Ha! "...because of George Bush." You made me laugh, but seriously, I didn't even consider that. You are onto something with both the foreigners (including American Southerners, New Yorkers, and Hawaiians, as well as any place other than that place being mispronounced) and with the disrespect. I always assumed it was ignorance, or as my French professor said, sometimes foreigners don't even hear a certain sound because in their world it doesn't exist (I can tell you that even as a teenager, I understood that but didn't get how I could hear things and others could not, LOL).
HAWAII is another word that people--including Hawaiians--say "wrong." The biggest problem? No one can actually be sure which way is correct anymore and the fact that people for so long have omitted the 'okina (glottal stop) out of more than half the public spellings (Hawai'i; O'ahu, for example), means the word has actually evolved and adapted and that sucks but it's language. It's ACCEPTABLE now. And I'm guessing that everyone just accepts both pronunciations now... because it's done so much. Then someone learns the correct way and should use it but instead chooses the common way (peer pressure at it's stupidest).
By the way, is it just Americans? Are there any movies from other countries that say such an easy and small word in every wrong way possible? Probably kids streaming American movies will grow up saying it wrong and one day it'll always be mostly wrong. Sigh.
Back to Hawaii, you'll have many people say that the correct spelling is the exchange of a V for the W, as many Hawaiian words do that (Ewa Beach sounds like EVa Beach and Haleiwa sounds like HaleiVa), but then there are other words (Wahiawa and Waialua) where all the W's are pronounced W. SEEMS TO ME that it's got to do with the fact they have so few letters to work with, they need both to cover so many words.
And since I am still here rambling aimlessly, here IS a good example of disrespect. Once upon a time when I was a cocktail waitress in Nevada, a guy ordered his drink and asked me my name. Teraisa, I said. Thank you, Theresa. I corrected him, it's Teraisa. What's your name? Bill. I leave, bring back drinks, he uses my "name" and I say, you're welcome Will. He says, it's Bill. Same difference I say and leave.
Another time my bad ex, Dean, didn't like that I respect my own name enough to correct it when it's wrong (a doctor called me Theresa for years then learned how to say it and said she was insulted I didn't teach her how to say it right!). A girl would call me Teraisa when she wanted something. When she was a typical mean girl, she'd say "Trace-a." I'd say, It's Ter-AI-sa. This Butthead says is it really that important?
Nooooo. It's not, you are right. If I take out your first vowel, you'd be Dan. Case freaking closed.
Yep, you are so right, people are either disrespectful, grew up with someone else telling them how to say it (right or wrong) and they choose familiar, OR they don't even care. Jerks.
I don't understand. I always thought that you could name your kid XlpeeeeNghtoyrsslmv and say it's Chris and it's Chris?
Ha, ha, sorry for taking your time and thank you for letting me talk.
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