# Is that how it's spelled? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [December 8, 2009, 9:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-that-how-its-spelled/520426 "2009-12-08T09:22:58Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![commasense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/commasense/32/3017_2.png) [@commasense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/commasense)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2009, 6:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-that-how-its-spelled/520426/81 "2009-12-11T06:19:00Z")
> [@ianzin](#): > > > [@Hari Seldon](#): > > > > then there are proper names. England has three family names spelled (approximately, who could remeber them) Marjoriebanks, Fetherstonhaugh, Chomondeley, that are pronounced, respectively, Marchbanks, Fanshaw, and Chumly. > > See my post, #12. Featherstonehaugh is also pronounced Festonhay or Feerstonhaw, depending on the branch of the family. ---
**Author:** ![Zoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/a4c791/32.png) [@Zoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zoe)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2009, 6:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-that-how-its-spelled/520426/82 "2009-12-11T06:55:06Z")
And I had a student in the States whose last name was just Featherstone – and that’s how she pronounced it. I assumed that it was American Indian in origin after translation! ---
**Author:** ![Zoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/a4c791/32.png) [@Zoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zoe)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2009, 7:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-that-how-its-spelled/520426/83 "2009-12-11T07:03:59Z")
> [@](#): > > **Rhythmdvl** : I am (was?) a high-school dropout. The teachers who have believed in you would say that you have skipped your diploma requirements and are attending an Ivy League University. _More power to you!_ ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2009, 7:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-that-how-its-spelled/520426/84 "2009-12-11T07:08:51Z")
> [@Eyebrows\_0f\_Doom](#): > > So what word was it you were trying to say? Caution? I always thought cation would naturally rhyme with nation. I’m just now learning that I was wrong. At least I knew about victuals–I grew up in a hillbilly town. ---
**Author:** ![Lestrade](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/94ad74/32.png) [@Lestrade](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lestrade)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2009, 5:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-that-how-its-spelled/520426/85 "2009-12-11T17:24:19Z")
I ran into this while studying Linguistics. For example, I was surprised to learn that _judge_ begins and ends with the same sound. While I could hear a difference in the way the professor pronounced _Mary_, _marry_ and _merry_ it sounded stilted. ---
**Author:** ![Spoke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@Spoke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoke)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2009, 5:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-that-how-its-spelled/520426/86 "2009-12-11T17:47:54Z")
Def **i** nitely That one seems to surprise a **lot** of people in these parts. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Spoke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@Spoke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoke)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2009, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-that-how-its-spelled/520426/87 "2009-12-11T17:54:17Z")
Orangutan The most common pronunciation is as if there were a ‘g’ at the end. ---
**Author:** ![Hoopy\_Frood](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hoopy_frood/32/8452_2.png) [@Hoopy\_Frood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hoopy_Frood)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2009, 5:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-that-how-its-spelled/520426/88 "2009-12-11T17:55:18Z")
> [@tallcoldone](#): > > Facade. My sister-in-law once mispronounced this ‘fah-kade’ at least three times in a single conversation; she’s very image-conscious and it sounded like she was trying out this new fancy word to impress us. That ones a little different from most of the words in this thread because it comes from French and the C is softened due to the cedilla placed under it when written in French. English, which lacks such a mark, has adopted the French pronunciation but without the accent mark that would justify softening the C. In fact, leave the accent off, and the French would pronounce it exactly how your SIL did. So the pronounciation of that English word doesn’t even make sense as written from either language. There are probably other words we’ve done the same thing do, but I can’t recall any offhand. ---
**Author:** ![Svejk\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ea666f/32.png) [@Svejk\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Svejk_1)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2009, 6:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-that-how-its-spelled/520426/89 "2009-12-11T18:26:22Z")
> [@spoke-](#): > > Orangutan > > The most common pronunciation is as if there were a ‘g’ at the end. To be fair, that spelling also exists. One other example that I thought of: handkerchief ---
**Author:** ![Lakai](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/9de0a6/32.png) [@Lakai](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lakai)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2009, 12:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-that-how-its-spelled/520426/90 "2009-12-12T00:03:29Z")
I hate the word chaos. I always read it as chows. ---
**Author:** ![carnut](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnut/32/3531_2.png) [@carnut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnut)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2009, 12:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-that-how-its-spelled/520426/91 "2009-12-12T00:14:33Z")
I got special tutoring in phonetics as a child due to my dyslexia. The result of that plus my love of reading has produced some pretty hilarious times for my family and friends as they try to figure out what I am saying. For example, the word “cathedral”. I knew what a cathedral was when I heard the word, and I also knew what a cath-eh-drill was, which is how I pronounced the spelled word in my head. It took me until I was a junior in college to put the two pronounciations together even though I knew that both words meant the same type of church. Weird. The trigger was taking French classes, which caused me to reexamine English. Fiery and hyperbole are two words that trip my tongue to this day when I try to pronounce the spelled word. ---
**Author:** ![Apex\_Rogers](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e480ec/32.png) [@Apex\_Rogers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Apex_Rogers)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2009, 12:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-that-how-its-spelled/520426/92 "2009-12-12T00:49:28Z")
The word “detritus” comes to mind. I thought it was deh-trih-tus, but it’s actually deh-try-tus. ---
**Author:** ![pancakes3](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ba9def/32.png) [@pancakes3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pancakes3)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2009, 1:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-that-how-its-spelled/520426/93 "2009-12-12T01:17:25Z")
i’m going to have to +1 on synecdoche. i can’t even say it. it’s the only word that i legitimately cannot pronounce. even when i say it right, it sounds wrong in my ear. uber-frustrating. ---
**Author:** ![MemoryDump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d07c76/32.png) [@MemoryDump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MemoryDump)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2009, 2:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-that-how-its-spelled/520426/94 "2009-12-12T02:10:19Z")
I led a sheltered early life. As an adult, my 17 year old neice had to correct my pronunciation of fellatio (fel-lay-she-o). Who knew it wasn’t pronounced feh-lat-tee-o? Very embarrassing! Is embarrassing another one? ---
**Author:** ![CookingWithGas](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cookingwithgas/32/485_2.png) [@CookingWithGas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CookingWithGas)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2009, 2:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-that-how-its-spelled/520426/95 "2009-12-12T02:48:37Z")
> [@MemoryDump](#): > > I led a sheltered early life. As an adult, my 17 year old neice had to correct my pronunciation of fellatio (fel-lay-she-o). Who knew it wasn’t pronounced feh-lat-tee-o? Very embarrassing! Is embarrassing another one? 1. It’s “niece” (wouldn’t have mentioned it but it’ s a spelling thread ;)) 2. I’ve got to know why as an adult you were talking to your 17-year-old niece about blow jobs :eek: ---
**Author:** ![MemoryDump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d07c76/32.png) [@MemoryDump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MemoryDump)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2009, 3:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-that-how-its-spelled/520426/96 "2009-12-12T03:17:41Z")
Yeah, there’s a law about that, and the spell checker missed it too. The niece had been out of control and moved in with us while she was cleaning up her act. She was very advanced for her age, and just about anything could come out of her mouth. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2009, 3:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-that-how-its-spelled/520426/97 "2009-12-12T03:59:12Z")
> [@Hoopy\_Frood](#): > > That ones a little different from most of the words in this thread because it comes from French and the C is softened due to the cedilla placed under it when written in French. English, which lacks such a mark, has adopted the French pronunciation but without the accent mark that would justify softening the C. In fact, leave the accent off, and the French would pronounce it exactly how your SIL did. So the pronounciation of that English word doesn’t even make sense as written from either language. > > There are probably other words we’ve done the same thing do, but I can’t recall any offhand. Naive, resume, cafe, finance(e), etc. English tends to dislike diacritics, and often drops them from loanwords as they become naturalized from frequent use. In fact, I’ve often heard it said that proper English doesn’t have any accent markers, however, many style guides disagree. I’ve even been told that façade is proper. [Here](http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Appendix:English_words_with_diacritics)’s a list of words that are acceptable to be spelled with diacritics intact. ---
**Author:** ![needscoffee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/needscoffee/32/1076_2.png) [@needscoffee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/needscoffee)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2009, 7:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-that-how-its-spelled/520426/98 "2009-12-12T07:27:49Z")
Brooch Worchestershire[\*\*\*\*\*\*](http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&rls=com.microsoft:en-us&ei=CUYjS4OSBoGwswOg4OngDg&sa=X&oi=spell&resnum=0&ct=result&cd=1&ved=0CA4QBSgA&q=Worchestershire&spell=1) Facsimile Liason - at a former place of employment, it was pronounced as if it rhymed with _niacin_, hard “s” and all. This was at a huge aircraft/aerospace corporation. ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2009, 9:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-that-how-its-spelled/520426/99 "2009-12-12T09:41:09Z")
Growing up, reading about astronomy, the word _sidereal_ looked to me like a compound of “side” and “real”, and it always gave me an eerie feeling… like a different sort of reality that was alongside the real (on the model of “surreal”). I was grown up before I discovered that the pronunciation is si-DEER-ee-al, and it derives from the Latin word for star, _sider_. ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2009, 9:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-that-how-its-spelled/520426/100 "2009-12-12T09:44:56Z")
> [@needscoffee](#): > > Liason - at a former place of employment, it was pronounced as if it rhymed with _niacin_, hard “s” and all. This was at a huge aircraft/aerospace corporation. They must have been thinking of NPR’s correspondent Mara Liasson. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-that-how-its-spelled/520426.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-that-how-its-spelled/520426.md?page=6)