# Sharing my stupidity
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sharing-my-stupidity/693194
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
**Created:** [July 15, 2014, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sharing-my-stupidity/693194 "2014-07-15T18:35:28Z")
**Posts on this page:** 12
**Page:** 2
### Author:  [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)
#### Post date: [July 16, 2014, 5:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sharing-my-stupidity/693194/21 "2014-07-16T17:29:39Z")
> [@Leaffan](#):
>
> It looks like it rhymes with Godzilla, which is what I thought when I read it here a couple of years back. Their homophobic tendencies didn’t really make headline news in Canada.
Just use the mnemonic: “Chick-Fil-A, it rhymes with gay.”
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### Author:  [@Sicks\_Ate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sicks_Ate)
#### Post date: [July 16, 2014, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sharing-my-stupidity/693194/22 "2014-07-16T17:30:20Z")
> [@EmilyG](#):
>
> I didn’t know how to pronounce Chick-Fil-A either. I’m Canadian and we don’t have them here.
Let me get this straight…you’re in Canada, and you had trouble adding an ‘eh’ to the end?
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### Author:  [@mcgato](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mcgato)
#### Post date: [July 16, 2014, 5:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sharing-my-stupidity/693194/23 "2014-07-16T17:32:14Z")
My brother from Minnesota did the same as the OP when he first saw one in Tennessee. Chick fill uh? He is the type to joke around a lot, so I assumed that he was kidding. The confused look on his face told me otherwise, so I corrected him.
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### Author:  [@Leaffan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaffan)
#### Post date: [July 16, 2014, 5:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sharing-my-stupidity/693194/24 "2014-07-16T17:38:16Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#):
>
> I’ve mentioned this one before. For a long time I thought dour was pronounced dow-er (rhyming with sour). It’s actually pronounced du-er (rhyming with bluer).
>
> But now I associate the word with Dewar’s Whiskey and I mentally pronounce it with a Scottish accent.
It can be pronounced either way according to some on-line dictionaries. I learned it as dow-er from my Scottish heritage. I have never even heard it pronounced as du-er and thought you were totally wrong until I started Googling around.
It doesn’t even seem to be an American vs. British thing, but I’m convinced no one in Scotland says du-er.
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### Author:  [@Bozuit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bozuit)
#### Post date: [July 16, 2014, 5:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sharing-my-stupidity/693194/25 "2014-07-16T17:40:50Z")
I’ve never heard anyone say “Chick-fil-A” out loud (we don’t have them here) so I never got it either. It’s a stupid name anyway. Do they offer chick fillets? I doubt it. Anyway, if you pronounce “fillet” properly, it doesn’t work at all.
Personally, I can see a serious market for t-shirts that say “CHICK FILLA” on them.
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### Author:  [@Bozuit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bozuit)
#### Post date: [July 16, 2014, 5:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sharing-my-stupidity/693194/26 "2014-07-16T17:50:03Z")
> [@Leaffan](#):
>
> It can be pronounced either way according to some on-line dictionaries. I learned it as dow-er from my Scottish heritage. I have never even heard it pronounced as du-er and thought you were totally wrong until I started Googling around.
>
> It doesn’t even seem to be an American vs. British thing, but I’m convinced no one in Scotland says du-er.
I think it’s one of those words where the “wrong” pronunciation has become so widespread due to assumptions that it’s now standard enough to be included in dictionaries.
I suspect your confidence in the ignorance of _all_ Scottish people may be a little misplaced.
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### Author:  [@Leaffan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaffan)
#### Post date: [July 16, 2014, 5:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sharing-my-stupidity/693194/27 "2014-07-16T17:56:39Z")
> [@Bozuit](#):
>
> …I suspect your confidence in the ignorance of _all_ Scottish people may be a little misplaced.
I probably missed a few people in my survey.
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### Author:  [@jtur88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jtur88)
#### Post date: [July 16, 2014, 6:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sharing-my-stupidity/693194/28 "2014-07-16T18:01:57Z")
> [@Senegoid](#):
>
> So how _does_ one properly pronounce “segue”. I don’t recall that I’ve ever heard it pronounced, and I would have (and did) always assume it was “seeg” except for the numerous mentions I see, right here on SDMB, that that’s wrong. And I just don’t have any real reason to bother looking it up myself.
>
> ETA: Okay. So it’s pronounced sort of like (or exactly like?) that motorized mall-cop moving mochine?
>
> ETA-2: And I have no idea how to pronounce “ague” neither, nohow.
AS a disc jockey/radio producer, I used the word segue daily for years before I ever saw it in print, and just assumed it was probably spelled ‘segway’. It was insider professional shop-talk and I had no idea that there was such a word that had a broader meaning outside my field.I was using the word in about 1960, when it was only about 1/8 the common usage it now has:
> **[Google Books Ngram Viewer](https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=segue&year_start=1800&year_end=2010&corpus=17&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t1%3B%2Csegue%3B%2Cc0)**
>
> Google Ngrams: segue, 1800-2010
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### Author:  [@Doctor\_Jackson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Doctor_Jackson)
#### Post date: [July 16, 2014, 6:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sharing-my-stupidity/693194/29 "2014-07-16T18:10:54Z")
Several years ago I learned that:
Arby’s=fast food joint that serves roast beef sandwiches (that much I figured out on my own)
roast beef initials = rb (I suppose I knew that, too)
rb = Arby (epiphany!)
And until today to learn that story is (almost) completely incorrect. Arby’s is indeed a play on the letters “R” and “B”, but from “Raffel brothers”, the guys who started the business. Oh, the ignorance I have spread!
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### Author:  [@cochrane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cochrane)
#### Post date: [July 16, 2014, 6:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sharing-my-stupidity/693194/30 "2014-07-16T18:18:49Z")
> [@Doctor\_Jackson](#):
>
> Several years ago I learned that:
> Arby’s=fast food joint that serves roast beef sandwiches (that much I figured out on my own)
> roast beef initials = rb (I suppose I knew that, too)
> rb = Arby (epiphany!)
>
> And until today to learn that story is (almost) completely incorrect. Arby’s is indeed a play on the letters “R” and “B”, but from “Raffel brothers”, the guys who started the business. Oh, the ignorance I have spread!
They used to have a tagline in their commercials, “America’s Roast Beef. Yes, Sir!”
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### Author:  [@Roderick\_Femm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Roderick_Femm)
#### Post date: [July 16, 2014, 7:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sharing-my-stupidity/693194/31 "2014-07-16T19:49:17Z")
> [@common\_good](#):
>
> A thread where I belong, finally. I didn’t know what lol meant until everyone else on the planet had known, i guess. I thought it meant lots o’ luck, or somewhat less likely, Land o’ Lakes. lol
There was a three-dot columnist in Portland, Oregon named Doug Baker who used to use LOL to stand for little old lady. They showed up in a lot of his items. The first time I saw it online that’s what I thought it meant.
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### Author:  [@Roderick\_Femm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Roderick_Femm)
#### Post date: [July 16, 2014, 7:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sharing-my-stupidity/693194/32 "2014-07-16T19:53:46Z")
> [@Leaffan](#):
>
> I probably missed a few people in my survey.
Yeah, I think Scotland pretty much invented dour. “He’s a dour Scots fella” - almost redundant.
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