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Is there a word you read many times over many years without knowing the pronunciation?


InDefenseOfPOMO

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Grey-Ace Ventura

Acetaminophen

 

My pronunciation is different every time I say it

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Recipe. 

 

5 hours ago, rawersace said:

noir! i still don’t know how to say it 

Noo-ar? 

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2 hours ago, PoeciMeta said:
7 hours ago, rawersace said:

noir! i still don’t know how to say it 

Noo-ar? 

nwär

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8 hours ago, rawersace said:

noir! i still don’t know how to say it 

Imagine an ice-cream loving pirate who's been asked if they would share...No! Arrr! 😝

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Yosemite- I’ve been saying Yoz-eh-might this whole time. I still say it my way out of principal.

 

People always laugh when I say things wrong but I don’t know how they expect me to say it right if I’ve only ever seen it written down.

 

Like zucchini- when would I need to say that? I’ll just call it a courgette, thank you very much. Or a bothersome gourd.

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2 hours ago, Eutierria said:

Imagine an ice-cream loving pirate who's been asked if they would share...No! Arrr! 😝

Non, mon ami! The first part isn't pronounce like "no". :P 

 

2 hours ago, Morgan123 said:

Yosemite- I’ve been saying Yoz-eh-might this whole time.

I guess you didn't grow up watching Bugs Bunny cartoons. :lol: 

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5 hours ago, daveb said:

I guess you didn't grow up watching Bugs Bunny cartoons. :lol: 

Or in eastern California.  

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InDefenseOfPOMO

A 9th grade English teacher was stunned that I knew the pronunciation of sphygmomanometer.

 

When you learn a word with a crazy pronunciation, it is hard not to remember it.

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20 hours ago, daveb said:

Non, mon ami! The first part isn't pronounce like "no". :P 

@daveb It is in Scotland...😝 Mon Dieu! Us Scots put a twang here & a lilt there...🤣

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firewallflower

Reconnaissance is one that comes to mind (someone used the word today)—and many, many others. As a voracious reader who spent much more time with the written than the spoken word, there was ample opportunity to read and recognize and understand words while either not having the faintest idea how to pronounce them or mentally mispronouncing.

 

I recently reread an old, rhyming poem of mine that included the word "demise"... rhymed with "disease." 🤦‍♀️

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InDefenseOfPOMO

How could I forget this one: Foucault.

 

I read that name many times before learning the pronunciation.

 

I mentally read it as "foecult". Oops! Not even close.

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SorryNotSorry
On 7/19/2019 at 4:16 PM, Morgan123 said:

Yosemite

Put a space in the right place and it sounds like Sylvester Stallone beckoning to an Arab.

 

My mother wasn’t very good with complex Latinate or Greek-based words because of the way her brain was wired. She used to say “gangrus” instead of gangrene and “affixiate” instead of asphyxiate. I once made the mistake of trying to educate her. She thought “ass-fixiate” means when someone suffocates because they can’t breathe through their butthole (don’t ask me).

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Gargoyle just can't say it, there are words I know from a lot of reading i just don't hear in daily conversation because no one i know is well read like me.

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Wanna mention, this topic reminds me of the one scientist on big bang is smart ,but pronounces everything like a five year old. I have a 126 iq and can't spell for shit.

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MerePeasant

Quite a few words I've had some difficulty with over the years.

 

'Hyperbole' is one I'm still not entirely sure of its pronunciation. :D 

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Now I'm reminded of the comedian, Brian Regan, and his show "The Epitome of Hyberbole", where he deliberately mispronounces both words for comedic effect. (He pronounces them as if they end in the words "tome" and "bole", in which the final e's are silent). Then there's the bit (from a Mike Myers film) where the "emphasis is on the wrong syllable"). :) 

 

see also https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/NoPronunciationGuide :P 

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RoseGoesToYale

Schedule always tripped me up as a kid. I thought the "sch" was pronounced like in "Busch", and that the stress was on the last syllable. Teachers must've gotten on my case about it, since in American English it's a hard "sk" sound.

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Espresso. I think there were a few other words that I was unsure of the pronunciation, growing up,--due to having a parent who's first language wasn't English and who would, occasionally, mispronounce a few English words--but I can't remember what they were, at the moment (because I already learned the correct pronunciations a long time, ago).

 

For most of my life, until recently, I thought others were pronouncing it, "X-presso."

 

I don't drink coffee (although I've tried it, a few times), so it makes sense to me as to why I didn't know the correct pronunciation of "espresso," for so long.

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10 minutes ago, RoseGoesToYale said:

Schedule always tripped me up as a kid. I thought the "sch" was pronounced like in "Busch", and that the stress was on the last syllable. Teachers must've gotten on my case about it, since in American English it's a hard "sk" sound.

When I was younger when I said horror movie people thought I said whor e movie

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Not really pronunciation, but I used to read fitting rooms as fighting rooms- so I thought there was this big gladiator-esque underground boxing society in the shopping centre. (For some reason, this did not surprise or concern me). 

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Celyn: The Lutening
21 minutes ago, Morgan123 said:

Not really pronunciation, but I used to read fitting rooms as fighting rooms- so I thought there was this big gladiator-esque underground boxing society in the shopping centre. (For some reason, this did not surprise or concern me). 

I mean that would be an improvement....

 

Rendezvous. 

Also, I learnt about the intestinal parasite Giardia before I heard the name Giada and I keep saying that instead.

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InDefenseOfPOMO
5 hours ago, InquisitivePhilosopher said:

Espresso. I think there were a few other words that I was unsure of the pronunciation, growing up,--due to having a parent who's first language wasn't English and who would, occasionally, mispronounce a few English words--but I can't remember what they were, at the moment (because I already learned the correct pronunciations a long time, ago).

 

For most of my life, until recently, I thought others were pronouncing it, "X-presso."

 

I don't drink coffee (although I've tried it, a few times), so it makes sense to me as to why I didn't know the correct pronunciation of "espresso," for so long.

 

I do not drink coffee; I have never had a problem with the pronunciation; but the word that you bring up is one of the most annoying words in use.

 

The reason I say that is this: I have the habit of spending a lot of time browsing but not purchasing anything. A lot of that time is spent looking at furniture and home accessories. Between 10 and 15 years ago I could reliably find furniture, bathroom accessories, etc. that said the finish was some variation of black. If the finish was instead brown it said "Brown" or sometimes "Chocolate". I do not know what happened, but somewhere along the way everything in every store became "Espresso".

 

Ugly word. A look that, unlike black, is not very versatile. Yet, I can't get away from it! One minute there was no such thing. The next minute it is everywhere. Can I start a conspiracy theory?

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Anthracite_Impreza
6 hours ago, InquisitivePhilosopher said:

For most of my life, until recently, I thought others were pronouncing it, "X-presso."

D'you know what? I say x-presso too.

 

Apparently sigil? I just heard it pronounced with a hard G, but I always thought it was si-jil...

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2 hours ago, Anthracite_Impreza said:

I just heard it pronounced with a hard G, but I always thought it was si-jil...

You are correct. Whoever pronounced it with a hard g got it wrong.

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@RoseGoesToYale

 

Schedule is one of the words where multiple pronunciations are normal, just varying according to the local accent. 

 

In Britain for example half the country uses a hard "a" in words like bath, Castle, and half use a soft "a" 

 

@InquisitivePhilosopher, I've heard many people say "X-presso", that seems to be a common misunderstanding. Most baristas know that they mean though 

 

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Celyn: The Lutening
2 hours ago, Skycaptain said:

In Britain for example half the country uses a hard "a" in words like bath, Castle, and half use a soft "a"

I use a soft "a" in bath and a hard "a" in castle and am very confused. 

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5 hours ago, Skycaptain said:

 

@InquisitivePhilosopher, I've heard many people say "X-presso", that seems to be a common misunderstanding. Most baristas know that they mean though

Interesting. Honestly, I still kind of like that pronunciation because, to me, it's always made sense, as in sounding like a shorthand for "express coffee/drink," since espressos are made quickly.

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Celyn: The Lutening

Ouija board. 

How does an "a" make an "ee" sound?!?!

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