My geography teacher in sixth grade told us that Central America was a country. I was, like, hell no, and showed him the dotted lines in it - he said those were states. I brought him the encyclopedia article on Panama. No dice. It reduced me to tears of frustration.
Specifically, the Earth’s north pole points at Polaris, the North Star. It stays pointed at Polaris all year round while the Earth moves around the Sun.
I just told my aunts this when I went to Colorado. They were fascinated. And they are trade-school educated, but they were teachers in India. 
Back then they didn’t teach basic geography?
Of course this was something like 40 years ago.
Dayum! My first one. Checking dictionary.com, I see that both pronunciations are correct – in fact, they’re listed in reverse order in the first two entries. But all my life I’ve thought it was pronounced “flassid.” Thinking back, though, I don’t remember ever saying it out loud or hearing it said out loud. Whaddaya know.
I will readily admit, however, to having mispronounced many words in my life since I was a voracious reader, and many of the words you see in print just don’t work themselves into ordinary conversation easily.
Here’s one for you guys: Did you know the city of Ouagadougou is actually pronounced “Wah-ga-doo-goo,” not “Ooh-ga-doo-goo” as I grew up thinking? Some years back I met a diplomat who’d been stationed there who provided the correct pronunciation, or I’d probably still be thinking of it wrong.
And my mom admits to being in her 20s before suddenly realizing that the pencil sharpener in her elementary school classroom wasn’t a “Chick-a-go” pencil sharpener. 
A teacher in high school corrected me when I said that Indonesia was a country. He insisted that it was the name of a region containing many different countries. (Maybe he was thinking of Polynesia?) He was quite mean about it, too-- made me feel like an idiot in front of the rest of the class even though I knew I was right.
For my part, I was in high school before I realized that the word “wholly” wasn’t pronounced like “Wally.” I knew what it meant but somehow never made the connection to the root word “whole.” Glad I never had occasion to say it out loud.
I’m still not 100% clear on the proper pronunciation of the word “genre.” I say “JOHN ruh,” but it never sounds quite right.
Huh. Chalk up another one, I guess. 
(Though in my defense, the Post Office got it wrong as well. This was many years ago, perhaps they’ve figured it out since then…)
I just remembered another one:
Buffalo chips. Prairie logs. Cattle droppings. They’re all the same thing. Doh.
Er, I always thought “flaccid” was pronounced “flassid”. And Webster’s agrees with me, though it does give “flaksid” as an alternative pronunciation.
In a similar vein, for a long while I thought “scavenger” rhymed with “avenger”, with the emphasis on the second syllable (makes sense visually, doesn’t it?). I got laughed at one day when proposing a “scavenger hunt” when I was 12.
A friend of mine coined the expression “print pas” (a faux pas with print) for words you pronounce wrong because you learned them by reading. Mine have been mentioned already (awry = ah-ree & flassid), plus I learned a new one yesterday. What the cats scratch isn’t sissle, it’s size-all (sisal). Another friend used to say horizon with the same stress as amazon (given horizontal, this makes sense). In her honor I pronounce Verizon in the same style.
This reminds me of the time in second grade when my class was reading about a young “Indian boy” who lived on the banks of the Amazon river. My teacher walked over to the map of the world on the wall and pointed to India: “He lived in this country right here, on the other side of the world!”
I, a well-read child, raised my hand. “I always thought that the Amazon was in South America?” I said.
“No, it’s here in India.”
I gave her a doubtful look. I asked, “Can I take a closer look at the map?”
“Sure,” she said. I walked up and pointed to Brazil. “See, right there it says ‘Amazon River.’”
She didn’t call on me much after that.
Thank you!
Damn! I still tell people that one!
At least, as far as the theater is concerned, you would ideally be enjoying an effective whole of songs, story, sets, and so on. Musicals aren’t just there to give the performers the chance to belt out old fogey standards, but can often be enjoyed as a whole even by those who otherwise would not listen to that kind of music.
I’m sort of your opposite; it seems ever since about 1980 most dance music has been THUMP THUMP THUMP and I don’t know how people stand that. I don’t even understand how it’s supposed to make you want to move. But I did enjoy rock and dancing to that in the pre-hip-hop era.
With regard to jazz and classical, you do eventually come to a point (or at least I did), where I would rather hear about a new jazz performer on the radio, than Stairway To Heaven, yet again. For that reason I can’t stand classic rock radio, although I can truthfully say I still like the genre of rock.
We’ve lived in Reno for nearly five years now. After about two or three years, one day while driving through downtown I exclaimed loudly “Oh, that’s why it’s called Cal-Neva! It’s California and Nevada combined!!” Husband looked at me like I’d just drooled a bit, and said “Yeah, like the railroad, that’s why there’s a picture of a train in the logo.” And I was so proud of myself for figuring it out!
Oh, and up until about age 20 I was pronouncing macabre as “mack-a-ber”. :smack:
Up until today I believed I wasn’t invisible on message boards.
I refuse to feel particularly bad about mispronouncing rarely-spoken words, particularly when my pronunciation is listed as an acceptable one also… but I was a bit surprised quite recently to learn that the preferred pronunciation of “dour” does not rhyme with “hour”. Rather, the vowel sound is the same as in “took”.
I also only recently (I’m 33) learned that Audrey and Katherine Hepburn were not related. I’m not quite sure why I thought they were, except that Hepburn is such an unusual last name, and they were both movie stars.
The societal reaction to mercury in recent decades has bordered on the hysteric. I’ve heard of cases where somebody spilled a few cc of mercury in a school lab, and then the whole building being evacuated while haz-mat clean-up specialists go in and remove the deadly substance.
I realize, it’s not exactly a health food, and is toxic like most heavy metals, but if you break your mercury thermometer you’re not going to die.
But just today on the morning news they were exposing the mercury threat from a new angle…that of mercury in antiques, like pendulum clocks and barometers.
Am I being stupid or should this not be:
northern winter Ø… :dubious: …Ø northern summer
(assuming north is at the top)?
Yes, please post it (with proper permission, of course)!
No, you have the North Pole tilted sunwards during the winter, and away from the sun during winter, which is the opposite of how it should be.
I just learned today that the word meringue doesn’t have an “a” in it. :o