Fred Astaire drew laughs back in the Thirties with his song "Let's Call the Whole Thing Off" in which the lovers can't agree on the pronunciation of words like either, neither, and tomato. On a personal level, I cringe when I hear someone sound the "t" in often or pronounce pecan with a short "a," but I have to acknowledge that both these pronunciations are widely accepted alternate pronunciations that can be justified by the spelling. Alternate pronunciations, however, are a different matter from out-and-out mispronunciations. The latter, no matter how common, are incorrect, either because of the spelling that...