It's the by-product of a government that spends unlimited amounts on the military industrial complex and nothing on education. We are now in a race to the bottom.

Do you ever use yards?

Only in football. ;)

I think Jeanne's nailed it.

There is a correct use for the word 'stock' in horticulture. Root stock, for example, is the established (often well rooted) plant used in grafting. Root stock is often selected for special characteristics it can share with the variety grafted to it. I've seen many references in the gardenweb to grafting stock.

There is also 'stocky' as in solid, strong, chunky. "We want our stalks to be stocky."

'Yards' is often used to measure distances of many feet. Construction measurements are always in feet, though, so that we can be assured of consistency.

Though poor educational background has a lot to do with some of the things we read here, local idiosyncrasies can play an important part, too. I LOVE those.

I agree that "wheel barrel" is just someone's attempt to say wheel barrow.

And occasionally, it might be just a typo. I have caught myself typing a word that wasn't what I meant to type at all but it just came out of my fingers that way. And then if I don't catch it in "preview", it stays (because we have no edit function!).

Thanks for that everyone. So stalk and stock are different things over there as over here. Language is evolving all the time, hence our transatlantic differences. Perhaps some time in the future stock will take over from stalk and we will have another difference between us. I always find it fun imagining the accent the posts are written in and every so often the spelling gives it away. I love it! That's one reason why I stick around over here and don't bother much with Brit websites. (And by the way the literacy levels on here are way higher than on most Brit sites!) And I've just realised I used stalk and pork to show how they rhyme for me thereby giving away MY accent too. No 'r' in pork:)

Mistakes are frequent when hammering out posts whether the poster knows the correct spelling or not.

I do, however, know people who believe that "wheel barrel" is the proper term. Even had a discussion with someone once who said "but it's a barrel with wheels on it!" I gotta say that makes some degree of sense to me. After all, "barrow" is not a term I've ever heard used by itself.

Mulch and soil, when purchased in bulk, are still measured in cubic yards.

Interesting thread.

Yes, bulk measurements are always in cubic yards...unless the amount is less than a cubic yard.

A couple of my favorite horticultural 'mis-speaks' are: Jupiter, as in " C'mon George, we've got to plant these darned Jupiter bushes." Cannon, as in " Would you look at those gorgeous Cannon lilies?"

My husband and I still talk about the 'cannon lady', with affection.

flora...so the word 'stalk' rhymes with 'pork' in your accent? Like 'stork' (the bird)?

Of course if there's no 'r' in pork, there's probably no 'r' in stork, either...

I swear the browser drops about every 20th letter I type. Can't understand why my typing is so much worse if I'm typing a short little search term or URL than it is when I'm using a word processor...

WW

My boss, who owns the gardening company I work for, calls loppers, "lopers".

Yup - rhizo-1 stork, pork, stalk, dork, walk, chalk, cork, caulk, hawk, auk - all the same to me! How weird is that?

carrieb - the word 'barrow' is still in use over here meaning a hand cart e.g. as used by market traders.

To me, the names Carrie, Kerry, and Cary are all pronounced differently.

It wasn't until I was an adult that I realized that most Americans pronounce them all the same. (New Yorkers, as my parents were, tend to pronounce them differently)

I occasionally argue with people at work during a project when we say that we need to "flesh out the details" vs. "flush out the details". Frankly the second one reminds me of the toilet. But perhaps the first one is gruesome to some people!

"Flesh out the details" means to add substance to the framework.

Reminds me of a couple of other horticultural mis-speaks...get ready: a woman was trying to describe a plant to me and I just wasn't getting it for some reason. The guy next to her said, "I think she's talking about an enema." Anemone. Turned out she WAS talking about anemone, but I couldn't say it right for the whole rest of the program.

Like the time I had a student who kept mispronouncing the word 'organism'. She did it all semester long, and not on purpose, either. I was proud of myself for having had to leave the room only once over that one.

I must admit that I'm intrigued to know how one can pronounce all of those 'Carries' differently, Carrie.

rhizo -

Carrie: same "a" as in "hat"

Kerry: "e" sounds like the "e" in "hell"

Carey: "a" sounds like the "a" in "Mary"(had a little lamb). (most people use this pronunciation for all of them, in my experience)

Also, Marry, Merry, Mary all sound different to me. (use the same letter pronunciations as above for the "M" words.)

The one that always makes me wonder is Scrubs for Shrubs. It happens fairly often. Do they call them scrubs in some parts?
One I heard recently, Rose Companion for Rose Campion.

Flora,
Computer friends came over here to visit for a couple weeks. It was interesting trying to figure out things we use different words or expressions for like car boot is not used over here. We say flea market. She kept asking where the stores were, and we asked do you mean the mall? Which made no sense to her. So my husband took them to a street with lots of neat shops. She still asked where the stores were. Yes she wanted to go to the mall. Another one was eggplant. She is vegetarian. We were at a restaurant, and I pointed out the eggplant dish. She had no clue what it was and was afraid to order. Later we found out she knew it as aubergine and of course loves it, lol. It was interesting. Oh and her husband's voice! I could never tell what the heck he was saying. He sounds like a drunk John Lennon, lol.
Remy

I recently visited an unfamiliar Big Box [American term for a giant store like building supply/home decor/garden supply Lowe's or Home Depot, or general merchandise/hardware/groceries/garden supply Wal-mart] to obtain a particular brand of poison ivy killer which is no longer carried by the store which used to have it. I also found an enormous foxglove and a few small plants.

As I was wheeling my cart along the main aisle, one of a group of employees gestured to the particularly-noticeable foxglove and asked me, "You do know that's a bi-perennial, right?"

Not quite sure how to interpret that, I nodded and continued to the cashier.

Still no idea whether he was teasing or confused....

^^ The employee was probably just plant-curious

If you want something shorter than a Poteena you can always try a Yerhonormus.

Just be careful no soilborne orgasms came with it in the truck.

To do this you have to be able to read the mustard on the wall.

The term that always gets me is "foilage" for foliage, like with aluminum foil. And this one is a constant from someone who is supposed to be an educated horticulturist! I can deal easily with the mispronunciation of botanical names but with plain old English words I just don't understand why it should be confusing.

I tend to agree with jeanne that most of these "misspeaks" are the result of a poor education. For some reason, basic spelling and writing skills and vocabulary seem to be seriously neglected by our education system. And the techno age seems to be furthering the dumbing down of certainly the US if not the entire world. Pretty soon we will all be writing in abbreviations and acronyms more common to texting than skilled writing.

It's a sad thing :-(

Some of it may be just old fashioned regionalisms. My grandma always pronounced hospital like housepital. I still pronounce foliage like folige. I haven't bothered trying to clear that from my pronunciation quite as hard as I've been working on nucular.

And all the Carries and Merries sound alike but bury sounds nothing like berry.