These are the words that New Jerseyans struggle with

Be honest: we’ve all been in this kind of situation, right?

You’re having a conversation with someone and they pause you asking to repeat what you just said.

Not because they didn’t hear you, because they wanted to be sure they heard you correctly.

Why?

Because you mispronounced a word or said it in an unconventional way without even realizing it.

This happened naturally during a conversation on the afternoon show on NJ101.5 which inspired us to ask listeners what words give them pause, here are some of the problem words….

Words or phrases that mess us up

Ziti

The word that started this conversation in the first place - we found out our traffic reporter, Brendan, has been saying “ziti” not like “zee-tee,” as is customary, but as “zit-ee.”

He even made a poll to see if there was anyone else out there who pronounced it this way.

It… didn’t go as he planned.

Sorry, Brendan, this is why you report on traffic and not pasta.

Minneapolis

CJ in Morristown wrote in on the NJ101.5 app chat to share that they for the longest time thought it was pronounced “Minnianapolis.”

I don’t know why because I’m not thinking about… hold on, I have to pause to make sure I’m writing this correctly… Minneapolis often, but I made the same mistake.

CJ, you are not alone.

Coin toss

This one seems unassuming but it was called in by Dennis in Aberdeen. When he goes to mention a coin toss, he flips the first letters and says “toin coss.”

To be honest, once he said this it totally made sense to me. Now I think I’ll end up doing this from now on. Thankfully I’m not seeing too many toin- I mean… COIN tosses.

Preliminary

Rich in Middletown called this one in, saying that even though he has to use this word frequently at work, he has to slow himself down every time in order to be sure he says it correctly.

Worcestershire Sauce

Sandy in Riverside, even as someone who works in the food industry, struggles with this sauce’s name.

I would argue the spelling of the word is what messes people there are too many ‘r’s to be pronounced “WOOSTER-shire.” It’s practically trolling people like me and Sandy who have trouble with it.

Anthropomorphic

My co-host, Jeff Deminski, and I both need about four attempts before he gets the pronunciation right and I just give up. Blessedly this word doesn’t come up a lot for us.

Supposedly

I don’t know why people replace the ‘D’ with a ‘B’ and end up pronouncing it “suppose-uh-BLEE,” but I’ve heard it my entire life. It barely even registers with me anymore.

Valentine’s Day

This one’s a head scratcher because in the month and a half leading up to Feb. 14, we see the holiday advertised in stores constantly, yet every year I hear people same “ValentiMe’s.”

This is like getting to Dec. 25 and hearing someone say “Crispmas,” it’s baffling.

If you were guilty of any of these, hopefully this helped clear stuff up. But are you one to say any of these..?

The post above reflects the thoughts and observations of New Jersey 101.5's Kylie Moore. Any opinions expressed are Kylie's own. You can follow Kylie on Instagram.

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