<p>Aunt is interesting. My relatives are from Massachusetts where aunt is pronounced aw-nt. But I have lived out west for most of my life, where aunt is pronounced ant. So I when I would talk about my family, I would talk about my ant, Aw-nt XXX. </p>
<p>I go to the online Merriam-Webster dictionary site, m-w.com. They pronounce the words for you, which is really nice–there are some words that I’ve only read in books and never used IRL. Some of my pronunciations weren’t even close. (synecdoche, for example)</p>
<p>Re balsamic: both pronunciations are correct.</p>
<p>The wimpy handshake is a good point. Parents (dads especially), teach your daughters how to shake hands! It’s not something little girls learn. In many careers, especially male-dominated math/science/engineering fields there is a lot of handshaking and I think the first time I EVERY shook someone’s hand was at a job interview :-(.</p>
<p>It still feels a little awkward to me, but I’m much better after YEARS of practice!</p>
<p>I have never heard anyone pronounce the “t” in often, but I use y’all fluently. One of my pet peeves is people who misspell it as ya’ll.</p>
<p>I wouldn’t put mispronouncing things under bad first impressions as people come from different areas and different areas pronounce things differently… It’s not that they are uneducated or anything, that is just how they speak in different parts of the country.</p>
<p>and I hate to sound rude, but I never knew there was a proper way to spell y’all. I don’t think I’ve ever needed to spell that “word” before, haha!</p>
<p>We live north of the Ohio river and often travel to a town about an hour away on the south side of the river. One of the linguistic distinctions is that those south of the river overwhelmingly use y’all. We were sensitizing a foreign guest to this use of the word, because nearly every waitress we have ever had there has used the word dozens of times during our dinner. Wouldn’t you know it? That night, our waitress was originally from Canada?</p>
<p>I am turned off by obvious mispronunciations (that are not regionalisms) like “nucular”.</p>
<p>I still feel a mild annoyance when I encounter regionalisms where I now live that I didn’t grow up with–soda rather than pop, sunduh rather than sunday (the ice cream), Missouruh rather than Missouree, warsh rather than wash. They wouldn’t cause me to have a bad impression of someone though.</p>
<p>I remember that we lived in a semi southern town when S1 was a child. I didn’t want him to take on the local accent. He was watching an old episode of Lassie on TV and Timmy fell down a well. He was about 5 or 6 and came running to me, saying “Timmy fell down a whale!” I stopped him and said a “whale is a big mammal that swims in the ocean. He fell down a well.”</p>
<p>and people who won’t look directly at you when they speak</p>
<p>I am on the autistic spectrum, I find it very difficult, if not painful to look in someones face when speaking.
I try to glance at them occasionally, but it is really difficult.</p>
<p>( Not looking at someone can also be a sign of respect, depending on your culture)</p>
<p>I’m not on the autistic spectrum (to the best of my knowledge), and I find it extremely difficult, too. Shyness, I suppose, and self-consciousness about having people look directly back at me. I have to remind myself all the time to look people in the eye periodically, although I can’t do it for more than a few seconds at a stretch. I’m better than I used to be many years ago, when I often wasn’t even able to look in the direction of people’s faces, let alone their eyes.</p>
<p>According to my 2 dictionaries, often can correctly be pronounced with or without the “t” sound, although both say that without is more common.</p>
<p>One grammar thing that irritates me would be those who take “could care less” or “couldn’t care less” as if they were Gospel, to have only one, literal, strict interpretation. They are merely expressions intended to mean the same thing.- That the degree of caring is so little that the issue is of no importance.</p>
<p>Another thing that irritates me is some here have trouble conjugating “to be”. And I am not referring to those here that were born in other lands, I mean those born and raised here.</p>
<p>With the epidemic of autism comes a need to rethink social norms and expectations. There are so many people in every community with nonverbal learning disabilities. Receptive and expressive nonverbal communication missteps are a painful reality made worse by those unwilling to give other people a break. Even something like chewing gum…There are just some situations where it is very annoying, and there are ways to chew it which can be maddening. Is the perp just a rude and annoying person, or is he or she unable to (at least without help) perceive the subtleties of social interaction?</p>
<p>“epidemic of autism” As someone who is interested in reading the literature, can you give me a baseline article? Is it an epidemic of occurance or of diagnosis?<br>
Don’t even get me started on gum, if you are chewing in front of me, I can’t concentrate on anything else. Gag. So, am I the austitic person or is the gum-chewer?</p>
<p>Things that bug me: double negatives. I can’t even figure out how to write an example of that, but I work with ladies who don’t seem to have the word “any” in their vocabulary. I hear those double negatives all day long, and these are teachers who misspeak!</p>
<p>Added syllables, like “the-a-ter”. Why not “thea-ter”? My MIL does that.</p>
<p>Getting the ‘I’ and ‘me’ mixed up. As in, “She went with Tim and I.” Or “Tim and me are going outside.” I really dislike songs when the lyrics are grammatically wrong too.</p>
<p>And why does anyone say “hisself”? Or write one word, “alot” when it should be two words, “a lot”.</p>
Not sure how you can even say theater in 2 sylables… thee-AY-ter. and I grew up on the West coast.
alot instead of a lot is lack of education, as is hisself.</p>
<p>am I the austitic person?
those on the spectrum can have either really good hearing/an inability to tune out sounds & so be extremely bothered by snapping of gum.</p>
<p>The chewer on the other hand, may just be ADHD.
;)</p>
<p>Some of the worst, clammy, limp handshakes I’ve gotten have been from grown men.
They seem to go hand in hand (so to speak) with too much cologne. Gag.</p>
<p>Like holding a door open for a lady, there is another rule of etiquette that deals with shaking hands. A gentleman is to shake hands with a lady only if she extends hers first. Old rules to be sure, but there is always indecision as rules change or are phased out.</p>
<p>OK…first impression…dress neatly and appropriately for the job for which you are interviewing. Honestly, when folks walk IN the door, the way they appear (neat, well chosen clothing for the job interview, clothing that fits) is the FIRST impression.</p>
<p>For those that may not know it, there is a published theory called “the Halo Effect”
Some may argue first impressions can be wrong, or that they can be shallow, but they do exist.</p>
<p>Thumper, I’m always amazed at the things I see people wearing when they come in for interviews. Generally speaking we are a very relaxed company when it comes to attire but it’s not like you know that when you come in for an interview. I’d think you would want to dress to impress. Plastic flip flops from old navy doesn’t quite cut it.</p>