Shocking Revelation: You know asphalt, that stuff they make roads out of? Well, we were watching Worst Jobs in History the other night and Tony Robinson kept pronouncing it “ash-felt.” I was like, “WHAT is WITH that whack pronunciation? It’s making me CRAZY!” And Rodd said, “That’s how you say it.” Say what? So I had to confirm with the Aussies here at work. People, THEY ALL SAY ASH-FELT. They’re also incredibly amused by the fact that I say “ass-fault.” Me, I’m still reeling from the fact that I am married to a person who says “ash-felt.” How could I not have known that?
18 responses
It’s so totally ashfelt! Even my Yank mother now says ashfelt.
This is just about the funniest thing I’ve read all day!! I think I’m going to have to pronounce it ass-faut from now on just because it’s so wrong!
Whose fault is it? It’s the ASS FAULT! 🙂
(As God as my witness, I will NEVER say ash-felt. I’ve capitulated on spelling words like “colour” and “neighbour”, but for ASH-FELT I will not compromise!)
A girl in my office from northern Queensland says “ass-fault”… but she also says “bitch-men” (bitumen).
Hmm. I don’t think I’ve ever used the word bitumen in conversation, but if I did, I’d probably say “bitch-oo-men”. This is an enlightening conversation!
It’s all ASS-fault at my house. We only start using ‘bitumen’ since we moved here
I’m laughing my assfault off here. Cracking up. Bitumen doesn’t really solve the problem, does it — bit-you-menn or bitch-oo-men?
I probably would have said the latter in the States, Barb, but the “you” sound has crept into my voice since I’ve been here. So it’d probably be “bitch-you-men”. 🙂
mmm this is the kind of thing that ruins marriages. My husband never fails to take the royal piss when I say yoghurt as ” yog-urt” and he insists it’s pronounced “yo!-gurt”. I refuse to change on this point. I already feel like an idiot when I say doona rather than duvet. It just feels so wrong to me.
doona, really.
Nothing so fun as different pronunciation, but I still get grief on the North Shore for saying musk melon instead of cantaloupe.
ash-felt? it’s like al-u-minium or zed; I couldn’t believe that people could really pronounce things so differently.
We have a few pronounciation differences in our marriage, but we knew about them before tying the knot: roof vs. “ruff” and coupon vs. Q-pon are two of the bigger ones.
*shudder* I think “Q-pon” would have been a bigger dealbreaker for me than “ash-felt.”
The worst mispronunciation being, of course, “noo-kyoo-ler.” Such speakers are DEAD TO ME.
Ha! It’s ash-felt! And aluminium!
And Mel-bun! And Lon-ceston!
These are the correct pronunications. Anything else is wrong wrong wrong.
Ass-fault. Hilarious!
I say Mel-bun and Lon-ceston! I even say “Woosster-sheer” sauce! But “ash-felt” is just nonsense. Where does the “ash” come from? The AS is separate from the PH!
From Merriam-Webster…
Main Entry: 1 as·phalt
Pronunciation: ‘as-“folt also ‘ash-, especially British -“falt
So they’re both right. Except “ash-felt” is… righter.
Really? I can’t believe it says that.
Oh you know what else is crazy?
That people from NSW say “Kewl” and “Pewl” instead of “cool” and “pool”.
Seriously, we can’t watch the weather report in winter here because it bugs us so much! “Tomorrow will be kewl.” Gargh!
Sorry, just had to get that off my chest.