You surely noticed the attention that the primary race for state comptroller got, in The Sun and elsewhere in Maryland news media. What you may not have noticed is that nearly everyone mispronounces the title. Comptroller is pronounced "controller," n, not m, no p. (Some dictionaries list the pronunciation that matches the spelling as an alternative pronunciation.)

Reliance on the spelling as a guide to pronunciation is also probably why many people say the t in often — but the word is uttered as "offen." Some sound the l in almond, though the word is pronounced "ah-mond." These look like examples of hypercorrection, a misguided attempt to sound proper and refined. An extreme example is the finicky and affected overpronunciation of foreign words that you can hear on some classical music stations.

But some mispronunciations reflect class distinctions, as when people put an extra syllable in athlete, rendering it "athalete," or pronounce cement with the accent on the first rather than the second syllable (Think of the Beverly Hillbillies’ swimming pool, the SEE-ment pond), or call for the PO-lice when they are in difficulty.