acceptable word and we should accept the extra syllable. At the Hay Festival, Dent said: 'Something which used to rile me was people pronouncing 'mischievous' as 'mischievious'. But now it is everywhere and there is a very good reason why people do. 'It's the way English people have always pushed out a pronunciation that is no longer familiar to them. We don't have any 'ievous' words any more, and they're pushing it to something that they do know, and that's 'evious'. 'So I have now decided it's a fascinating snapshot of how language works and it doesn't really bother me, not anymore.' Purists who do object to the mispronunciation include Frank Cottrell-Boyce, the author and Children's Laureate. He shared a social media post last week which lamented: 'Even people on Radio 4 can't pronounce 'mischievous' now.' Other people annoyed by the usage include Richard Dawkins, the evolutionary biologist, who asked on social media: ''Mischievous' has no third 'I' and is pronounced with the stress on the first syllable. But a mutant [sic] 'I' + stress on 2nd syllable is spreading. As a mischievous memeticist, I'm curious about the selection pressure driving it. Is it easier to say? Or is some celebrity being copied?' Dent also spoke about words she loves, but have fallen out of use. One is 'respair', a word that was used in the 16th or 17th century meaning fresh or hope or recovery, and the opposite of 'despair'. Another is 'ipsedixitism' – the dogmatic insistence that something is true because someone else said it, despite a lack of any other evidence. Dent, who joined Countdown's dictionary corner in 1992 and combined the job with working for the Oxford University Press, said people worry about dealing with her because they mistake her for 'a bit of a linguistic pedant'. She said: 'I did have a lovely, lovely builder once say that he could never bring himself to text me because he thought I needed semi-colons in my text messages. Which is completely untrue.'
