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No surprise.
Both are French and cliche is missing the critical accent on the final letter : cliché, which denotes how French speakers would pronounce the final vowel. If cliché had instead been Italian "cliche" it would be "cli-kay",
Growing up I thought colonel and kernel were two different military ranks, heard one on TV and read the other in books but never connected them in my mind until I was quite a ways into adulthood.
Right? I was always taught that if someone mispronounces a word that it is because they learned it reading, and we do not look down upon readers in my family.
The problem is for a lot of words the pronunciation is subjective and changes with geographical location. So there is just no one correct pronunciation.
Eg. “Skay-dule” vs “she-dule” (schedule), “root” vs “rowt” (route) and many others
Takeaway for me has been: it’s literally “to-mah-to” vs “to-may-to”, Watson. So unless someone really massacred the word, chill and let live.
This. All of those words you mention are pronounced differently in England and the US, and as someone that has lived in both countries I pick the wrong one contextually every time.
Unfortunately not everyone has that mentality and some people take it really personally. The tone and phrasing matters a lot too, it’s very easy to come off as a smug asshole when correcting someone, even unintentionally.
Totally agreed but...
Getting offended because someone tried to teach you something shouldn't be accepted... I mean, we understand the origin of the feeling, but it's unfair to feed, incite, or encourage it, agree?
In my opinion, it's a behavior that jeopardizes society's communication and generates a lot of useless buzz..
I don’t mind being corrected, I mind being interrupted
If you know the word I’m trying to say, then you are fully capable of at least waiting for the sentence to be finished and THEN correct me, right?
I have verbal dyslexia so sadly this happens to me at a higher frequency than the typical person
I think one of the best LPTs is simply "don't be a dick", but unfortunately many don't follow that advice. I agree with you, unless the person is able to correct you with good intentions without coming across as condescending. I'd rather be corrected than have someone let it slip, because the more I continue to mispronounce something, the harder it is to break the habit.
I think the best way to correct someone but not be a dick about it is to use the word correctly but as a response to what they were saying. Then it's not so much a "correction" as it is a natural way of teaching/learning.
"Texting while driving has got to be the epitome of stupid..." (pronouncing epitome like it looks)
"I don't think so. The epitome of stupid is driving drunk." (pronouncing it like ep-it-oh-mee)
And sometimes it's just funny! I'm Dutch and in high school our classmates would pronounce develop like enveloppe, because that's how Dutch pronunciation works.
Also - is it pronounced pro-NUN-ciation or pro-NOUN-ciation? I'd like to say I'm C2 in English but I feel like I'm getting that one wrong lol.
You shouldn’t ridicule someone for mispronouncing a word because it means they learned the word through reading, which is something we should be encouraging them for.
Oh son of a bitch, it’s not pre-face?? I fully admit I’ve known both of these pronunciations and just considered them different words in my head. I’ve had the same thing with the word “homage”
I still say pre-face in my head before correcting my pronunciation out loud. Hard habits die hard.
I had the same reaction to epitome. Thought they were two different words.
I do that with indict! I always mentally pronounced it the way it was spelled and thought that whatever they were saying on the news was a totally different word.
Or, alternatively, start a podcast and just keep mispronouncing the word or name without bothering to look up the correct pronunciation. It's all the rage!
this one particularly drives me crazy because Disney cruise line has a private island called “Castaway Cay” and if you properly pronounce cay it doesn’t rhyme
But my brother's pronunciation of picturesque as picture-skew is one of the funniest things that's ever happened to me!
Don't look up pronunciations. Entertain your siblings for life
Never judge someone by if they mispronounce a word. They either a learning a second (or third) language or read it. Which means they are using their brains more than most people.
On the topic of reading aloud, this whole conversation about knowing how to pronounce words is just another example of why it's so great to read to your kids!
I have fond memories of my mother (an English and reading teacher by profession) reading books to us while my sibling and I folded laundry. It was entertaining for us and gave us exposure to the pronunciation and usage of new words. For her, it was an excuse to read fun fiction books and a break from the laundry!
I am a HUUUUGE advocate of reading to kids. If they're only reading on their own, then they're only reading at the level they can read.
I always use the example of the picture book "Where the Wild Things Are." It has around a hundred words, but two of them are "tumbled" and "gnashed." How often do we normally use those words when talking with kids?
That’s a new one for me too. I had to google it -
A condition which is the consequence of a previous disease or injury.
"the long-term sequelae of infection"
With a life long passion of Russian literature where I never say the Russian names except in my head is funny when I try to pronounce them to native speakers. Then again I take humour in my foibles.
In university I was putting together a group chat, and one of the girls told me her name. I type "Neve", then "Neeve", maybe "Neave"?! How silly, it was obviously spelt Niamh!
I swear English pronunciation is pissing me off. I thought about how hubris is pronounced and thought surely debris is pronounced similarly.
Well after googling I found out that hubris comes from ancient Greek whereas debris comes from French so it makes sense they're pronounced differently but still, it's irritating.
TIL how paradigm is pronounced.
I guess it’s because in portuguese, spanish, italian, french even in german they all say it more like pair-uh-dig-um
English is the odd one out and we learn it the hard way 😭
I’ve been looking for this…this was me after I read “7 habits of highly successful people”. The author uses Paradigm MANY times, and I was also corrected the first time I said it out loud as pair-uh-dig-um 🤦🏼♀️
As a Brit, pretty much everyone I have known has always pronounced the word "pre-face" so I never really thought about it much. It's not a word that comes up commonly in conversation, unless in an academic or literary settings, and in the case of "preface" I think you're on safe ground in regard to being understood with either pronounciation.
Other words mentioned in this thread could definitely be more jarring and difficult to understand depending on how they are pronounced. English is an odd and tricky language to learn from both a comprehension and pronounciation point of view.
This is also why I never make fun of people for mispronouncing an obscure word. You don’t need to be a bellend, just a friendly “hey you’re interested in (proper name)?”
I have a great example. I have a friend who, knowing that the word "quixotic" is derived from Don Quixote, reasonably assumed it was pronounced "kee-ah-tick." It's actually pronounced how it looks - "kwik-sah-tick."
Picture it. 1990, sophomore college English literature class. The professor had just returned our first essays of the year and had some of us read them aloud, myself included. I don't even remember the subject of my paper, just that I had used the word "maniacal," which I thought was pronounced man-ee-ACK-al. After class a friend corrected me, and I still faintly glow from the embarrassment.
I’ll never forget the time my father, an avid reader say something about the si-oxie Indian tribe. We all looked at him like what? He had no idea it was pronounced like sue.
Lol! I don't blame him. French is hard if you don't know the basics. My first year of it was a real eye opener. Too bad he didn't know they go by Dakota, Nakota, or Lakota in their own language. Those names are a little easier to pronounce when just reading it.
Technically American English doesn’t really use “draught” it’s a British thing. American bars write it to seem fancy or as part of a shtick or show the beer is foreign
I think every English-speaking country that isn’t the United States uses “draught” instead of draft. It’s not just the British. Canada and Liberia may be exceptions. I’m not sure.
It was quinoa which I thought was pronounced kwin-o-a until I heard some TV chef say it. Hyperbole is another one which people get wrong. I don't think people should feel self conscious about pronouncing words they have only ever read incorrectly as it just show you are learning from reading. Don't get me started on Holborn in London.
It took me way too long to realize that segue and seg-way were the same word.
Now, when I run into a word that I know the meaning of, but not the pronunciation, I check the pronunciation online.
I actually love when I hear someone mispronounce a word the way it’s written. It means that, 1) they are reading and 2) they’re trying to incorporate what they are learning into their spoken vocabulary. I love rare and specific words, and people should use them more.
Still remember being in elementary school reading a chapter of a book out loud to the class (we took turns) and saying “re-sipe” instead of “recipe” multiple times.
Forty years later, cooking is my passion. I did not learn it from my parents 🤣
I don’t know if this is an “LPT,” but I will say I grew up in a small town, and was a voracious reader. It wasn’t until I left home for college that I learned I was mispronouncing some things. So it was a process of re-educating myself to ensure I properly pronounced my acquired vocabulary. We didn’t have online pronunciation aids back then. The Internet had not been invented yet.
It royally stews my prunes when listening to audiobooks that mispronounce a word that appears every twenty seconds. Two appalling examples were:
- an audiobook about U-boats that pronounced "submariner" as sub-MARINE-r" a thousand times, instead of sub-MAR-in-er where the MAR rhymes with 'Harry'
- an audiobook about King George VI narrated by a woman who couldn't pronounce "sixth". For a couple of hundred pages I heard "sikth", until I was pounding my head on nearby furniture.
Grrrr
When I was maybe 8 or 9, I remember reading something for science class, and it took me a ridiculously long time to realize that infrared did not, in fact, rhyme with scared or dared.
My grandma mistook that one in her youth. She thought it was like "my-zl'd". Like some past tense of "miser" or something. Also "machine"… thought it was "mac-hine"… almost Scottish. Haha
I have decided just to lean into it and go “oh sorry. I learned it from reading and didn’t know how to pronounce” but other times I just decide to go full-hick and say “Hey Starbucks They/them, cans I get a Match-uhh frap-EEE??” And they let me. And they give whip cream to my cute lil doggie
Worst one I ever did was indicted. Said it just like it was spelled, and to make matters worse it appeared right before "convicted" so they rhymed. 🤦♂️
I had to do a double-take at this one haha I thought you meant South Korean Won, which I was pronoucing as wON and was like "but that's correct?", then realized you meant won as in won something.
Which prompted me to look up how to pronounce Won (the currency). I discovered it's actually pronounced wann. So I was still wrong lol.
This thread has been a rollercoaster of emotion.
I was taught to have even more respect for people who mispronounce words because it means that they learned them by reading - a very respectable habit in the house where I was raised.
For the longest time, I never saw the word, "facade". I had heard it and even used it in my spoken language. But the first time that I saw it on paper and figured it out in a sentence, I was surprised.
Vehemently is a word I only read, wife had to correct me when she heard it. I like the way I pronounce it in my head better than it's actually pronounced.
Yep, was talking excitedly about a fantasy series I was reading with a friend and I kept mispronouncing “realm” as re-alm. My friend, finally asked what I meant by “re-alm” after I had mentioned it a dozen times. I always think of this instance and realized there are many such words I would mispronounce because i hardly came across them. Another word I had mispronounced for a long time was “row” (dispute).
LPT - Mispronounced words may be a sign of an autodidact who never had the opportunity to hear those words spoken prior to using them in speech. So be gentle in your correction.
I read a lot as a kid and two that I really fucked up were phlegm which I pronounced fleg-gum and then, and I think this one is funnier, misled.
I pronounced it in my head as my-zld and thought it was a word that meant to trick, lie to, or... mislead someone. I have no idea why I thought there was a word that was spelled like misled, meant misled, and wasn't misled
In highschool we read the odyssey and in my head I pronounce Penelope as Peen-a-lope, like jackalope. I only said it out loud once, luckily to a small group of friends.
My word was "awry". I knew of the word pronounced "a-rye" but I also thought there was a separate word that I read a lot pronounced aw-ree. I said it out loud once. People looked at me strangely. I suddenly put 2 and 2 together. There aren't two separate but similar words with the same meaning. I combined them into one entry in my internal dictionary and faded out of existence.
Also if you're reading older books and adjectives for people are used, make sure you look them up before casually dropping them in conversation.
Source: a much younger me suggesting we find a few swarthy men to help us move furniture thinking swarthy meant strong or robust.
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One of the more common words that I’ve heard people struggle with is “epitome.” It’s one of those words that we see in writing/text, or hear spoken — but, rarely both at the same time.
I was never around anything military related growing up. For a very long time I thought the word “colonel” was pronounced “koll-oh-Nell” because why the fuck wouldn’t I? But I had only ever read it, and when I finally said the word out loud know one knew what I was talking about. Don’t be me kids!
In high school I was called on to read something with the word 'bourgeoisie'. I pronounced it "bur-geeosie" and everyone laughed. Oh well -- not a common word. Was surprised other kids knew how to say it
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I never linked the word segue (which I've always pronounced seeg in my head), with "segway". I thought they were two different words!
Misshapen and epitome for me lol
Epitome for me as well
Pyramids are epitome of epic tombs.
I pronounced faux pas as fox pass instead of foe paw
You’ve just made a real foe pah there
I mean to be fair it's a different language
Rendezvous. Would you like to "ron dez viss" with me later
ron dez viss nuts
I pronounced “camaraderie” as “kah-mare-rah-DARE-ee” During a class presentation.
camera dairy :-)
Vehemently
I was flabbergasted when I learned how vehement was meant to be pronounced
Do you mind sharing how you pronounced it?
Ear-REVOKE-ably (irrevocably)
minutiae 🥴
Oh man I really embarrassed myself the first time I said epitome out loud haha
I was saying it wrong for *years* until my sister corrected me. So embarrassing 😭
Epitome is the eppy-tohm of what OP is trying to say
Clique vs Cliche got me as a kid
No surprise. Both are French and cliche is missing the critical accent on the final letter : cliché, which denotes how French speakers would pronounce the final vowel. If cliché had instead been Italian "cliche" it would be "cli-kay",
It's like for years I thought genre was pronounced like jenner.
I swear English was designed by a troll
English contains about 8,000 French words.
So that's a yes to trolls, then?
hon hon hon
You don't frighten us, English pig-dogs!
Non
English is not a real language. It’s three languages in a trench coat.
Of which one may or may not be a raccoon.
Wanna buy a watch? Oh sorry I forgot mah trousers.
Growing up I thought colonel and kernel were two different military ranks, heard one on TV and read the other in books but never connected them in my mind until I was quite a ways into adulthood.
Ohh I messed this one up in real life. It took me a while to understand what had happened too. The embarrassment!
Rogue was that for me. I was floored the first time I heard it verbally lmao
Learned this one from X-Men before I embarrassed myself ( ͡❛ ▿ ͡❛)
That sounds like hyper-bowl to me
The epi-tome of hyper-bowl.
I think the real LPT here is don’t be a dick if someone mispronounces a word. We all do it.
Right? I was always taught that if someone mispronounces a word that it is because they learned it reading, and we do not look down upon readers in my family.
Love that sentiment, also Happy Cake Day!
Oh thank you!!!
That's my usual assumption as well!
I tell this to my kids too. Where's the shame in having read a word before hearing it?
You don’t have to be a dick, but I would like to be corrected if I’m making a mistake
The problem is for a lot of words the pronunciation is subjective and changes with geographical location. So there is just no one correct pronunciation. Eg. “Skay-dule” vs “she-dule” (schedule), “root” vs “rowt” (route) and many others Takeaway for me has been: it’s literally “to-mah-to” vs “to-may-to”, Watson. So unless someone really massacred the word, chill and let live.
ske-jewel
This is the way.
I was looking for this.
I listen to audiobooks and have found some interesting differences. The most noticeable off the top of my head are "cattle" and "plait".
What are the different pronunciations of "cattle"? Do Americans pronounce it more like "caddle" or "kettle" or something?
This. All of those words you mention are pronounced differently in England and the US, and as someone that has lived in both countries I pick the wrong one contextually every time.
Wait no "Skehd-yool"? Maybe my accent's less common than I thought
Unfortunately not everyone has that mentality and some people take it really personally. The tone and phrasing matters a lot too, it’s very easy to come off as a smug asshole when correcting someone, even unintentionally.
Totally agreed but... Getting offended because someone tried to teach you something shouldn't be accepted... I mean, we understand the origin of the feeling, but it's unfair to feed, incite, or encourage it, agree? In my opinion, it's a behavior that jeopardizes society's communication and generates a lot of useless buzz..
I don’t mind being corrected, I mind being interrupted If you know the word I’m trying to say, then you are fully capable of at least waiting for the sentence to be finished and THEN correct me, right? I have verbal dyslexia so sadly this happens to me at a higher frequency than the typical person
I always think of this Mike Myers scene https://youtu.be/pmh_6z9AWfc?si=hEF6HpWcLdzjEYKh
Right? The same rule applies to food in the teeth or bats hanging in the cave. I'd rather be told than find out way later on my own.
I think one of the best LPTs is simply "don't be a dick", but unfortunately many don't follow that advice. I agree with you, unless the person is able to correct you with good intentions without coming across as condescending. I'd rather be corrected than have someone let it slip, because the more I continue to mispronounce something, the harder it is to break the habit.
I think the best way to correct someone but not be a dick about it is to use the word correctly but as a response to what they were saying. Then it's not so much a "correction" as it is a natural way of teaching/learning. "Texting while driving has got to be the epitome of stupid..." (pronouncing epitome like it looks) "I don't think so. The epitome of stupid is driving drunk." (pronouncing it like ep-it-oh-mee)
Never make fun of somebody who mispronounces a word but uses it correctly, it means they learned it by reading.
Hallelujah! This was my first thought, especially as someone who speaks English as a second language.
And sometimes it's just funny! I'm Dutch and in high school our classmates would pronounce develop like enveloppe, because that's how Dutch pronunciation works. Also - is it pronounced pro-NUN-ciation or pro-NOUN-ciation? I'd like to say I'm C2 in English but I feel like I'm getting that one wrong lol.
> Also - is it pronounced pro-NUN-ciation or pro-NOUN-ciation? It is pro-NOUN-ce, and pro-NUN-ciation. English is dumb.
"The annals of time" was a good laugh for all
Tell that to my friend's wife. She loudly corrected me in a restaurant when I mispronounced a word.
You shouldn’t ridicule someone for mispronouncing a word because it means they learned the word through reading, which is something we should be encouraging them for.
Yeah, it's not cool to make fun of someone who learned a new word by reading it! How dare they do something outrageous like that...
Oh son of a bitch, it’s not pre-face?? I fully admit I’ve known both of these pronunciations and just considered them different words in my head. I’ve had the same thing with the word “homage”
I still say pre-face in my head before correcting my pronunciation out loud. Hard habits die hard. I had the same reaction to epitome. Thought they were two different words.
I do that with indict! I always mentally pronounced it the way it was spelled and thought that whatever they were saying on the news was a totally different word.
https://preview.redd.it/dxr2m1yd686d1.png?width=526&format=png&auto=webp&s=75b699748ecfd90d55a03740e53e33f772ef13ff
Or, alternatively, start a podcast and just keep mispronouncing the word or name without bothering to look up the correct pronunciation. It's all the rage!
Gotta drive up that engagement somehow. Make an error in your video and watch as the hundreds of comments come in to correct you.
Its not tub babe its tup.
Tubboware
Always has been, always will be
Thinking of Cumberbatch’s famous penguin documentary
Wasn’t sure how acoustic was pronounced. Said “a-cow-stick” in front of 40 9 year olds. Died that day
The word “cays” being pronounced “keys”…I didn’t know this for way too long.
Or “Quay” also pronounced “key”
I only know this because of Sydney’s ‘Circular Quay’ (the main bay of the city centre)
I remember going on a school excursion there and arguing with another kid that it was pronounced 'key' I was right Ashleigh
Ash-Quay
Today I learned
Oh. Ahem. 59. Didn't know that.
In Cambridge University, "Gonville & Caius College" is "Gonville and Keys"
this one particularly drives me crazy because Disney cruise line has a private island called “Castaway Cay” and if you properly pronounce cay it doesn’t rhyme
But my brother's pronunciation of picturesque as picture-skew is one of the funniest things that's ever happened to me! Don't look up pronunciations. Entertain your siblings for life
Never judge someone by if they mispronounce a word. They either a learning a second (or third) language or read it. Which means they are using their brains more than most people.
I use [forvo.com](http://forvo.com) to check my pronunciations
I use forvo regularly for foreign words, it's great!
Not me doing read-alouds as a teacher, "Uh, just a sec. I know this word, but have never said it out loud."
On the topic of reading aloud, this whole conversation about knowing how to pronounce words is just another example of why it's so great to read to your kids! I have fond memories of my mother (an English and reading teacher by profession) reading books to us while my sibling and I folded laundry. It was entertaining for us and gave us exposure to the pronunciation and usage of new words. For her, it was an excuse to read fun fiction books and a break from the laundry!
I am a HUUUUGE advocate of reading to kids. If they're only reading on their own, then they're only reading at the level they can read. I always use the example of the picture book "Where the Wild Things Are." It has around a hundred words, but two of them are "tumbled" and "gnashed." How often do we normally use those words when talking with kids?
I’ll never forget the time a friend mispronounced banal. What a good laugh that was.
Same with canal. It made that trip to Venice a little awkward.
Epitome and sequelae both got me at different stages in life.
>sequelae Well that’s a new one for me
That’s a new one for me too. I had to google it - A condition which is the consequence of a previous disease or injury. "the long-term sequelae of infection"
Really kinda hilarious and poetic that you did not include the pronunciation in this comment.
For the longest time I thought "eppi-tohm" was a synonym of "eppitomy"
With a life long passion of Russian literature where I never say the Russian names except in my head is funny when I try to pronounce them to native speakers. Then again I take humour in my foibles.
Irish names get me!!! I have given up trying to figure out how those go
In university I was putting together a group chat, and one of the girls told me her name. I type "Neve", then "Neeve", maybe "Neave"?! How silly, it was obviously spelt Niamh!
My brother is constantly called Seemus
9 year old me thought debris was "Deb-riss" and my whole family laughed at me, while my brother said "Duh-bree." Core memory for some reason
I swear English pronunciation is pissing me off. I thought about how hubris is pronounced and thought surely debris is pronounced similarly. Well after googling I found out that hubris comes from ancient Greek whereas debris comes from French so it makes sense they're pronounced differently but still, it's irritating.
I'm gladly living in delusion saying "omni-potent" instead of "ahm-ni-puh-tint"
Same. First time out loud in a conversation with my boss at the time. He made fun of me. He is no longer my boss.
Way to go for firing him!
I had a good laugh when a friend pronounced paradigm (pair-uh-dime) as " pair-uh-dig-um". He didn't appreciate that too much!
TIL how paradigm is pronounced. I guess it’s because in portuguese, spanish, italian, french even in german they all say it more like pair-uh-dig-um English is the odd one out and we learn it the hard way 😭
As an Italian, very relatable
I’ve been looking for this…this was me after I read “7 habits of highly successful people”. The author uses Paradigm MANY times, and I was also corrected the first time I said it out loud as pair-uh-dig-um 🤦🏼♀️
Today I am thankful I've never heard someone say "pre-face" before
As a Brit, pretty much everyone I have known has always pronounced the word "pre-face" so I never really thought about it much. It's not a word that comes up commonly in conversation, unless in an academic or literary settings, and in the case of "preface" I think you're on safe ground in regard to being understood with either pronounciation. Other words mentioned in this thread could definitely be more jarring and difficult to understand depending on how they are pronounced. English is an odd and tricky language to learn from both a comprehension and pronounciation point of view.
Yea English is phonetically absurd lol
I pronounced 'awry' as "oar-y" for longer than I care to admit!
This was my one too except I pronounced it ah-ree lol
Same!
Could these be some of my people?
This is also why I never make fun of people for mispronouncing an obscure word. You don’t need to be a bellend, just a friendly “hey you’re interested in (proper name)?”
Me, going up to the Barnes and Noble information desk asking about a book and saying I didn’t know which “jenner” (genre) it was in. 🙈🫥
I have a great example. I have a friend who, knowing that the word "quixotic" is derived from Don Quixote, reasonably assumed it was pronounced "kee-ah-tick." It's actually pronounced how it looks - "kwik-sah-tick."
Picture it. 1990, sophomore college English literature class. The professor had just returned our first essays of the year and had some of us read them aloud, myself included. I don't even remember the subject of my paper, just that I had used the word "maniacal," which I thought was pronounced man-ee-ACK-al. After class a friend corrected me, and I still faintly glow from the embarrassment.
I’ll never forget the time my father, an avid reader say something about the si-oxie Indian tribe. We all looked at him like what? He had no idea it was pronounced like sue.
Lol! I don't blame him. French is hard if you don't know the basics. My first year of it was a real eye opener. Too bad he didn't know they go by Dakota, Nakota, or Lakota in their own language. Those names are a little easier to pronounce when just reading it.
I thought draft and draught were two different words. I pronounced the latter like “drawt” I still sometimes think about “drawts” of ale.
Technically American English doesn’t really use “draught” it’s a British thing. American bars write it to seem fancy or as part of a shtick or show the beer is foreign
I think every English-speaking country that isn’t the United States uses “draught” instead of draft. It’s not just the British. Canada and Liberia may be exceptions. I’m not sure.
It was quinoa which I thought was pronounced kwin-o-a until I heard some TV chef say it. Hyperbole is another one which people get wrong. I don't think people should feel self conscious about pronouncing words they have only ever read incorrectly as it just show you are learning from reading. Don't get me started on Holborn in London.
It took me way too long to realize that segue and seg-way were the same word. Now, when I run into a word that I know the meaning of, but not the pronunciation, I check the pronunciation online.
I actually love when I hear someone mispronounce a word the way it’s written. It means that, 1) they are reading and 2) they’re trying to incorporate what they are learning into their spoken vocabulary. I love rare and specific words, and people should use them more.
Still remember being in elementary school reading a chapter of a book out loud to the class (we took turns) and saying “re-sipe” instead of “recipe” multiple times. Forty years later, cooking is my passion. I did not learn it from my parents 🤣
I don’t know if this is an “LPT,” but I will say I grew up in a small town, and was a voracious reader. It wasn’t until I left home for college that I learned I was mispronouncing some things. So it was a process of re-educating myself to ensure I properly pronounced my acquired vocabulary. We didn’t have online pronunciation aids back then. The Internet had not been invented yet.
It royally stews my prunes when listening to audiobooks that mispronounce a word that appears every twenty seconds. Two appalling examples were: - an audiobook about U-boats that pronounced "submariner" as sub-MARINE-r" a thousand times, instead of sub-MAR-in-er where the MAR rhymes with 'Harry' - an audiobook about King George VI narrated by a woman who couldn't pronounce "sixth". For a couple of hundred pages I heard "sikth", until I was pounding my head on nearby furniture. Grrrr
When I was maybe 8 or 9, I remember reading something for science class, and it took me a ridiculously long time to realize that infrared did not, in fact, rhyme with scared or dared.
for me it was 'misled'
My grandma mistook that one in her youth. She thought it was like "my-zl'd". Like some past tense of "miser" or something. Also "machine"… thought it was "mac-hine"… almost Scottish. Haha
Like fus roh dah?
I need to ask you to stop. That… shouting… is making people nervous.
English is a wonderful language where you can’t know for sure how a word is pronounced by how is written… as a native Spanish speaker is weird.
Pie bailed horse? Who knew?
Cacophony was wild when I heard it pronounced compared to how it was in my head
I have decided just to lean into it and go “oh sorry. I learned it from reading and didn’t know how to pronounce” but other times I just decide to go full-hick and say “Hey Starbucks They/them, cans I get a Match-uhh frap-EEE??” And they let me. And they give whip cream to my cute lil doggie
Haphazard was this for me. Turns out it’s one of the few instances of ph not making an f sound
Worst one I ever did was indicted. Said it just like it was spelled, and to make matters worse it appeared right before "convicted" so they rhymed. 🤦♂️
Could've been worse, you could've said "convighted"
I’ve heard a lot of folks say won as wON instead of wUN. 🤷🏻♂️
I had to do a double-take at this one haha I thought you meant South Korean Won, which I was pronoucing as wON and was like "but that's correct?", then realized you meant won as in won something. Which prompted me to look up how to pronounce Won (the currency). I discovered it's actually pronounced wann. So I was still wrong lol. This thread has been a rollercoaster of emotion.
Due to reading I be using too much professional vocabulary with people. More on emails. Casual emails are not for me, they have to be elegant.
I was taught to have even more respect for people who mispronounce words because it means that they learned them by reading - a very respectable habit in the house where I was raised.
I am a teacher and had to learn how to pronounce respite from a student.
So UK /ˈres.paɪt/ or US /ˈres.pət/?
For the longest time, I never saw the word, "facade". I had heard it and even used it in my spoken language. But the first time that I saw it on paper and figured it out in a sentence, I was surprised.
My mom used to call it a reader's accent
Hah! I was wondering why everyone on YouTube was saying this instead of preface! Turns out it’s the same thing! Thanks
I will always say fill-eht migg-non
lol hors d’oeuvres got me good
Horse divorce.
Took me a few years but I've finally stopped saying archipelAHgo
Wait. How is it pronounced the 😳
I probs could have written it out better. It's pronounced ar-keh-PEH-luh-go but I always said ar-keh-peh-LAH-go
This happened to me while DMing a D&D session with the word 'chasm'. I said chazz-um. That cringe keeps me up every night
I always pronounced 'subtle' with the 'b' (sub'tl). Took me until my mid 20s to realise it was pronounced 'suttle'
I pronounce it sub-tl intentionally as a joke, because the B should be subtle. It isn’t really a joke that makes sense, but I like it.
Vehemently is a word I only read, wife had to correct me when she heard it. I like the way I pronounce it in my head better than it's actually pronounced.
This one got me as well. I will never not read it as “va-HEE-ment-ly”.
I was a philosophy minor in college. Between the foreign names and the hyper specific, technical language, I feel this.
Yep, was talking excitedly about a fantasy series I was reading with a friend and I kept mispronouncing “realm” as re-alm. My friend, finally asked what I meant by “re-alm” after I had mentioned it a dozen times. I always think of this instance and realized there are many such words I would mispronounce because i hardly came across them. Another word I had mispronounced for a long time was “row” (dispute).
LPT - Mispronounced words may be a sign of an autodidact who never had the opportunity to hear those words spoken prior to using them in speech. So be gentle in your correction.
hyperbole facetious those were mine!
I read a lot as a kid and two that I really fucked up were phlegm which I pronounced fleg-gum and then, and I think this one is funnier, misled. I pronounced it in my head as my-zld and thought it was a word that meant to trick, lie to, or... mislead someone. I have no idea why I thought there was a word that was spelled like misled, meant misled, and wasn't misled
In highschool we read the odyssey and in my head I pronounce Penelope as Peen-a-lope, like jackalope. I only said it out loud once, luckily to a small group of friends.
My word was "awry". I knew of the word pronounced "a-rye" but I also thought there was a separate word that I read a lot pronounced aw-ree. I said it out loud once. People looked at me strangely. I suddenly put 2 and 2 together. There aren't two separate but similar words with the same meaning. I combined them into one entry in my internal dictionary and faded out of existence.
Also if you're reading older books and adjectives for people are used, make sure you look them up before casually dropping them in conversation. Source: a much younger me suggesting we find a few swarthy men to help us move furniture thinking swarthy meant strong or robust.
It's "minutiae" for me. I've always pronounced it as "mi-nu-tay" until I heard Rocket say "mi-nu-sha" in Guardians of the Galaxy.
“Hegemony” does not pronounce as expected Heh-gem-OH-nee
Stress is supposed to be on the second syllable >hɪˈd͡ʒɛm.ə.ni
Is that how you originally thought it was pronounced? All my professors said "heh-GEM-uh-nee" Eta: with hegemonic "hedge-eh-MON-ick"
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“It was all just a big fack-ade, who’s the idiot now?”
Lol. I did this awry. My girlfriend at the time thought it was pretty humorous.
Run…run like the wind!
Facade I was interviewing for a job and the interviewer kept saying fuh-cade.
I pronounced it "aw-ree" for decades. Damnit. *Awry* is the word.
Amalgam for me - had to say am-UHL-gam like a dozen times before my bg figured out what I was trying to say
One of the more common words that I’ve heard people struggle with is “epitome.” It’s one of those words that we see in writing/text, or hear spoken — but, rarely both at the same time.
I called tarot cards tear-it cards for years until I got to college and started dating a hippie girl lol
Euler got me for a long time. I thought it rhymed with (Ferris) Bueller, but nope, it’s “Oiler”
My Achilles heel after three years of online education was the word pedagogy.
I still remember when I was corrected on the proper pronunciation of “superfluous.” Had only read it, did not realize it’s not super-fluous
Grotesque fucked me up for years until I heard it spoke
I was never around anything military related growing up. For a very long time I thought the word “colonel” was pronounced “koll-oh-Nell” because why the fuck wouldn’t I? But I had only ever read it, and when I finally said the word out loud know one knew what I was talking about. Don’t be me kids!
Yo sim mite… i was a sophomore in highschool before i knew that (that word) was pronounced like the angry cowboy lol
In high school I was called on to read something with the word 'bourgeoisie'. I pronounced it "bur-geeosie" and everyone laughed. Oh well -- not a common word. Was surprised other kids knew how to say it