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ImageSMART TALK

by Dr. Parley Speake




FOWARD: The letter T isn't the only casualty in lazy speech. Saying winner for winter and cowner and cowny for counter and county have embarrassed us at the Center for English as a First Language for years. Lately, however, we've noticed another trend that makes some Americans sound as if they have a weird accent, as if English were not their first language.

Not only do some often pretentious speakers say going forward, inevitably after a future tense verb, they compound their crime by mispronouncing their redundancy and say going foward. Heck, while they're dropping Rs, they might as well say FOH-wud, as if an old timer from New England were saying Ford.

Imagine a dashing cavalry officer leading the charge by shouting "Foward!" Sounds as silly as wearing spats over his riding boots.






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