How many of you have embarrassed yourselves by mispronouncing words you've learned from reading? You sound it out in your head and store it there until you have a chance to use it in conversation. When you finally do use it, you're faced with looks of total incomprehension, or worse, laughter. My worst ones were in Junior High. I've since learned to look up new words!
Mine were awry and misled. I thought they made perfect sense in context. As in, something had gone AW-ree (I think I linked it with the NASA term yaw, as in pitch, roll and yaw; something gone out of kilter) and MY-selled (akin to chiselled or cheated).
Anyway, I'm guessing many of you have had the same experience.
Care to share?
Forgot one. Armageddon. Asked my Dad how to pronounce it, he helpfully replied: "Easy, it's ar-meg-eh-DON." Needless to say I got laughed out of Sunday School.
I've had that sort of thing happen a lot. Even now I occasionally have to stop and think whether it's a "THESS-or-us" or a "thess-AR-us"!
My roommate is notorious for this kind of stuff, and I'm merciless about pointing it out to him... For caricature, he came up with <kuh RIC uh chur>. I've got a call in to see what else I've mocked him about lately ~
I initially assumed that it was pronounced /FAL a roap/ and had that corrected to /fuh LAIR uh pee/. Now I have a flag set in my brain that says that's wrong and I was right in the first place and am now hopelessly confused. To make matters worse I think my stack is full or not there and that I will never know which is correct. Fortunately, it's not a word that I have to use every day. If there are others I have been so badly embarrassed that I have suppressed the whole incident and don't remember them.
Is that book so old that no one knows what I am talking about? Too Late the Phalarope.
I
still can't say the word coin correctly. Using a
long o, I have two distinct syllables: co'-inn.
That's the way it looked to me as a child, and I cannot
get my mouth around that oy sound, though I have no difficulty with it in other words. I try to say "change",
when I can!
<EP-i-tome
PAR-a-DG-m>
Two classics! Done them both.
<Phalarope>
Reminds me of two botanical words: Liriope (yes, I pronounced it LEE-ree-ope) and clematis (still not sure which way to say that one; grew up with cle-MA-tis, my gardening buddies all use CLEM-uh-tis). My mnemonic device for remembering Liriope is that it rhymes with calliope.
<Coin>
Love that. A friend from North Carolina says "awl" for oil; cracks on me for saying OY-ill.
Misled is a classic; I had a problem with that too. I still don't know to this day (tell me, someone) if grisly is pronounced like the bear or to rhyme with rice-lee.
Only Doug gives us: A friend from North Carolina says "awl" for oil
My Boot Camp company commander (the shell-shocked WWII Chief Gunner's Mate) pronounced it /OH-'ll/.
I did ribald as RYE-bald instead of ribbled. When I learned ribbled I back-formed the verb ribble. I also back-formed the verb misle pronounced /mizzle/ when the mispronunciation of misled occurred to me.
Pronounced like the bear, indeed. Or at least that's the way *I* pronounce it...
But then, I pronounce the "t" in often (which my Korean conversation students always gave me hell about), and before I sew a garment, I have to take the wearer's MAY-zhur-ments.
So take my advice at your own risk!
>I also back-formed the verb misle pronounced /mizzle/
I'd be very careful using that one! mizzle already exists as a verb in about 5 very distinct senses; one of which is used in the (Naval?) phrase: to mizzle one's dick.
YCLIU
tsuwm helpfully notes: I'd be very careful using that one! mizzle already exists as a verb in about 5 very distinct senses
Oh, great. Now I've got two "m" words.
Anyway, I'm guessing many of you have had the same experience. Indeed. Vee-HEM-ence, Or-ee (awry), bane-l, tele-FONE-ist and several others which mercifully elude me at present.
I did ribald as RYE-bald instead of ribbled. You mean it's
not RYE-bald?
Bob and français, gurunet gives both ways of saying ribald,
but lists ribbled first. I've always said RYE-bald.
And yes, grisly is pronounced grizzly. I don't know if this is right, but I tend to put three syllables
into the word gristly: griss-el-ly, just to make the
distinction.
Just thought of one I got laughed at for. I used a long
"i" for the first syllable in cringing.
Sometimes when I mispronounce a word, someone replies, "You have the acCENT on the wrong sylLAHble."
>acCENT on the wrong sylLAHble.
it MUCH easier to say "emPHAsis" rather than "acCENT"!
Dear Doug: You have touched on a problem that has painfully tormented me for years: that there is no one place where I can find pronunciations of many words and names the dictionaries ignore.Reading hysterical novels with Gaelic names, Polish names, Greek names, I get trapped into howlers in the company of my linguistic superiors.
As an example, I couple years ago read novel about Poland by James Michener(sp?), in which name of an estate is spelled "Lancut". Naturally I pronounced it "Lan (like man) cut (like haircut)". Halfway through the book, the hostess of the estate tells a visitor it is pronounced "WineSOOTH" It made me want to commit a nuisance on Mitchener's grave. Gaelic names are even worse. PLEASE if anyone knows solution to this problem let me know!
D
I usetah give my pal a hard time about "war-shin" (washing) his hands (only because he gave me such a hard time about mine bein' so dirty all the time...)
Here I go, on a journey...
Yes, I had only read the word awry and also mispronounced it initially
.
I once saw a news woman who, try as she might, could not get out the word helicopter… she kept on pronouncing it HELLICO-peter, correcting herself over and over. I felt so bad for her.
I was confused for a long time by the two spellings of "dispatch" and "despatch". I didn't check, and pronounced them differently - DISpatch and DESpatch. Got laughed at, yep!
I must have been about 30 before I got it that "hors d'oeuvres" and "or durves" were the same thing. I guess the regional pronunciaiton (hate spelling that word) of water, WAH-dur, drives some people up the proverbial wall.
Friend of mine turned Penelope into PEE-neh-lope. Then there was a high school classmate who gave negligee an new definition - "one who neglects."
wwh:
Reminds me of Leon Uris' Trinity. I remember pronouncing (only in my head, luckily) the protagonist's hometown as, Ballyatogue as Ball-ee-AY-ta-gyew. I'd love a book (website) like that! 20 years on, I'm guessing the pronunciation is more like BAL-ya-toge. Any help?
from another thread: HEJ-e-mony
(actually® fairly close to a tertiary orthoepy given by M-W)
pleth-OR-a.
I have a friend who pronounces hyperbole as hy-per-bowl.
...pronounces hyperbole as hy-per-bowl.
Why, that's simply superbole! Up the Ravens!!
lusy
I just discovered a "misled" I never knew I had-- today's
Word of the day: athenaeum.
It's pronunced (ath-uh-NEE-um). I've always thought it
was uh-THEE-nee-um.
lusy, Dearest--I don't know who the Ravens are, but from your hint I'm guessing they must be one of the teams that
played in that game the network seems to insist on showing every year.
>lusy, Dearest--I don't know who the Ravens are, but from your hint I'm guessing they must be one of the teams that played in that game the network seems to insist on showing every year.
Luckily, TEd knows enough geography to know that Bobyoungbalt's arrows directed at Kentucky will not hit Denver if he overshoots.
Some of you may have managed to miss out on the world domination of Harry Potter (at last count, a small, 14 year old wizard with a lightening shaped scar on his forehead).
Anyway, his best friend was/is called 'Hermione', and I keep hearing people pronounce it 'Her-mee-own' instead of 'Her-my-o-nee'.
And, that's just generated another one - four-head or forread - which is your preference??
Gulliver's Travels is the worst for this sort of potential embarrassment. I found myself with NO idea how to pronounce Houynhims (sp?), and I seem to recall having some initial concerns over Brobdignag. I think I went totally phonetic on <HOY-n-hims>, but now I understand it to be <WHIN-ums>. Or am I still off my cracker?
In reply to:
Luckily, TEd knows enough geography to know that Bobyoungbalt's arrows directed at Kentucky will not hit Denver if he overshoots.
TEd's knowledge of geography is impeccable, but since we won, I can afford to be magnanimous.
For the benefit of outlanders, the Ravens are the Baltimore football team, which yesterday won the Superbowl, the grand championship of U.S. football. They were a definite underdog, as was the city, which has not had a winner in 30 years and was without a major league football team for years. This victory is the equivalent of India winning the most prestigious of test matches (whatever that might be) against Oz.
For the benefit of outlanders, the Ravens are the Baltimore football team, which yesterday won the Superbowl
Thanks, Bob. I was unaware of either fact. It slowly began to dawn on me, from the supermarket displays, that the Superbowl was probably coming up, and apparently it was played yesterday. But--I thought you-all were the Orioles? I distinctly recall hearing the words Baltimore Orioles, from some distant time in my past.
Well, congratulations, anyhow.
I went totally phonetic on <HOY-n-hims>, but now I understand it to be <WHIN-ums>.
Your new understanding is correct - I believe it's supposed to sound a bit like a horse whinnying - for obvious reasons.
Superbowl, Shuperbole, waddever!
Yesterday NEW ZEALAND WON THE RUBGY WORLD SEVENS at Mar del Plata in Argentina!
Yay for us!
In reply to:
This victory is the equivalent of India winning the most prestigious of test matches (whatever that might be) against Oz.
What, you mean Baltimore bookies rigged the Superbowl? (Cricket fraternity in-joke)
Congratulations, by the way. I have been afflicted with a love of American football since the heady days of the mid-80s, when Marino's 49ers were divine.
the Ravens are the Baltimore football team
And the people up in the other corner of Ohio aren't too happy about the Raven's win.
Jackie: the Orioles play baseball, a sport you should know quite a bit about living in Louisville.
And just to keep this thread on a words/literary topic, the Ravens were named after Mr. Poe's poem. (He lived in Baltimore.)
Methinks this whole thread has been myze'ld oary.
Well actually Jazz, he died in Baltimore-- he lived several places.
He started life (an adaoptee) in Richmond VA-- and there are several sites in Richmond, commemerating Poe, and he lived in NY, the town of Fordham-- now in the Bronx--(near, less than 1/2 mile--1 K from Fordham Uninversity) he (and wife) house he rented, (and actually wrote the poem The Raven in )is now in a small city park--poe park.
His wife died in NY, and he left soon afterwards.
And as Byb- pointed out, he lived the last years of his life in Baltimore, and died in a charity ward of a hospital there. (with his mother?)
(as for me, i couldn't care less about football)
Max mentioned 'BANE-l'.... wow, i've always thought this was correct, though i'm not sure i've ever heard it spoken (perhaps i need to get out more??). I looked it up, but M-W lists a gazillion alternative pronunciations (one of which, incidentally,
does appear to have it rhyming with anal). Does the preferred pronunciation rhyme with canal? I've always had trouble deciphering the ampersands and other strange prunciations guides.
TIA for enlightening me
bridget=)
Ipsa scientia potestas est ~Bacon
Cricket fraternity in-jokeMax, do you mean to tell me there was something not cricket about a test match?
> when Marino's 49ers were divine.
I knew you kiwis lived in an alternate universe!
[Marino toiled his whole career for miami, da fins]
Poe's last years.
Actually, he was not living in Baltimore when he died; he was here on a visit.
I should share with you one of the urban legends which makes Baltimore the place it is.
Poe is buried in the churchyard of what used to be Westminster Presbyterian Church, located in downtown Baltimore. It was originally (early 1800's) on the edge of the city, but, of course, the city has grown up around it. The church went out of business about 40 years ago for lack of communicants and the building and the churchyard are now owned by the U. of Maryland Medical School, which abuts it. An old story, which is not denied by the U. of Md., is that in the early days, when it was illegal to dissect human remains, the faculty of the med. school secretly dug a tunnel from the school to the cemetery so they could steal corpses for the students to dissect, and the tunnel is still in existence.
With that suitably Poesque prologue:
The churchyard is not large and Poe's grave is quite visible from the street, being marked by a fair-sized monument. It is surrounded by a wrought iron fence; the gates are never closed. Since the late 1940's, every year on Poe's birthday, a mysterious visitor, clad in a top hat and black cloak, visits the grave in the middle of the night and leaves a red rose and a half-full pint bottle of brandy on the grave. When this attracted attention, the church (later the University) arranged that there should be no publicity, and no interference with the visitor. The local newspapers staked out the area, but never succeeded in getting a photo; only a very vague description of the visitor's clothes. If anyone ever did know who the visitor is, it has never been revealed. Several years ago, the newspaper did receive an anonymous letter the night after the visit, explaining that the original visitor had died and the job was handed down to his sons, who have kept it up. Poe's birthday, and the visit, is in mid-January. This year, a sacrilege was committed; the visitor also left behind a sheet with two quotations from Poe stories wrapped in ribbons of the NY Giants colors (the Ravens' opponents in the Superbowl), all of which indicated that the visitor was a Giants fan!! It does not amaze me that there could be such a custom, after all this is Baltimore; what is amazing is that nobody has yet ruined it by gathering a crowd on the appropriate night or trying to apprehend and identify the visitor.
On the original subject of this thread
Something I heard on the radio this morning reminded me of three old favorites:
the archaic 'shew' and 'strew', pronounced respectively 'show' and 'strow'; and 'thresh', pronounced (at least hereabouts) 'thrash'.
This reminds me...in my family, we often mispronounce words on purpose, among ourselves, just for fun. The problem begins when we consistently do this. It becomes difficult to pronounce these words properly when surrounded by "real" people. One of my favourites is "hors d'oeuvres", which we always say "HOARS doovers". Also "connoisseur" is "kon-OY-sser". Very embarassing, when I say it to non-family members, who then think I must be ignorant!
Bean, we do that too. My husband now has me saying "modren" for "modern," whether I intend to or not. Harumph.
I remember years ago never using "hors d'oeuvres" when speaking since i didn't know how to pronounce it.
A friend who was a teacher played the same sort of game as Bean-- only he called them Horse's ovaries--and I was aplumb! i was sure that wasn't how the word was pronounced-- but didn't know how to correct him! he realized my quandry from the look on my face-- and thought it was as much fun as his misprounciation-- We always had horse's ovaries after that!
I find rather than mis pronouncing a word-- there where words -prior to spell check that i never used in writing--
for example i also used to "opt for" or make "a choice" never decide-- since i could never decide how to spell it- was it dec or dic or des or des-- and the advice "look it up" was usless! you have to have a clue as to how a word is spelt to look it up! I never thought as a dictionary as a spelling tool-- it was a word warehouse-- you could browse and find wonderful words--a free for the taking. but if you didn't know how to spell a word-- forget it!
i do remeber reading about a NY guy from Puerto Rico, who when he first went to school in NY, and had a Christian brother for a home room teacher--and mis read Brother Malachi's name as Mal lea chee--(as it would be said in spanish--) not Mal a key. It seem perfectly reasonable to me, since i had trouble with Jose when i first encountered it-- (Joe see--it seemed to me!)
Damn! Thank you SO much tsuwm! You're calling me on that one mistak means that I will now have to resit the entire infallibility exam, before they wil even consider my application for bridge-builder maximus.
>I will now have to resit the entire infallibility exam
dear maxie, knowing you as I do, I initially read that as
resist...
I initially read that as resist
Aargh! My sea of troubles gets deeper and deeper. First I learn that it is I, and only I, who has not the ear of Anu, and now I learn that the absence of typos in my posts is so rare as to make such a post difficult to read. Where the hell is a bodkin when you need one(interrobang)
Robertson Davies, one of my favourite authors, has a great bit in one of his books along those same lines...
One uneducated character is claiming that he is actually related to a recently deceased guy, and therefore has claims on his estate, because when his mother was alive she had an affair with this guy, and had the only "organism" of her life - therefore somehow confirming that he was conceived at that moment. The other (real) relatives of the dead guy, when discussing this situation, keep jokingly referring to "organisms" instead of "orgasms" and they realize that they are beginning to use the new word instead! (Now any time I see the word "organism" I smile to myself...)
OK byb I will try to type the answer to your post.
""if grisly is pronounced like the bear or to rhyme with rice-lee.""
I learned to read and spell using phonics and it seems that it was phased out years ago and is only now making a comeback. SO--- GRISLY rhymes with is-lee (not ice-lee or rice lee) and GRIZZLY rhymes with whiz-lee or fizz-lee.
enthusiast
OK DS, your dad was partly correct by saying its easy. But had he learned phonics----it would have been a breeze for him--- "arm--a--ged--don. )The trick to spelling and pronoucing with phonics is to break the big word down to many little words and every syllable has to have a vowel--but like learning to walk when you are a baby----learning to read, spell and pronounce words with phonics is much easier from the very beginning--from learning "ON" we can then go to "bon, con, don and then to bond, pond, fond etc. (But if I am wrong on this, please don't hesitate to correct me---I am NOT a teacher!!
enthusiast
reading all these "misled awry" posts, strikes another connection that all of us AWADS have in some form or another----words etc----
"""But then, I pronounce the "t" in often (which my Korean conversation students always gave me hell about), and before I sew a garment, I have to take the wearer's MAY-zhur-ments. """
This is the beauty of listening to each persons accents--or (another person's point of view) (Some can take it--some can't stand it) for instance I think "MAY zhur ments" sounds beautiful but it is actually pronounced "mea (with a short e like in men and silent a)---hence "mea - sure - ments.
Therefore, I think that since the rest of the world is learning English starting in 5th grade---we in the USA should make it mandatory to learn another language starting in 5th and continuing til 12th---What a great world this would be!!!!(More compassionate, literate, and understanding, etc) Anyone agree with me????
enthusiast
CRICKET---brings to mind my German exchange student last year, an extremely intelligent young man, who learned to read and speak Hungarian at age 5, pronouncing crooked as "cricket" I did tell him the correct pronounciation but somehow it never stuck, and saying "cricket" for "crooked" just melted my heart every time.
enthusiast
Therefore, I think that since the rest of the world is learning English starting in 5th grade---we in the USA should make it mandatory to learn another language starting in 5th and continuing til 12th---What a great world this would be!!!!(More compassionate, literate, and understanding, etc) Anyone agree with me????Indubitably. At high school, one of my classmates was a new immigrant from Finland, where she said that they had to learn English, Finnish, Russian, and Swedish, and were also obliged to choose two other languages from a list of options. Hptelingual she may have been, but she hated the English pronunciation of sauna. She simply could not help herself - every time she heard "sawna", she would respond "it's sow(female pig)na", much as I now find myself doing with Braun and Audi.
[Max] Your classmate in High school gets a trophy. Learning Russian, Swedish, English and her own native language---Finnish-as a young high schooler was not easy/ For most people this attempt would be equivalent to attempting to climb Mount Everest. I had just read where the Hungarian Language was so difficult, they were going to abolish it. But did not because it is soooo unique and not other language is like it, except Finnish---which really is not exactly like it---but sort of related. And then there is the Russian Alphabet---totally unique. So I would forgive her for pronouncing sau - na the same as Braun and Audi. I am learning German, while the grammar structure is difficult, and sentence structure even more so---the pronunciation is much easier than English.
enthusiast
How did we go from Hors d'oevres to Horse Ovaries, and then from organisms to orgasms and may I add another one? How about condominiums and condoms. Somehow when reading, it is difficult to separate them!!!! Oh and I just thought of another one---my 10 year old has "Sax lips" and somehow I am wondering about his future in high school, when the girls see this hunky, built like a brick, blond football player playing a sax. I am not sure they will think "sax lips".!!!???
enthusiast
>...she said that they had to learn English, Finnish, Russian, and Swedish, and were also obliged to choose two other languages from a list of options. Hptelingual she may have been...Hptelingual? Do you mean, Max, that she had great language skills, but suffered from dyslexia
and innumeracy?
Do you mean, Max, that she had great language skills, but suffered from dyslexia and innumeracy? Nope. I simply realised that, as tsuwm indicated in one of his replies to a post of mine, y'all
expect a profusion of typos in my posts, and so, heptalingual became hptelingual. Oh for an Athlon 1.4GHz with 768 MB RAM and Dragon Naturally Speaking Preferred V 5.0 - then my posts might almost be legible!
So I would forgive her for pronouncing sau - na the same as Braun and Audi.
As did I. I may have mangled my meaning, but that is how the word should be pronounced, apparently. The Finnish au dipthong is the same as in German, it would seem.
There was a national news broadcast on which the announcer used the word "intricacies" with the accent on "tric." Me, I have trouble with the word "pious" - I think of it as rhyming with "see us," but I've heard it with a long i as well. Is my pronunciation maybe an alternate pronunciation, or am I just wrong?
You did just fine Max. I mangled my posts something fierce.for pronouncing sau - na the same as Braun and Audi.
"""As did I. I may have mangled my meaning, but that is how the word should be pronounced, apparently. The Finnish au dipthong is the same as in German, it would seem."""
This is exactly what I was trying to say-----I am so sorry. I also want to say that many times people are not so tolerant. "Honey attracts more flies than vinegar" I have lots of honey, but it seems it is never in the right place at the right time!!!!
enthusiast
I would make it rhyme with "fly us". Pie-us. (Hard to spell phonetically.)
bikermom says, "And then there is the Russian Alphabet---totally unique. "
Not entirely, you know. I learnt the cyrillic alphbet some years ago and was amazed, when I was in Islington, London to find myself reading, without much difficulty, the words embazoned on the side of a van parked there. It belonged to a Greek shop, of which, in that quarter of London, there are many.
It was the Greek Missionaries who introduced a written language to Russia, back in mediæval times, applying the Greek alphabet to the spoken Russian. They had to invent a few symbols for sounds used in Russia but not in Greece. The alphabet is named cyrillic after St Cyril (pronounced with a K-sound, not an S), although it was originaly called glagolytic (and I can't for the life of me think why - but someone out there will know!)
Try this for help with learning Irish Gaelic - including pronunciation
http://www.bbc.co.uk/northernireland/blas/learners_main.shtml
pronounced with a K-sound, not an S
Do you mean this is true of cyrillic, as well as the blessed saint?
intricacies
You just hit on another of my betes noirs, the word "applicable". How many AWADers make this "apPLICKabel" and how many (like me) "AP-plicable"?
So Tovarich Uchitel gave me to understand
I think I usually say apPLICable. I think I hear it more than I say it, though, and I'm not really sure how I say it.