As a transplanted Hoosier, I have some ingrained pronunciation problems that I consciously try to avoid. But sometimes, when speaking quickly, it's easy to fall back into, for instance,  "feel" instead of "fill" — which turns a "filling station" into a "feeling station".

My mom, also a Hoosier, continues to omit the "l" from words like "bowl" or "old". So you might hear "Git the ode bow" coming from her lips. And she's not unsophisticated. It's just that those early habits die hard.

It is only having had some high-school French, by the way, that prevented me from making some of the errors that the author did.

Nope!  I proclaimed, never even heard of it.

Then she showed me the print add.  Oh!  "SEARS!",  I exclaimed, laughing.  Why didn't you say so?

And, I always wondered what I was drinking up in Philly when my cousins offered my "woulder" or is it "wooder".  Whatever it was, it wasn't "wah-ter"!

Thanks for the laughs!

My wife is from the Philippines and sometimes we have a break down in communications due to our different accents and pronounciations.  But at home it is a part of life and we always laugh when it happens.

But I think accents are great.  But your really only "hear" them when you listen for them. 

And you mean it is not pronounced com-you-neek?

Lexicographers differ based on region. Apparently, 'nitch' is the correct american pronounciation, but it will garner funny looks to say it that way north of the border.

While on the topic of french, there is delicious irony in Bush's comment that the french do not have a word for entrepeneur. First is the patently obvious fact that english speakers also lack a word for entrepeneur. Second, he may be correct, as the french usage of the word is for a contractor.

"niche" pronounced as "neesh" and not "nitch" sounds "terribly affected."

Sheesh!

Accents & pronunciation, what is the way forward in the 'global village'?