Speak English Redux

I picked up my new car from the dealership on Saturday. Relatively painless, except for the realization that I'd just shelled out over $48,000. I had a new rep, too, a new sales guy. I don't know what happened to the guy who showed me the car back in August when I ordered it, but I'd been directed to this new guy, let's call him "Regis."

Regis was a nice enough guy, clearly in full automobile sales mode, always fawningly polite, always careful to say exactly what I wanted to hear. He hung on every word, asked all kinds of personal questions, got me talking about myself, all of the things that are designed to make him my buddy and friend and confidante as quickly as possible, to establish that relationship of friendship, so I'll be so much less likely to upset him, reject him, turn down the things he offers to me, the things he's selling to me. Okay, I know all of that, so the typical sales crap has no effect on me. If I'm going to pay close to $50,000 for something, for anything, it's going to be exactly right. And if Regis wants his commission, or whoever gets the commission, then they're going to earn it, that's for sure.

But I digress.

Regis was friendly, but his command of the English language was far from what he thought it was. He kept trying to spice up his talk with big words, but the problem was that although he was competent with the proper usage and context, his pronunciation was totally off the mark.

The first was was "incomprehensible." We were bantering about something unrelated to the car, kids' soccer, I think, and Regis worked in this word. Except that it came out "incaprensble." Yeah, I understood exactly what he was saying, but his delivery let himself down.

Then the floodgates just opened up, and out poured the mangled words.

As he discussed my awareness of the road, "cognizant" became "coenizan."

"Responsibility" became "sponsbilty."

"Traction" became "tarction."

"Dynamic" became "dynamk."

And it just went on and on, one after the other. Now, REgis was a nice guy, and I wouldn't have a problem with going back to him for another car, when the time comes. He was friendly and delivered the services that I would expect, given the car and the amount of money I spent. But he let himself down with his mangled vocabulary.

Should I have corrected him? Yeah, maybe. That would've helped him, but it also could've pissed him off, my presumptiousness to correct his mode of speech. Maybe he actually mangles the pronunciation of those words on purpose, deliberately, as a bold and powerful statement of personal identity and uniqueness. I don't know, it's possible. So I just let it go. No need to embarrass a man just over that.