A list of the 100 Most Often Mispronounced Words.
Though, as with spelling and the like, it’s worth considering the extent to which pronunciation (indeed, even more than spelling) is subject to evolution as well as rules. Any number of words in our language don’t match, through usage, their pronunciation and their spelling. That’s part of the way a language stays alive.
And, in fact, sometimes mispronunciations lead to new, “legitimate” terms — card sharp spawning card shark, for example, or the joke about Altzheimer’s Disease being Old-Timers Disease, or the evolution of champing at the bit into chomping at the bit — or even commonly accepted pronunciation drifts like mauve being pronounced “mawv” rather than “moev.” Indeed, the author admits that in some of these (and others), the dictionaries (being descriptive rather than presecriptive) have given up and accepted the alternates.
That said, any list that includes my personal bugaboos (Calvary/cavalry, irregardless, nucular) can’t be too bad.
(via Doyce)