# Any words you insist on reading wrong (in your head at least)?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-words-you-insist-on-reading-wrong-in-your-head-at-least/959805
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion
**Created:** [February 19, 2022, 10:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-words-you-insist-on-reading-wrong-in-your-head-at-least/959805 "2022-02-19T22:32:28Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 3
### Author:  [@anny\_m](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/anny_m)
#### Post date: [February 20, 2022, 11:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-words-you-insist-on-reading-wrong-in-your-head-at-least/959805/41 "2022-02-20T23:18:44Z")
I used to pronounce segue as if it rhymed with league.
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### Author:  [@carnut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnut)
#### Post date: [February 20, 2022, 11:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-words-you-insist-on-reading-wrong-in-your-head-at-least/959805/42 "2022-02-20T23:20:18Z")
That was another one of mine. I didn’t connect the written word with the pronunciation. But I knew what it meant.
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### Author:  [@lobotomyboy63](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lobotomyboy63)
#### Post date: [February 21, 2022, 12:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-words-you-insist-on-reading-wrong-in-your-head-at-least/959805/43 "2022-02-21T00:22:41Z")
Sometimes I’ll remember when whatshername in Showgirls mispronounced “Versace” (ver saysss) or Kathy Bates in Misery mispronounced “Dom Perignon,” sounding it out as you’d say it in English.
For many many years I saw the term “chimera” and never heard it pronounced, so I said “shimmera” in my head.
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### Author:  [@mmmiiikkkeee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mmmiiikkkeee)
#### Post date: [February 21, 2022, 1:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-words-you-insist-on-reading-wrong-in-your-head-at-least/959805/44 "2022-02-21T01:09:13Z")
This one didn’t originate in my mind but after seeing the Simpsons episode about the mayor’s nephew, every time I see the word:
Chowder
I hear in my head “show-dair… show-dair? It’s Chow-da! Say it right!”
[ ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2-bbYH_akHg)
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### Author:  [@Dung\_Beetle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dung_Beetle)
#### Post date: [February 21, 2022, 1:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-words-you-insist-on-reading-wrong-in-your-head-at-least/959805/45 "2022-02-21T01:17:31Z")
My mom used to jokingly pronounce “vegetables” as veg-ET-ibbles".
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### Author:  [@Nightfall1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nightfall1)
#### Post date: [February 21, 2022, 1:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-words-you-insist-on-reading-wrong-in-your-head-at-least/959805/46 "2022-02-21T01:48:09Z")
When I see the word ‘posthumous’ I have to stop for a couple of beats or I will pronounce it as ‘post humorous.’
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### Author:  [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)
#### Post date: [February 21, 2022, 2:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-words-you-insist-on-reading-wrong-in-your-head-at-least/959805/47 "2022-02-21T02:48:06Z")
I can’t pronounce the name of an iconic spring flower without doing an impression of Oberst von Scherbach, Commandant of Stalag 17 as played by Otto Preminger:
(von Scherbach, surveying the mud-soaked assembly ground as he addresses the prisoners): “I hope that next spring we will have some grass planted here, and perhaps some daff-o-deelsz.”
I knew people who pronounced Target as Tar-ZHAY, to mock its less than fashionable reputation.
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### Author:  [@Morgyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Morgyn)
#### Post date: [February 21, 2022, 4:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-words-you-insist-on-reading-wrong-in-your-head-at-least/959805/48 "2022-02-21T04:36:00Z")
> [@Jackmannii](#):
>
> I knew people who pronounced Target as Tar-ZHAY, to mock its less than fashionable reputation.
I knew people who pronounced it Tar-zhay because it was more upscale than Walmart.
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### Author:  [@Nayna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nayna)
#### Post date: [February 21, 2022, 10:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-words-you-insist-on-reading-wrong-in-your-head-at-least/959805/49 "2022-02-21T10:07:33Z")
Ascertain. I’ve read it as “a-certain” forever, and I don’t know how I thought the spoken version was spelled, but I didn’t put the two together until very recently.
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### Author:  [@Mean\_Mr.Mustard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mean_Mr.Mustard)
#### Post date: [February 21, 2022, 11:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-words-you-insist-on-reading-wrong-in-your-head-at-least/959805/50 "2022-02-21T11:34:43Z")
> [@ASGuy](#):
>
> Two come right to mind:
>
> (1) If I see a group of cattle I inevitably say “beeves”
> (2) My Dad did this to all of his kids: he would say ocean as O-shen, two distinct syllables, emphasis on the “O.” I will always say ocean properly in company. But if I’m alone it’s O-shen.
I truly don’t understand either of these examples.
(1) What is “beeves” said in place of?
(2) I say O-shen. Am I wrong?
mmm
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### Author:  [@Balthisar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Balthisar)
#### Post date: [February 21, 2022, 12:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-words-you-insist-on-reading-wrong-in-your-head-at-least/959805/51 "2022-02-21T12:21:29Z")
Long I’d ever heard the name Penelope Cruz, there was just Homer’s Penn-a-lope.
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### Author:  [@Author\_Balk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Author_Balk)
#### Post date: [February 21, 2022, 12:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-words-you-insist-on-reading-wrong-in-your-head-at-least/959805/52 "2022-02-21T12:22:35Z")
Too many to mention. I even got my nephew to come up with different pronunciations.
Examples:
Pronounce silent letters: Is-land. La-sag-na.
Virgin rather than version.
Stolen from Jeff Dunham - Change egg to a three letter word, Eh-ga-ga. His is Jeff fa fa.
Use the wrong vowel sound. For bacon it’s back-con.
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### Author:  [@lobotomyboy63](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lobotomyboy63)
#### Post date: [February 21, 2022, 2:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-words-you-insist-on-reading-wrong-in-your-head-at-least/959805/53 "2022-02-21T14:05:19Z")
There was a Bugs Bunny cartoon I saw back in the day…he’s flying an airplane and it sputters. As he’s headed toward the ground, he says something like, “Am I a victim of sabo tah jee?” So now whenever I see sabotage…
I can’t remember if that’s the one where the plane stops a foot from the ground and he climbs out safely and says, “Good thing I had air brakes!” or if he says, “Good thing I ran out of gas!”
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### Author:  [@burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/burpo_the_wonder_mutt)
#### Post date: [February 21, 2022, 2:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-words-you-insist-on-reading-wrong-in-your-head-at-least/959805/54 "2022-02-21T14:57:41Z")
I think, “…ran out of gas.” was the one with the gremlin.
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### Author:  [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Asking_Questions)
#### Post date: [February 21, 2022, 3:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-words-you-insist-on-reading-wrong-in-your-head-at-least/959805/55 "2022-02-21T15:15:28Z")
> [@ASGuy](#):
>
> My Dad did this to all of his kids: he would say ocean as O-shen, two distinct syllables, emphasis on the “O.” I will always say ocean properly in company. But if I’m alone it’s O-shen.
It IS two syllables. How can you say it as one. Ushn?
Given that, I have to take exception to “dad did this to all of his kids”. Pronounciating the word as OH shen isn’t “doing something”; it is the perfectly proper WisKHANsen pronunciation.
Me after moving to LA: “I like going to the OHshen”
Hot chick at party, with dripping distain: “You’re from Wisconsin, aren’t you”.
> [@Mean\_Mr.Mustard](#):
>
> (2) I say O-shen. Am I wrong?
Nope.
And that not-too-common girl’s name is pronounced See-ho-ban.
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### Author:  [@mmmiiikkkeee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mmmiiikkkeee)
#### Post date: [February 21, 2022, 5:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-words-you-insist-on-reading-wrong-in-your-head-at-least/959805/56 "2022-02-21T17:32:06Z")
Analysis…
In my mind anal-lysis always flickers initially; as in a lysing of the anus. I always picture someone strapped face down to a table, no-pants, with a big laser slowly burning a line towards the target.
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### Author:  [@Eyebrows\_0f\_Doom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eyebrows_0f_Doom)
#### Post date: [February 21, 2022, 7:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-words-you-insist-on-reading-wrong-in-your-head-at-least/959805/57 "2022-02-21T19:47:02Z")
> [@EastUmpqua](#):
>
> I cannot read obfuscate in my head and not pronounce the u.
Wait… the U is silent? How are you even supposed to pronounce that? “Obv-scate”? I’ve always read it as “ob-fuss-skate.”
🤔
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### Author:  [@Ann\_Hedonia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ann_Hedonia)
#### Post date: [February 21, 2022, 8:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-words-you-insist-on-reading-wrong-in-your-head-at-least/959805/58 "2022-02-21T20:13:43Z")
I used to mispronounce “sentient” in my head and worked to correct it, then I found out so many people had mispronounced it the same way in their heads that my mispronunciation was now an accepted pronunciation.
And while watching an Olympics related piece on Uighur muslims, I was like ……oh, _that’s_ how you pronounce it, like it starts with a “W”.
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### Author:  [@EastUmpqua](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EastUmpqua)
#### Post date: [February 21, 2022, 9:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-words-you-insist-on-reading-wrong-in-your-head-at-least/959805/59 "2022-02-21T21:46:22Z")
I always pronounced it like you, “ob-fuss-skate”. The u isn’t silent. But if you look it up, the u is supposed to be the unstressed vowel (ə) like in ‘the’. I’m not going to change the way I read it in my head, or even how I say it.
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### Author:  [@Ponch8](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ponch8)
#### Post date: [February 21, 2022, 9:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-words-you-insist-on-reading-wrong-in-your-head-at-least/959805/60 "2022-02-21T21:49:32Z")
Gym should be pronounced “guime” (with a hard G and rhyming with “time”), thanks to the Simpsons episode where Homer attempted to climb Springfield’s tallest mountain. “Guime? What’s a guime? Oh! A _guime!_”
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