malvin

Correct spelling, "Cupboard". I tried when in conversation, to pronounce it correctly, "cup-board" when wanting something from the cubbord, cubberd, caburd, cubered, kaberd. "Cup-board" just doesn't sound right, let alone saying it right. Just wondering if it's me or the English language?

PixelStan77 Loc: Vermont/Chicago

Depends upon your accent and where you were brought up. My sense people from England or Ireland or New York sound differently

David Martin Loc: Cary, NC

It's kuhb-erd or, for the erudite, 'kʌb ərd .
Yes.

JohnSwanda Loc: San Francisco

The English language is well known to have idiosyncratic pronunciation, especially regarding silent letters.

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

That's what I grew up with in SE PA, the accepted pronunciation.
There are many words in the English language that are not pronounced the way they are spelled.
Phonetics is fun also. As well as em-PHA-sys on different syl-A-bles.

Wallen Loc: Middle Earth

Crazy English
by Richard Lederer

Let’s face it: English is a crazy language. There is no egg in eggplant or ham in
hamburger, neither apple nor pine in pineapple.
English muffins were not invented in England or french fries in France. Sweetmeats are
candies, while sweetbreads, which aren’t sweet, are meat.
We take English for granted. But if we explore its paradoxes, we find that quicksand can
work slowly, boxing rings are square, and a guinea pig is neither from Guinea nor is it a
pig.
And why is it that writers write, but fingers don’t fing, grocers don’t groce, and hammers
don’t ham?
If the plural of tooth is teeth, why isn’t the plural of booth beeth? One goose, 2 geese. So,
one moose, 2 meese? One index, two indices? Is cheese the plural of choose?
If teachers taught, why didn’t preachers praught? If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what
does a humanitarian eat?
In what language do people recite at a play and play at a recital? Ship by truck and send
cargo by ship? Have noses that run and feet that smell? Park on driveways and drive on
parkways?
How can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same, while a wise man and a wise guy
are opposites? How can the weather be hot as hell one day an cold as hell another?
When a house burns up, it burns down.
You fill in a form by filling it out and an alarm clock goes off by going on.
When the stars are out, they are visible, but when the lights are out, they are invisible.
And why, when I wind up my watch, I start it, but when I wind up this essay, I end it?
Now I know why I flunked my English. It’s not my fault; the silly language doesn’t quite
know whether it’s coming or going.

nervous2 Loc: Provo, Utah

It's the English language. It's hard enough to learn as one's native language, but as a second language it's a killer.

medphotog Loc: Witness protection land

I have an unnamed relative that has it figured out... he doesn't. He points and snaps his finger. Eventually you'll get what ever he's pointing at in/on said cupboard.. shelf.. table.. But when you're in your 90's you can be a tad eccentric.

drmike99 Loc: Fairfield Connecticut

In the greater New York (Noo Yawk) City area it’s “kuh-bid.”

medphotog Loc: Witness protection land

Youze sayin' dat kuh-bid is "dat ting over dere wit da stuff innit?" (I thoroughly enjoyed my NYC roommates while I was in college. Of course, I had to reciprocate by teaching them West Virginian)

jaymatt Loc: Alexandria, Indiana

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

Spelling and pronunciation are two different animals.

Bloke Loc: Waynesboro, Pennsylvania

In England, English muffins are crumpets. I can't explain the others, but probably a lot of them come from the various influxes (influces?) of population over the years. Romans, French, Vikings, who knows what else!

Abo

Perhaps hamburgers were "invented" in Hamburg.

JohnSwanda Loc: San Francisco

According to the Food Lovers Companion, The name "hamburger" comes from the seaport town of Hamburg, Germany, where it is thought that 19th-century sailors brought back the idea of raw shredded beef (known today as beef tartare) after trading with the Baltic provinces of Russia.