I’m surprised by many of these, but I can easily see them happening.
For me, it’s finally learning the pronunciation of words or names that I’d only seen spelled before. When I was much younger I was astonished to learn that “annihilate” was pronounced “uh-NILE-ate”. I thought it ought to be “ann-HILL-ee-ate”. I’d heard the word “annihilate” pronounced, but never connected the written word to the spelling.
More recently, I learned that the nation “Niger” is pronounced “KNEE-zhair”. But all my life I’ve heard it pronounced “NIGH-jer”, and I’d always heard it pronounced that way. (And poems implied that pronunciation). Similarly, no one ever seemed to say “Qatar”, so we all apparently thought it should be pronounced “ka-TAR”. Until our recent military actions brought it to the fore, and a lot of us learned that it’s more like “cutter”.
Really? I did not know this. In middle school I’m sure I learned it as Nigh-jer.
My word? Longevity. I’ve evidently always pronounced it as ‘lon-ja-tivity’. About six months ago, I was on a conference call with two other people from my company and the attorney for the other side and I said something about the lon-ja-tivity of the deal, and the other attorney replied with “well, we’re also concerned about the lon-jevity…”
I immediately thought “heh heh… lon-jevity. What he really means is… um… lon-ja-tiv… wait. Lon-ja-tivity? Lon-jevity? Oh. oops.”
So not only did I get pwned on the call in front of my team, but I’ve been doing it this way all my life.
The opposite of all this was the couple upperish-class kids I tutored for the SAT, who were so badly read that they knew words orally that they apparently had never seen in print. They would mispronounce the word, I would correct them, and they would have a surprised moment as the connected the word they had heard with the characters before them.
These are not the type we’re likely to get as members here.
I had a gap of some 20 years before first seeing a reference to “a very naughty girl” in a book and hearing a friend refer to himself as “a very nooootty boy.”
Notty, no-ot-ty, wonder what that is… NAUGHTY! Oh. My. Gawd.
Playing “match the pronunciation with the spelling” seems to just be a natural part of learning English, whether it’s as a monolingual speaker or not.
While I knew quite well that they were different words, a typo there was terribly embarrassing for me once. I used to run a school which taught Traditional Chinese Medicine, Herbalism and Massage Therapy. As part of my duties, I’d go to health fairs and college fairs and stand there and look pretty and hand out brochures and answer questions and generally try to get people to come to our school. You know the drill.
So one day the owners decide to get a big beautiful trifold display made to stand behind me on the table and look even prettier than I can manage on my own. (You see where this is going, right?) Despite half a dozen people proof-reading it, including, I must admit, myself and two English majors, the damn sign came back from the printers much like this:
WhyNot’s Rinky Dink College
Study the Art and Science of Complimentary Care
:smack:
Of course, we had no time to get a new sign made, and the owners were adamant that I bring the damn thing with me.
I spent the next 6 hours saying things like, “Hey, that shirt looks great on you! …Feel better? That’s Complimentary Care!” and laughing over the whole thing with passers-by. It actually worked as an ice-breaker, but…yeah. How embarrassing!
It took me a long time to realize that the pronunciation Uncomfterble does not match the letters. Now I do pronounce it uncomfortable.
And thank goodness for someone on the Dope who mentioned restaurateur, because that’s one I know I would have misspelled had I ever had the occasion to use it.
Oh thank you. That gave me a good laugh (and I definitely remember wondering ‘Where’s Gaol?’ while reading it for the first time). School is also not the best place to use the word ‘aficionado’ for the first time aloud. Especially not for a public speaking class.
I only recently learned how to properly pronounce sepia. of course, now I’ve got that thing where I automatically use the opposite pronunciation from what I’d say instinctively– which now has me saying it wrong once again.
The way I think of it is that complement means to add something in order to make it complete, such as “good shoes complement an elegant suit.”
So when I think about a compliment, it feels to me like something that makes a situation complete, such as if you have a wonderful party, and I say “Martiju, you are a fantastic host!” I am saying “well done” and also completing the concept of a good party by acknowledging your excellent hosting skills. If you had a party and no one told you how nice it was, that wouldn’t be very satisfying.
(I do realize this is all in my own head, and not in the real world.)
