Any comments?

Unusual pronunciations observed recently in the mouths of native speakers of English:

• from a CNN newsreader, to obey someone sl/æ/vishly. Since the point being made was the possible offensiveness of this expression towards an African-American, perhaps the speaker could not bring himself to say sl/e?/vish. Or was it contamination from lavish? Compare the difference between the two meanings of slaver: ‘slave trader’ with /e?/, but ‘dribble, foam at the mouth’ with /æ/.
  
• from a phonologist discussing the formal interface between syntax and intonation, acoustics with /a?/. That’s actually what the BBC Pronunciation Advisory Committee recommended back in the 1930s. Until now I had thought it an excellent example of the lack of influence of this committee, since despite its recommendation (I had assumed) we all say acoustics with /u:/.
  
• from the same speaker, the name of David Brazil, the guru of discourse intonation, as /br?'z?l/. But our late colleague called himself /'bræz?l/.
  
• from a scientist giving an academic paper at a conference, asterisk (the punctuation mark * ) with /-?ks/ instead of /-?sk/. I’d always assumed that this contamination from Asterix (the Gaul) was either illiterate or ironic. But I don’t think the speaker was being ironic.


Source: http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/wells/blog.htm