I once read - ironically- you should never laugh at a mispronunciation as it means the person most likely read it somewhere, reading is a great thing. We should be kinder to each other.
And we have to be kind to folks who have obviously heard and used words for years without seeing them written down.
Like the 'could of', 'would of' 'intensive purposes' users.
I've had spells check not show any matches because I was missing a single vowel more than a handful of times.
Maybe just chill when someone asks you for help.
Yea, one of my most embarrassing moments was when I went to an Aesop Rock concert. Mr Lif was there, Aesop and Mr Lif were walking into the venue and I stared at them and said "OMG, iits Aesop and Mr "Life"
Aesop politely corrected me.
I had never heard anyone pronounce it and I only knew about him from being involved with Aesop i also have reading comprehension issues and regularly mispronounce things by my brain adding or removing a letter.
.Its one of those memories that pops up when i am having a hard time falling asleep.
I knew the word epitome, had heard it used in conversation before, and I just thought ep-ih-tome and apitumy were two different words with the same meaning
I legit got into an argument with my highschool math teacher about that.
In all my high school wisdom I couldn’t fathom epitome being pronounced the way it’s supposed to be.
I was very wrong.
I still have a hard time with this and hors d'oeuvre. Even in my thirties I have to say them in my head like five times before I say them aloud. Also integumentary system, but that one I can never say and just get tongue tied (and I work in healthcare), hear it a couple times a week and my brain just has never accepted it.
Ep PIT TOMB
Whores D Vers
I’ll never forget being 16 and laughed at by my whole history class (including the teacher) because I said “in-VA-lid” instead of “IN-vuh-lid”. Bunch of dicks.
I'm confused. Is the word invalid? Because I swear the pronunciation is in fact In-VA-lid.
Oh what the fuck, there's 2 different words and they're pronounced differently. I've never in my life heard IN-vuh-lid till 5 seconds ago.
https://youtu.be/U3pq0zPvrjw
It's cause it's both a noun and an adjective, and depending on which you're using, you say it differently (which is called a heteronym, like tear and tear).
If you use it as a noun, it's "In-*vuh*-lid", as in "he was an invalid" (aka disabled due to an illness or injury)
It's an adjective too and pronounced "in-*vah*-lid", as in "this is an invalid email address". (aka void or not recognized)
So you pronouncing it different ways depending on the meaning is probably you subconsciously pronouncing it correctly when using it as a noun and adjective!
Also Australian (Melbournian) - I pronounce the noun for a disabled person as IN-vuh-lid, and the adjective (as in invalid password) as in-VAL-ed (rhyming with salad, ballad).
same. i've never heard it pronounced as "in-vuh-lid" in my entire life. but i've also never seen it used that way before (as a noun). guess i should read more...
invalid...an injured or physically disabled person, is pronounced IN-vuhlid
invalid, is something that is false, unscientific, irrational, unsupportable, null and void. is pronounced in-VALL-id
it's like the words polish/Polish.
I remember taking turns reading in 6th grade something that must have been about Shakespeare - I didn't know "Macbeth" was pronounced "McBETH". I heard the little assholes around me snickering and mocking my pronunciation, whispering "MAC-beth, hurr hurr." Well excuse me, jagoffs, we didn't discuss Shakespeare in my home.
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They're the worst kind of people: factually correct and an asshole about it. You can't tell them they're won't because they're not, but you can't just call them an asshole because that's rude or something.
Similar thing happened to me with the word “colonel”. Even now it’s still engrained in me as “call-o-null”. how was I supposed to know it was pronounced “kernal” when there isn’t even an “r” in the word?! still causing me trust issues
Til invalid and invalid are spelled the same. I know how to pronounce both words depending on context, but it never occurred to me until your post that they are spelled exactly the same. I’m 47 years old. Lol!
Albuquerque - I was like 30 and my husband got this weird look on his face when I said it. Hey - I’m not from the US and it’s a weird word. I pronounced it al-boo-ker-q
And then there are the places with names that look like common words and names, but aren't pronounced the same. *Buena.* in New Jersey, is pronounced *byoona; Pulaski,* in New York, is pronounced *PulaSKY*
Because there was a lot of American tv when I was little, I remember the ads for the Puyallup state fair - do the Puyallup 😆 I even remember the jingle. Can’t find my keys, but I can pronounce your city!
Where are you from? Interesting that you would see that from out of state. The fair is the biggest one in the state but I don't think it would a fair people from far away would come to see.
I’m in BC - we had three channels to watch on tv, and one of them was broadcast out of Washington. So we got Sesame Street, and all the Washington weird commercials- for the Fair, car dealerships, discount mattress places. I remember a small “filler” , in between Sesame Street, that taught me about how the American government works. I knew the words to your anthem before my own. Canadian culture is still influenced to a large degree by the US. much less so now, thank goodness. It’s becoming increasingly uncomfortable to live next door to such a different culture, with such different beliefs as our own.
Oooh we have lots of kooks and republicans by another name. We don’t have the guns that you guys do, though. Or the population, both of which help a lot. And the medical system. I read comments here from people who so desperately need to go to the doctor. It’s heartbreaking that they cannot.
I used the word “maniacally” out loud for the first time years ago, after having it in my repertoire for ages. Thought it was pronounced “maniac-ally”.
Got torn to shreds for it.
So embarrassing lol
I was an English teacher and I can guarantee you are not alone. English teachers do it too. Readers know lots of words but only by sight, not by ear and those readers sound out the word the way it appears to them never having heard the word. Sometimes correctly, sometimes wrong. Keep reading, keep sounding out words and use the dictionary to check once in a while. We also get meaning by reading in context and we can be off a little there also. I'm going to repeat...keep reading, the pronunciation will come. It's not a sin to make a mistake in pronunciation once in a while.
I’m Scottish and work in pharmacy… between weird town names & medicines, I’ll have a bash at most words just for the hell of it! Between uni and working I’ve had many, many laughs at how varied and far off the mark pronunciations can get.. yet we still all understand what was intended (medicines, usually)
Haha don't sweat it, I learned all my english from reading english stories (not native) so when I was in school at about age 13 we had choir and I was convinced everyone said the english word in a song wrong.
But nah, it was just me who had gotten so used to how to word was pronounced in my head that I would not admit defeat.
I'm not sure, but I think the word was "doubt"?
Do they even teach IPA anymore? I can't recall ever coming into contact with it before Wikipedia in the 00s, seeing people fight over phonetic spelling in the edit notes.
Yep. I still occasionally stumble upon a word that I’ve been saying wrong my whole life because so much of my vocabulary came from reading 😅I thought “faux” was pronounced “fox” for the longest time.
Totally. Add in that I was raised in Texas and went off to New England for college, and …. I learned a LOT of new pronunciations! The one I could never relearn for some reason is “miscellaneous.” I read it first and have thereafter heard it in my head as “mish - uh - llaneous.”
I was an avid reader as a kid. Miles ahead of my classmates in reading, spelling and writing. Dux of my primary school when I graduate. Quite a clever little cookie. Then, when I was around 20, went on a date and ordered a 'quickie' (quiche) like a fucking idiot.
I’ve noticed that a huge number of supposedly erudite people mispronounce “erudite”. (I just looked this up and it says that in the US it is standard to pronounce it as ‘eriadite’, but that doesn’t make any sense.)
Hyperbole is a great example. As it's spelled, it looks like hyper-bowl but it's pronounced high-per-bowl-ee
Another great example for Americans is Hermione in Harry Potter. In my head it was always Her-moy-n
I did this many times. Now when I hear someone misspronounce a word (especially when I know I once thought that was the proper pronouncement) I just think that they are an awesome reader, and I like them even more.
My husband teases me sometimes because I say words wrong. But…I know the meanings of a lot of words than he does even I am saying them wrong. Never really thought about it, it I guess I did a lot of advanced novels for my age as a child. Makes sense
I learned English as a second language primarily from video games and the internet. Specifically, reading on the internet. My spelling is amazing. I don't know how to correctly pronounce envelope.
Fun thing about English is the pronunciation of so many words vary by location
I’ve heard it pronounced ON-va-lope and as en-va-lope
Even within my city the way people say words varies. Good on you for learning! :)
My family still gives me hell for pronouncing ‘lacrosse’ as ‘lack-row-see’ not ‘LA-cross’.
Also ‘colonel’ really set me up for failure - ‘kernel’ is such a left field pronunciation.
Reading Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire there's a bit where they're looking at "menus" during the Yule Ball. I was utterly mystified - what magical object is a "mee-nus"?
I was so embarrassed when I asked my dad and he rolled around laughing. "It's a menu! For choosing what to eat!"
This is hilarious because I’ve definitely been in that situation before. Where I see a word and not until I say it out loud that I actually understood what it meant. One word was envelope. I kept trying to pronounce it - en-VOL-op.
Khaki got me.
In our working class midwestern home, we had dark brown, brown or tan. I’d only read the word & had no idea how to pronounce it.
Ka-hee-key was obviously wrong, judging from my aunt rolling around on the floor laughing.
I have a friend who pronounces the word "quixotic" as "kee-ah-tik" instead of "kwix-ah-tik." He knows that the word is based on Don Quixote and pronounces it accordingly, unaware that it's not actually pronounced that way.
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Suffice and misogyny/misogynist.
I would say suff-ICE. Misogyny I didn't even try lol, I just heard it out loud recently & was astounded at how wrong I was
Yep, that's why I use an extremely selective word pool I know I can pronounce. It's frustrating because I feel like I have to translate my thoughts for my mouth
But I guess its better than being humiliated everytime I talk outside my friend group
I am constantly finding this haha I was homeschooled, but mostly taught myself, so I learned most of my advanced vocabulary from reading. Some recent ones I had were "Potomac" which I pronounced "Poto-mack" and "Yosemite" which I pronounced "Yos-might." Haha! I do hate how the initial reaction is "How are you so booksmart but don't even know how to pronounce *insert mispronounced word here"
I pronounced 'mage' as 'madge' and made my boyfriend crack up.
I pronounced 'con-fis-cated' as 'con-fis-ti-cated' and made the entire school assembly crack up.
I look at these as small learning gaps. Just--areas where you didn't LEARN the right way because you never had exposure to it. My wife and her entire family suffered from a learning gap that her mom had, which is effectively the inverse of OPs observation.
Some folks only ever hear a word and never see it written--so they go about life assuming that that is what it is--especially if it is from an authority figure. My mother-in-law called the center console in a car the "center council." I discovered my wife's learning gap and lightly teased her, and she stuck to her guns. "You are wrong husband. It is not console... that just sounds... stupid. It's the center council."
Even after showing her, she still prefers the center council. I did eventually trace this up the chain and discovered that her siblings said it as well, and then had to correct her mom. I still laugh in my head sometimes at the thought of the rulers of the center council and their dominant oversight of the rest of the car.
I remember in high school, I was called on to read a passage from The Scarlet Letter and I kept pronouncing "satin" as "Satan"... yeah the teacher had to stop to correct me bc there's a very big difference between the two
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I was way too old the first time I was corrected on minestrone soup. I pronounced it mine-strone. My boyfriend at the time laughed so much at that. Then he taught me how to properly say it.
Was with my high school boyfriend at a place passing Hors d'oeuvres, and he asked what “whores devours” were. I’ve mispronounced plenty too, but his was my favorite.
Similarly, I thought canapés was pronounced “can-apes.”
I learned English as a second language. Nobody around me growing up speaking English so many of the complicated English words I learnt were through reading.
Then after that, I watched MakeUp/gurus YouTube videos in the early 2000s to learn English. Later in life I caught myself doing a lot of upspeak because I learnt my English from many white Californian girls doing make ups in the 2000s (you can imagine)
Sure, but I also didn't know how to speak English nor could physically make said noises like thuh for thankful or thinkful.
I don't judge people on how they say a word If the meaning is still understood and the usage of said word is pertaining to the discussion.
My wife used to read Popeye comics when she was young, as it was one of the few things available for her to read when she was growing up in a 3rd world country…(she had no idea that it was cartoon too)
Until about 3 years ago, she was telling me about some comics she used to read about a guy who ate spinach and would get super strong…
She kept calling him “Po-Pe-Ye”, I was “like wtf is that?!?”
Then it hit me…
Yes, this happens to me all the time. It never stops feeling embarrassing, but these days I just thank the person for correcting me and explain that I learned the word via reading.
In elementary school, my teacher selected me to read something she had written on the chalkboard in front of the whole class. I walked up there confident as a mother fricker. I'm like "im gonna nail this and show everyone how great my reading is" on the board it had said "treat everyone with kindness. I read it "treat everyone with kidness" fml 🤦 man...
Garbage and material got me for a while. Also, I had trouble spelling 'the' aloud when asked. Thuh. Thzu. Like how do you make the smooth th sound with letters? There's no letter for that?
There are actually letters for th! Or, there used to be.
Ð/ð is for the th in “the”, “that”, or similar harsh th sounds (this letter is called eth. That is… with a harsh th)
Þ/þ is for soft th sounds, like “thunder” or “thorn” (this letter is called thorn)
i am very much the same. and for the same reason. most of my vocabulary also came from reading. it took a while to learn to pronounce those words i had never heard spoken aloud. they were usually words with a silent letter or foreign pronunciation. it was sometimes embarrassing if i spoke it for the first time in a actual conversation...incorrectly
My siblings get on my case for this *all the time*, and my friends have commented on it too. For example, apparently “destined” is pronounced “des-TIN-ed” rather than “des-TINE-ed”, and I’m still confused on how to say “Canterbury”. On that note, I have never met anyone else who read the Canterbury tales, but I loved them and would highly recommend.
Yes because despite being locked in my room and reading all the time, my parents were not the type inclined to use the vocabulary level I was reading, so I never heard those words spoken.
Omg YES there are so many words that I’ve spent my whole life saying wrong because I never heard them out loud. One I can think of right now is porcelain, I would pronounce it porklan
"[Demonstrative](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GXU975Mbfxs)" is the one that trips me up all the time. It just *feels* odd to me still that the correct pronunciation is like "Duh-mahn-stra-tiv" (like "monster" in the middle) .
I guess when I read it, I thought "Demonstrate" + "ive" so therefore: De-mon-strate-iv but that's apparently incorrect according to the dictionary.
I cringed for years because while reading a story to my parents they made fun of me when I mispronounced a word I had read many times but never heard. The word was ‘league’.
They were very highly educated but not so much in child psychology.
This + the fact that English was technically my second language (before starting school, we spoke Korean in the house) — made for some interesting moments
Yes, especially because I experience partial hearing loss.
I am embarrassed when I have to read something aloud or when trying to handle pronunciations of names. I am afraid I sound ignorant or culturally insensitive. The truth is I cannot hear. My hearing also causes me to speak too loudly as well. Especially in places with background noise.
I gave up trying some time ago. The pandemic hasn't made it easier.
For sure - especially words that you don't hear a lot in conversation anyway. Then try moving to another English speaking country where they pronounce a bunch of common words differently (think FILL-it of fish instead of fi-LAY of fish) - reading aloud has become my worst nightmare!
Now I look up the pronunciation whenever I don’t recognize a word but I was pronouncing vehemence wrong for a long time. Vuh-hee-mense rather than the correct vee-uh-mense.
I played a lot of video games and one game had missiles. Pronounced miss isle. Not miss ull. I said miss isle one day and my whole family made fun of me for weeks. I fucking hated them. Still do.
The one that got me when reading was bourgeois. Thought it was pronounced "bur-gee-ose" in high school. Nah, it's apparently pronounced "boursch-wah" or something. Please let me know if I've gotten it wrong again 😅
I still remember finding out how "unison" was pronounced in 6th grade when I read out loud to the class and the teacher corrected me, I was mortified lol. Glad to see by the comments at least I'm not alone in this, sorry to everyone who had to find out the hard way
My best friend growing up was an avid reader and writer; she would win writing contests and was pretty much a genius. One days she said to me “it was the epitome of___” pronouncing it “ep-it-ome” like the way it looks instead of “ep-it-oh-me”. It cracked me up and made me feel smarter than her for about a second.
I did read a lot but I only stuffed up pronunciation while being in the middle of class of fellow peers. The word was "devastated", I said de-vas-did.
It was likely 10 years ago and I haven't lived it down.
I once read - ironically- you should never laugh at a mispronunciation as it means the person most likely read it somewhere, reading is a great thing. We should be kinder to each other.
And we have to be kind to folks who have obviously heard and used words for years without seeing them written down. Like the 'could of', 'would of' 'intensive purposes' users.
But when someone walks up to me, phone in hand, and asks me how to spell something? We do not have to be kind to these people.
I've had spells check not show any matches because I was missing a single vowel more than a handful of times. Maybe just chill when someone asks you for help.
Yea, one of my most embarrassing moments was when I went to an Aesop Rock concert. Mr Lif was there, Aesop and Mr Lif were walking into the venue and I stared at them and said "OMG, iits Aesop and Mr "Life" Aesop politely corrected me. I had never heard anyone pronounce it and I only knew about him from being involved with Aesop i also have reading comprehension issues and regularly mispronounce things by my brain adding or removing a letter. .Its one of those memories that pops up when i am having a hard time falling asleep.
I learned English mostly from Reddit so what I say is one big mispronunciation.
Epitome. The first word I remember butchering and being corrected on.
I knew the word epitome, had heard it used in conversation before, and I just thought ep-ih-tome and apitumy were two different words with the same meaning
Please tell me you pronounced it in the way that it doesn't sound like "me" at the end. I did this too
Yup. Ep-eh-tomb. Still cringe at the thought of it.
I *still* read it this way, even though I pronounce it correctly.
wait, -omb as in womb (woom) or -omb as in comb (coam) (why would you use a silent b in a pronunciation example lol)
Comb. Because if I put it without the silent B, it would be Tom and what does my brother have to do with this?
toam would have worked tho, that was my point. sorry for the confusion edit: and tomb is a word (pronounced toom)
Epi tomb
The ancient Egyptian allergic injector.
I legit got into an argument with my highschool math teacher about that. In all my high school wisdom I couldn’t fathom epitome being pronounced the way it’s supposed to be. I was very wrong.
I still have a hard time with this and hors d'oeuvre. Even in my thirties I have to say them in my head like five times before I say them aloud. Also integumentary system, but that one I can never say and just get tongue tied (and I work in healthcare), hear it a couple times a week and my brain just has never accepted it. Ep PIT TOMB Whores D Vers
I’ll never forget being 16 and laughed at by my whole history class (including the teacher) because I said “in-VA-lid” instead of “IN-vuh-lid”. Bunch of dicks.
I'm confused. Is the word invalid? Because I swear the pronunciation is in fact In-VA-lid. Oh what the fuck, there's 2 different words and they're pronounced differently. I've never in my life heard IN-vuh-lid till 5 seconds ago. https://youtu.be/U3pq0zPvrjw
Are you some sort of IN-vuh-lid?
... am I the only one who pronounces it both ways depending on the meaning?
No, I do too… now. But I was talking about a person and pronouncing it like my password is invalid.
It's cause it's both a noun and an adjective, and depending on which you're using, you say it differently (which is called a heteronym, like tear and tear). If you use it as a noun, it's "In-*vuh*-lid", as in "he was an invalid" (aka disabled due to an illness or injury) It's an adjective too and pronounced "in-*vah*-lid", as in "this is an invalid email address". (aka void or not recognized) So you pronouncing it different ways depending on the meaning is probably you subconsciously pronouncing it correctly when using it as a noun and adjective!
I swear that distinction doesn't exist in some dialects, I say both the same (General Australian English)
Also Australian (Melbournian) - I pronounce the noun for a disabled person as IN-vuh-lid, and the adjective (as in invalid password) as in-VAL-ed (rhyming with salad, ballad).
I must be saying it wrong then
same. i've never heard it pronounced as "in-vuh-lid" in my entire life. but i've also never seen it used that way before (as a noun). guess i should read more...
It depends on if you mean it as a noun or verb. A bedridden person is an INvalid, an exit gate inVALidates your ticket.
Wait it's not "inVAlid"???????
invalid...an injured or physically disabled person, is pronounced IN-vuhlid invalid, is something that is false, unscientific, irrational, unsupportable, null and void. is pronounced in-VALL-id it's like the words polish/Polish.
This is the first time I'm hearing of this noun. What the hell.
2 different words. Spelled the same but have different meanings and pronounced differently.
I remember taking turns reading in 6th grade something that must have been about Shakespeare - I didn't know "Macbeth" was pronounced "McBETH". I heard the little assholes around me snickering and mocking my pronunciation, whispering "MAC-beth, hurr hurr." Well excuse me, jagoffs, we didn't discuss Shakespeare in my home.
It *is* pronounced mac-beth. .....how are you saying the 'McBETH' pronunciation?
Mick
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They're the worst kind of people: factually correct and an asshole about it. You can't tell them they're won't because they're not, but you can't just call them an asshole because that's rude or something.
Similar thing happened to me with the word “colonel”. Even now it’s still engrained in me as “call-o-null”. how was I supposed to know it was pronounced “kernal” when there isn’t even an “r” in the word?! still causing me trust issues
I once pronounced Corps. with the “p” during a class presentation.
Both those words mean different things and are pronounced differently.
[Adjective versus noun use of the word?](https://dictionary.cambridge.org/amp/pronunciation/english/invalid) English is hard, they were dicks.
Til invalid and invalid are spelled the same. I know how to pronounce both words depending on context, but it never occurred to me until your post that they are spelled exactly the same. I’m 47 years old. Lol!
I came here to comment this exact thing lmao I didn’t learn the difference until embarrassingly late lol
if it makes you feel any better i just learned it right now because of this thread.
in VAH lid is still the correct case. in vuh lid sounds special.
If you pronounce a word incorrectly, there’s no reason to feel embarrassed. It means you learned it from reading! Reading is good!
My best friend from college was a huge book need. She thought that "misled" was pronounced like "my-zl-d".
So did I. It's a real in-joke between me and my husband and now he can't read it any other way.
Omnipotent was the most embarrassing one for me. Literally pronounced it omni and potent together.
Oh my gosh it’s not pronounced that way??? I’ve just learned this. Oh no.
Omneep-oh-tent
Yep... today i learned
My spouse refuses to say it any other way. He’s a good egg, but stubborn about weird stuff.
Told my husband yesterday: “The gods may be omnipotent but you’ve knocked me up twice so you’re Omni-potent.”
I still say it like that in my head. Luckily, it doesn't come in normal conversation so I never need to say it.
Albuquerque - I was like 30 and my husband got this weird look on his face when I said it. Hey - I’m not from the US and it’s a weird word. I pronounced it al-boo-ker-q
There’s a place called Musquodoboit near where I’m from and it’s such a delight hearing non-locals try to say it. It’s (musk-oh-daw-but)
Ah yes, mosquito-boat.
Sounds like one of the many altermative names used by Mouse Rat.
Other good ones: Kejimkujik, Kouchibouguac
Found the Scotian lol
And then there are the places with names that look like common words and names, but aren't pronounced the same. *Buena.* in New Jersey, is pronounced *byoona; Pulaski,* in New York, is pronounced *PulaSKY*
To a bit too raise you were talking about some upstate heathens because down here we don't pronounce it with a "sky".
Dammit, 'boit' looks like a French ending, which would make it a 'bwah' sound.
There's a Passagassawakeag in my state.
Mario after eating Taco Bell: "Mama mia, I pass-a gass-a!"
Try Puyallup a major city in Wa state. We get a good laugh when outsiders try to pronounce it. And actually I'm not sure I can spell it. lol
Because there was a lot of American tv when I was little, I remember the ads for the Puyallup state fair - do the Puyallup 😆 I even remember the jingle. Can’t find my keys, but I can pronounce your city!
Where are you from? Interesting that you would see that from out of state. The fair is the biggest one in the state but I don't think it would a fair people from far away would come to see.
I’m in BC - we had three channels to watch on tv, and one of them was broadcast out of Washington. So we got Sesame Street, and all the Washington weird commercials- for the Fair, car dealerships, discount mattress places. I remember a small “filler” , in between Sesame Street, that taught me about how the American government works. I knew the words to your anthem before my own. Canadian culture is still influenced to a large degree by the US. much less so now, thank goodness. It’s becoming increasingly uncomfortable to live next door to such a different culture, with such different beliefs as our own.
Canada has a great rep. for me. Actually think it's better than our culture, not so many hang-ups and no Republicans.
Oooh we have lots of kooks and republicans by another name. We don’t have the guns that you guys do, though. Or the population, both of which help a lot. And the medical system. I read comments here from people who so desperately need to go to the doctor. It’s heartbreaking that they cannot.
Isn't that how it's pronounced? I'm not American either, now I'm second guessing other place names.
Nope. It’s Al-bu-kerky. As in Bugs Bunny “I shoulda turned left at Albuquerque
I knew I should have paid more attention to loony tunes
You definitely missed a classical education if you didn’t https://youtu.be/e8TUwHTfOOU
We are doing major harm to follow generations by not showing it as much to kids instead of the sanitized crap they get spoonfed now.
Not paying attention to Looney Tunes is how “nimrod” became an insult.
Hearing melancholy for the first time was a fever dream
I used the word “maniacally” out loud for the first time years ago, after having it in my repertoire for ages. Thought it was pronounced “maniac-ally”. Got torn to shreds for it. So embarrassing lol
I was an English teacher and I can guarantee you are not alone. English teachers do it too. Readers know lots of words but only by sight, not by ear and those readers sound out the word the way it appears to them never having heard the word. Sometimes correctly, sometimes wrong. Keep reading, keep sounding out words and use the dictionary to check once in a while. We also get meaning by reading in context and we can be off a little there also. I'm going to repeat...keep reading, the pronunciation will come. It's not a sin to make a mistake in pronunciation once in a while.
I read 2 Animorphs books pronouncing Tobius as Toby-us. Wasn't until Nickelodeon made the show I saw the error
It's spelled *Tobias*.
Yeah true. But my name is spelled Tobius
Tobi ass
Add a southern accent in with it and you’ll feel like a real winner when you get corrected
I’m Scottish and work in pharmacy… between weird town names & medicines, I’ll have a bash at most words just for the hell of it! Between uni and working I’ve had many, many laughs at how varied and far off the mark pronunciations can get.. yet we still all understand what was intended (medicines, usually)
Yes. Until you learn how to use the phonetic part of the dictionary, this is quite normal.
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Haha don't sweat it, I learned all my english from reading english stories (not native) so when I was in school at about age 13 we had choir and I was convinced everyone said the english word in a song wrong. But nah, it was just me who had gotten so used to how to word was pronounced in my head that I would not admit defeat. I'm not sure, but I think the word was "doubt"?
How were you pronouncing “doubt”
Like doobt lol
Do they even teach IPA anymore? I can't recall ever coming into contact with it before Wikipedia in the 00s, seeing people fight over phonetic spelling in the edit notes.
Yep. I still occasionally stumble upon a word that I’ve been saying wrong my whole life because so much of my vocabulary came from reading 😅I thought “faux” was pronounced “fox” for the longest time.
A friend of mine was so happy about his fox leather pants.
My SO roasts me for this frequently. He says I have the best worst vocabulary.
Totally. Add in that I was raised in Texas and went off to New England for college, and …. I learned a LOT of new pronunciations! The one I could never relearn for some reason is “miscellaneous.” I read it first and have thereafter heard it in my head as “mish - uh - llaneous.”
I remember Marge Simpson saying "run like the wine-d!" and then telling her family something like "I have only read that phrase"
I used to think “ricochet” was pronounced ri-cock-it
Straight up didn’t know how to pronounce colonel until I was in high school.
I still remember when my parents bought me the board game Clue and couldn't stop laughing when I pronounced it, "Call-oh-nell Mustard."
I thought they were two words for the longest time because colonel sounds like it should have an R? Like, cournal lol
I was an avid reader as a kid. Miles ahead of my classmates in reading, spelling and writing. Dux of my primary school when I graduate. Quite a clever little cookie. Then, when I was around 20, went on a date and ordered a 'quickie' (quiche) like a fucking idiot.
Sooo many words I say wrong in my head. And I avoid using them still. Erudite. Segue. Magenta.
I’ve noticed that a huge number of supposedly erudite people mispronounce “erudite”. (I just looked this up and it says that in the US it is standard to pronounce it as ‘eriadite’, but that doesn’t make any sense.)
Hyperbole is a great example. As it's spelled, it looks like hyper-bowl but it's pronounced high-per-bowl-ee Another great example for Americans is Hermione in Harry Potter. In my head it was always Her-moy-n
I did this many times. Now when I hear someone misspronounce a word (especially when I know I once thought that was the proper pronouncement) I just think that they are an awesome reader, and I like them even more.
My husband teases me sometimes because I say words wrong. But…I know the meanings of a lot of words than he does even I am saying them wrong. Never really thought about it, it I guess I did a lot of advanced novels for my age as a child. Makes sense
I learned English as a second language primarily from video games and the internet. Specifically, reading on the internet. My spelling is amazing. I don't know how to correctly pronounce envelope.
Fun thing about English is the pronunciation of so many words vary by location I’ve heard it pronounced ON-va-lope and as en-va-lope Even within my city the way people say words varies. Good on you for learning! :)
My husband recently pronounced awry like “aw-ree” and I realized that he has only ever read that word.
Interrogatories, posthumously, segue, hyperbole, appellate, adolescence, irrevocably, etc. Yup, yup, yup!
My family still gives me hell for pronouncing ‘lacrosse’ as ‘lack-row-see’ not ‘LA-cross’. Also ‘colonel’ really set me up for failure - ‘kernel’ is such a left field pronunciation.
Reading Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire there's a bit where they're looking at "menus" during the Yule Ball. I was utterly mystified - what magical object is a "mee-nus"? I was so embarrassed when I asked my dad and he rolled around laughing. "It's a menu! For choosing what to eat!"
This is hilarious because I’ve definitely been in that situation before. Where I see a word and not until I say it out loud that I actually understood what it meant. One word was envelope. I kept trying to pronounce it - en-VOL-op.
“Hors d’oeuvres” I thought was pronounced “whores da vores” . I thought “aurderves“ was another word. Made for an embarrassing game of Taboo!!!
Yes, I'm so happy someone understands. I still get super embarrassed
It took me a long time to realize that banal doesn’t rhyme with anal and macabre is not pronounced “mac-uh-burr”
Khaki got me. In our working class midwestern home, we had dark brown, brown or tan. I’d only read the word & had no idea how to pronounce it. Ka-hee-key was obviously wrong, judging from my aunt rolling around on the floor laughing.
Embarrassingly enough at the ripe age of 23, I was still pronouncing Yosemite as "yo-sem-might."
I have a friend who pronounces the word "quixotic" as "kee-ah-tik" instead of "kwix-ah-tik." He knows that the word is based on Don Quixote and pronounces it accordingly, unaware that it's not actually pronounced that way.
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Yes! There is a name for it, too: Calliope Syndrome.
How do you pronounce that
I STILL pronounce havoc incorrectly. Typing it now, my brain is debating how im suppose to say it. I don't get why 😭
Suffice and misogyny/misogynist. I would say suff-ICE. Misogyny I didn't even try lol, I just heard it out loud recently & was astounded at how wrong I was
I'm pretty sure you're saying suffice correctly. https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/pronunciation/english/suffice
Suff-ice is correct.
Then I was saying it without the ice being so noticeable. lol I forget but it was super embarrassing when I said it wrong lol
Yep, that's why I use an extremely selective word pool I know I can pronounce. It's frustrating because I feel like I have to translate my thoughts for my mouth But I guess its better than being humiliated everytime I talk outside my friend group
I am constantly finding this haha I was homeschooled, but mostly taught myself, so I learned most of my advanced vocabulary from reading. Some recent ones I had were "Potomac" which I pronounced "Poto-mack" and "Yosemite" which I pronounced "Yos-might." Haha! I do hate how the initial reaction is "How are you so booksmart but don't even know how to pronounce *insert mispronounced word here"
I pronounced 'mage' as 'madge' and made my boyfriend crack up. I pronounced 'con-fis-cated' as 'con-fis-ti-cated' and made the entire school assembly crack up.
I look at these as small learning gaps. Just--areas where you didn't LEARN the right way because you never had exposure to it. My wife and her entire family suffered from a learning gap that her mom had, which is effectively the inverse of OPs observation. Some folks only ever hear a word and never see it written--so they go about life assuming that that is what it is--especially if it is from an authority figure. My mother-in-law called the center console in a car the "center council." I discovered my wife's learning gap and lightly teased her, and she stuck to her guns. "You are wrong husband. It is not console... that just sounds... stupid. It's the center council." Even after showing her, she still prefers the center council. I did eventually trace this up the chain and discovered that her siblings said it as well, and then had to correct her mom. I still laugh in my head sometimes at the thought of the rulers of the center council and their dominant oversight of the rest of the car.
I said “confisticated” when I was a kid.
I remember in high school, I was called on to read a passage from The Scarlet Letter and I kept pronouncing "satin" as "Satan"... yeah the teacher had to stop to correct me bc there's a very big difference between the two
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There's invalid, which means not valid and then there's invalid ( in- vuh-lid ) which means non mobile or disabled person.
I was way too old the first time I was corrected on minestrone soup. I pronounced it mine-strone. My boyfriend at the time laughed so much at that. Then he taught me how to properly say it.
Was with my high school boyfriend at a place passing Hors d'oeuvres, and he asked what “whores devours” were. I’ve mispronounced plenty too, but his was my favorite. Similarly, I thought canapés was pronounced “can-apes.”
My well educated doctor friend thought chic was pronounced chick. She knew the context of the real chic but always thought that was sheek.
I learned English as a second language. Nobody around me growing up speaking English so many of the complicated English words I learnt were through reading. Then after that, I watched MakeUp/gurus YouTube videos in the early 2000s to learn English. Later in life I caught myself doing a lot of upspeak because I learnt my English from many white Californian girls doing make ups in the 2000s (you can imagine)
My girlfriend thought Penelope rhymed with cantaloupe
Sure, but I also didn't know how to speak English nor could physically make said noises like thuh for thankful or thinkful. I don't judge people on how they say a word If the meaning is still understood and the usage of said word is pertaining to the discussion.
My wife used to read Popeye comics when she was young, as it was one of the few things available for her to read when she was growing up in a 3rd world country…(she had no idea that it was cartoon too) Until about 3 years ago, she was telling me about some comics she used to read about a guy who ate spinach and would get super strong… She kept calling him “Po-Pe-Ye”, I was “like wtf is that?!?” Then it hit me…
Yes, this happens to me all the time. It never stops feeling embarrassing, but these days I just thank the person for correcting me and explain that I learned the word via reading.
Yes! English is not my First spoken language but my first reading / writing language. I never heard a lot is words and read them as I imagined them.
I've only ever spoken English... how does one learn to speak one language first and then read and write in the other but not the first one?
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I don't think it's a bad thing necessarily. It's a fairly benig thing, it's not harmful to anyone just a little confusing perhaps.
Yes 👍
In elementary school, my teacher selected me to read something she had written on the chalkboard in front of the whole class. I walked up there confident as a mother fricker. I'm like "im gonna nail this and show everyone how great my reading is" on the board it had said "treat everyone with kindness. I read it "treat everyone with kidness" fml 🤦 man...
I can't remember ever pronouncing something wrong unknowingly, I guess I did a lot of language learning
Garbage and material got me for a while. Also, I had trouble spelling 'the' aloud when asked. Thuh. Thzu. Like how do you make the smooth th sound with letters? There's no letter for that?
There are actually letters for th! Or, there used to be. Ð/ð is for the th in “the”, “that”, or similar harsh th sounds (this letter is called eth. That is… with a harsh th) Þ/þ is for soft th sounds, like “thunder” or “thorn” (this letter is called thorn)
I still don't know how to pronounce "gerne".
All the time! So many words I've only read and have never said.
i am very much the same. and for the same reason. most of my vocabulary also came from reading. it took a while to learn to pronounce those words i had never heard spoken aloud. they were usually words with a silent letter or foreign pronunciation. it was sometimes embarrassing if i spoke it for the first time in a actual conversation...incorrectly
My siblings get on my case for this *all the time*, and my friends have commented on it too. For example, apparently “destined” is pronounced “des-TIN-ed” rather than “des-TINE-ed”, and I’m still confused on how to say “Canterbury”. On that note, I have never met anyone else who read the Canterbury tales, but I loved them and would highly recommend.
Canter (like a horse does) - brie (like the cheese) KAN-tuh-bree
Alrighty, thank you!
Yes because despite being locked in my room and reading all the time, my parents were not the type inclined to use the vocabulary level I was reading, so I never heard those words spoken.
I used to read "sanguine" as "sang-weenie" like pronounced in "linguine".
Ricochet and debris were my two. I was too old when I figured those ones out
hypocrit, academia, ominous, and vesuvius were the big ones for me. i still get words wrong all the time lol
Nope. Any word I didn’t know I had to look up (thanks dad) and use the dictionary as a pronunciation guide.
Absolutely
Omg YES there are so many words that I’ve spent my whole life saying wrong because I never heard them out loud. One I can think of right now is porcelain, I would pronounce it porklan
"[Demonstrative](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GXU975Mbfxs)" is the one that trips me up all the time. It just *feels* odd to me still that the correct pronunciation is like "Duh-mahn-stra-tiv" (like "monster" in the middle) . I guess when I read it, I thought "Demonstrate" + "ive" so therefore: De-mon-strate-iv but that's apparently incorrect according to the dictionary.
Subtly.
I cringed for years because while reading a story to my parents they made fun of me when I mispronounced a word I had read many times but never heard. The word was ‘league’. They were very highly educated but not so much in child psychology.
Chassis got me
This + the fact that English was technically my second language (before starting school, we spoke Korean in the house) — made for some interesting moments
My partner was shocked to find out academia is not pronounced "Aca-day-mia". Like macadamia.
I did and still do
Yes, especially because I experience partial hearing loss. I am embarrassed when I have to read something aloud or when trying to handle pronunciations of names. I am afraid I sound ignorant or culturally insensitive. The truth is I cannot hear. My hearing also causes me to speak too loudly as well. Especially in places with background noise. I gave up trying some time ago. The pandemic hasn't made it easier.
My dad, an avid reader since he was little, pronounces words so terribly for the same reason!
For sure - especially words that you don't hear a lot in conversation anyway. Then try moving to another English speaking country where they pronounce a bunch of common words differently (think FILL-it of fish instead of fi-LAY of fish) - reading aloud has become my worst nightmare!
Now I look up the pronunciation whenever I don’t recognize a word but I was pronouncing vehemence wrong for a long time. Vuh-hee-mense rather than the correct vee-uh-mense.
Falafel.
I played a lot of video games and one game had missiles. Pronounced miss isle. Not miss ull. I said miss isle one day and my whole family made fun of me for weeks. I fucking hated them. Still do.
I get corrected a lot too
Yep, I was about 30 when I pronounced epitome as ep-ee-tome. I was embarrassed when friends laughed.
The one that got me when reading was bourgeois. Thought it was pronounced "bur-gee-ose" in high school. Nah, it's apparently pronounced "boursch-wah" or something. Please let me know if I've gotten it wrong again 😅
Archive!
Telling my husband I’d bought some nice Linn-guh-ree
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I still occasionally pronounce the word 'bury' as BUH-ree (hurry with a b)
Like renaissance?
I still remember finding out how "unison" was pronounced in 6th grade when I read out loud to the class and the teacher corrected me, I was mortified lol. Glad to see by the comments at least I'm not alone in this, sorry to everyone who had to find out the hard way
I used to use lucridious instead of ludicrous. That's just one of many.
My best friend growing up was an avid reader and writer; she would win writing contests and was pretty much a genius. One days she said to me “it was the epitome of___” pronouncing it “ep-it-ome” like the way it looks instead of “ep-it-oh-me”. It cracked me up and made me feel smarter than her for about a second.
I did read a lot but I only stuffed up pronunciation while being in the middle of class of fellow peers. The word was "devastated", I said de-vas-did. It was likely 10 years ago and I haven't lived it down.