There are three words in the English language – American style – that rarely get pronounced correctly.
These aren’t big words, mind you. And you don’t need a dictionary to discover their meaning.
Instead, they’re simple little words we use every day. One has two letters, the others three each. Two are prepositions, the other a possessive pronoun.
Give up? Okay, then let’s greet today’s celebrity panel: “ to”, “for”, and “our”. You might know them better as “tuh”, “fer”, and “are”.
Who mispronounces these words? You do, I do, members of the clergy, teachers, geniuses, morons, actors and, worst of all, newscasters. My binge news watching is what finally woke me up to this harsh reality even while realizing that I, too, am a serial offender.
The underlying cause for such grammatical hiccups is pure laziness. Yep, it’s just faster and easier to say “fer” than “for” (just fer example) in mid-sentence. And yet when each of our three little words is spoken at the end of a sentence, mispronouncing them would make you sound ridiculous! Allow me to demonstrate.
“Where do you think you’re going tuh?” Wrong!
“The first word of the Lord’s Prayer is are.” Preacher, leave those kids alone.
“What did you do that fer?” Stop, you’re hurting my ears.
Place them mid-sentence, however, and it’s a whole new ball game. Not only do the aliases sound normal, they sound correct!
“We’re having are house painted.”
“What are you making fer dinner?”
“It takes two tuh tango.”
Aha, I just threw you a curve. That’s right, the same careless abuse of “to” does not apply to its homonyms. In the tango cliché, “two” never gets mispronounced, but the same can’t be said for its “to” brethren. Then you have their little buddy “too,’ also never mispronounced. I mean, who would ever stand for the likes of “May I have some tuh?” Or, “Tuh much, tuh little, tuh late tuh (this one’s okay) ever try again.”
Tuh wrap things up, I believe that in a perfect world, we all would stand fer verbal correctness and treat are language with the respect it deserves.
I’m guilty! Lock me up (-;
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Thanks for the feedback. I just opened it and I’m not seeing the problem but am going to have it looked at. Glad you’re enjoying our work.