# Embarrassing Epiphanies
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/embarrassing-epiphanies/227561
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
**Created:** [February 4, 2004, 10:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/embarrassing-epiphanies/227561 "2004-02-04T22:56:42Z")
**Posts on this page:** 11
**Page:** 7
### Author:  [@Mizzkyttie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mizzkyttie)
#### Post date: [February 12, 2004, 2:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/embarrassing-epiphanies/227561/121 "2004-02-12T14:59:45Z")
> [@Jeffwc](#):
>
> Both of my parents grew up in Maine. Now, I really haven’t researched this, so I’m uncertain if it’s also true for those who grow up in other New England states, but apparently there is a tendency for people who grow up in Maine while speaking words that have an “l” in the middle to replace it with an “r”.
>
> This has always been especially obvious with my mother. For instance, she prounounces “salve” (as in “Let me put this salve on that burn.”) as “sarv”. I can’t remember when it happened, but when I realized that speaking that word with the “l” is the norm, at least here in California, it was quite a revelation for me!
It’s not just Maine – it’s New Hampshire, too. I don’t have the New England accent, having grown up in a multi-lingual household, but most everyone I grew up around had it. The l-r replacement happens a lot with that accent, as does removing the “ing” at the end of a word and replacing it with ‘n. (ie: thinkin’, doin’, etc.)
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### Author:  [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)
#### Post date: [February 12, 2004, 3:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/embarrassing-epiphanies/227561/122 "2004-02-12T15:18:02Z")
When I was a very young child, growing up in Toronto, my parents told me that we were going on a trip to the USA.
Excited, I told everyone who would listen that we were going to see “the united _steaks_ of America!”.
Apparently, this was not just a pronunciation mistake on my part - I though we were going to some sort of huge barbecue, and was quite dissapointed to discover otherwise.
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### Author:  [@moodtobestewed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/moodtobestewed)
#### Post date: [February 12, 2004, 4:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/embarrassing-epiphanies/227561/123 "2004-02-12T16:55:32Z")
I saw someone online use the phrase “bated breath” not long ago and realized my terrible error.
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### Author:  [@MadnessIsAVirtue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MadnessIsAVirtue)
#### Post date: [February 13, 2004, 7:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/embarrassing-epiphanies/227561/124 "2004-02-13T07:04:04Z")
I was only 10 when I got the October 1993 issue of MAD Magazine, with its spoof of Jurassic Park, called Jurass-has-had-it Park. The title confused the hell out of me. It took me nine years to get the joke.
Another one. I’d known for many years that New York was the Empire State before it occurred to me that that was why the Empire State Building was called the Empire State Building. I always just figured that it was a state building, as in like a state government building.
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### Author:  [@Macie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Macie)
#### Post date: [February 13, 2004, 5:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/embarrassing-epiphanies/227561/125 "2004-02-13T17:47:14Z")
I was watching the news last night and the commentator pronounced “burgeoning” with a hard “g”. As I tend to do, I immediately felt embarrassment thinking that I had been mispronouncing the word my entire life (that one came just after “da-da”). I finally looked it up in this morning and see that the do-do on TV was incorrect. My brother just commented yesterday that, because of TV and radio, misinformation is spread just as quickly as information and few people question what they hear, which includes incorrect pronunciation.
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### Author:  [@liirogue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/liirogue)
#### Post date: [February 13, 2004, 6:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/embarrassing-epiphanies/227561/126 "2004-02-13T18:55:07Z")
Okay, I’ll fess up. When I was little, I was a dog-nut. I could look at a dog and tell you what breed he was, etc. etc. Well, I’d learned all this from books.
One night, my aunt and uncle got a new puppy. I was so excited because it was the first time I was gonna see this breed in real life! The whole car ride over there, I’m jabbering away about how cool “bitchin freeze” are.
My little ego was permanently scarred when my ramblings were met with laughter and I was informed that the correct way to pronounce bichon frise is “bee-shawn free-zay.”
:o
I still get teased about this.
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### Author:  [@NajaNivea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NajaNivea)
#### Post date: [February 13, 2004, 7:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/embarrassing-epiphanies/227561/127 "2004-02-13T19:10:12Z")
> [@Hal Briston](#):
>
> Try growing up in Jersey, and seeing signs for “Shore Points” on every highway. I mean, I thought I knew _all_ the shore towns, but in all my travels, I never could find that “Shore Points” town. :o
As a kid, MamaArmadillo was always mystified about how all these exits from the highway lead to “Frontage Road” and not, you know, Elm Street or something. Who’s this Frontage guy? And why are all these roads named after him?
…oh.
~mixie
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### Author:  [@Loneraven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loneraven)
#### Post date: [February 13, 2004, 11:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/embarrassing-epiphanies/227561/128 "2004-02-13T23:01:44Z")
> [@Jabba](#):
>
> Now I’ve joined the thread, I thought Christ was Jesus’ surname. He was Jesus Christ, son of Mary and Joseph Christ.
And I thought Joseph Christ was a _car-painter_.
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### Author:  [@Cardinal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cardinal)
#### Post date: [February 15, 2004, 12:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/embarrassing-epiphanies/227561/129 "2004-02-15T00:18:04Z")
Just a couple days ago I accidently gave an epiphany to one of our field reps at work.
He’s been saying “track homes”, and even spelling it that way to his builder clients! He’s a UCLA grad. He was not impressed with himself.
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### Author:  [@notfrommensa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/notfrommensa)
#### Post date: [February 15, 2004, 1:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/embarrassing-epiphanies/227561/130 "2004-02-15T01:45:28Z")
When I was about 11 or 12 years old, I was reading the TV listings to figure out what I wanted to watch on TV. About every channel that Sunday morning had “To Be Announced” on the air.
I concluded that show must have been pretty popular.
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### Author:  [@Bookkeeper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bookkeeper)
#### Post date: [February 15, 2004, 5:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/embarrassing-epiphanies/227561/131 "2004-02-15T05:32:47Z")
> [@Ellis Dee](#):
>
> I hate those. As a young lad I read a ton, and often encountered the written word before the spoken word, or worse, thought they were different.
>
> For years I pronounced “gauge” as “gog” and wrote “gage”, thinking they were two different words. Ugh.
>
> Pronouncing mischievous as mischeevious lasted for years.
Ditto for me. I was a very precocious reader and frequently came across words in print which I didn’t hear spoken until years afterwards. I was usually able to figure out the meaning from context, and was often too engrossed to bother to stop and look up the pronunciation in the dictionary. One of the words was “infrared” - Aha! I thought, obviously the past participle of the yet to be seen verb “infrare”. It was a couple of years before I came across it spelled as “infra-red” and realized my error, and I still catch myself pronouncing it incorrectly sometimes. Same thing with “misled” - I thought it was the past participle of “misle” (I still think it sounds better this way).
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