Orthoepy

I am somewhat of a connoisseur of the imprecision of orthoepy.  The romance intrinsic to imperfect pronunciation is what adds spice to the spoken word.  Perfect elocution mein wo baat kahaan!  In my opinion, listening to flawless pronunciation and articulation is as boring as watching paint dry.  A quirky mutation to a word every so often not only puts some spirit into the discourse, but also provides individuality to the speaker, enabling them to leave a lasting impression.  This is true especially if the said speaker a community leader or teacher or someone in a position with leverage to mold the minds of the intellectual proletariat.  For instance, I have had a number of teachers, lecturers, and professors throughout my formative years, and while our current education system doesn’t foster Guru-shishya relationships like in the older days, let alone facilitate the neurons in the student’s brain to fire synapses to form specific memories of individual teachers, lecturers, or professors, the ones I remember the best are the ones that bombarded my ears with unorthodox pronunciations.  These educators had such an impact that the only way I could study the subjects they taught was to loudly read their class notes out to myself in the same accent and the same pronunciations used by them.  There was no other way.  In the days leading up to a semester exam, you could be sure to find me sitting huddled over at my table reciting stuff like,

"The firsht ilayment in the payriodic table of ilayments is hydrozan...", 

"Newton's equation of vhiscosity is based on shearing strayss ijhequal to phorce divhided by area...", 

"The 8085 is a microprocessor cheep manufactured by Intale company in 19sheywunty6 (1976) with a 8 beet daataa bus...", etc.  

Regional influences on pronunciation are often so pronounced, pun intended, that any resultant orthoepic transgressions get assimilated into the local vernacular with minimal resistance and with such overwhelming pervasiveness that the mispronunciation becomes the norm.  For instance, I still say phurnaas for furnace and shroobery for shrubbery, thanks to my college professor who taught Elements of Mechanical Engineering and my school English teacher respectively, both of whom were incidentally among the best teachers I have had!

Orthoepy is subjective.  I find it very pretentious when someone corrects someone's diction or someone feigns being unable to comprehend what someone said just because they pronounced a word differently.  I find it ironic that someone would berate someone because they say comfortayble when they themselves say cumfterble!  Whether you call it an aalmund, an aahmund, or an awwmund, an almond is an almond.  Whether you call it an egg, an ayg, or a yegg, the predicament faced by a vegetarian when it is served to them doesn't diminish.  Whether you call it a coopun, a cuepawn, or a khoopahn, you can still save some $$ if it hasn't expired.  And finally, whether you call it Mahaabhaarat or Magaabaaradham (thanks to the Kogul phenomenon, read about it here), the Pandavas still won the war against the Kauravas!