# Words that make you sound stupid if you pronounce them the way they're spelled **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [December 9, 2004, 4:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-that-make-you-sound-stupid-if-you-pronounce-them-the-way-theyre-spelled/278933 "2004-12-09T16:01:46Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 17\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![Spoke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@Spoke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoke)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2004, 7:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-that-make-you-sound-stupid-if-you-pronounce-them-the-way-theyre-spelled/278933/121 "2004-12-20T19:12:44Z")
> [@faithfool](#): > > And in keeping with the theme… > > [Check this out!](http://yourdictionary.com/library/mispron.html) Interesting list. Several common US pronunciations are decried as “wrong” in deference to British pronunciation. I’d like to see the author defend the British pronunciation of aluminum. Fair’s fair! 😉 ---
**Author:** ![TellMeI\_mNotCrazy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tellmei_mnotcrazy/32/3419_2.png) [@TellMeI\_mNotCrazy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TellMeI_mNotCrazy)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2004, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-that-make-you-sound-stupid-if-you-pronounce-them-the-way-theyre-spelled/278933/122 "2004-12-20T19:20:30Z")
> [@spoke-](#): > > Interesting list. Several common US pronunciations are decried as “wrong” in deference to British pronunciation. > > I’d like to see the author defend the British pronunciation of aluminum. Fair’s fair! 😉 Well, in fairness, they spell it aluminium. But I have a hard time with that site’s explanation of “long-lived” being pronounced with a Long I. Of course, M-W backs up the pronunciation as a secondary option, but has anyone ever heard it pronounced that way (or done so themselves)? ---
**Author:** ![Ignatz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/3be4f8/32.png) [@Ignatz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ignatz)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2004, 1:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-that-make-you-sound-stupid-if-you-pronounce-them-the-way-theyre-spelled/278933/123 "2004-12-21T01:38:44Z")
12-09-2004, 02:28 PM #32 [QUOTE=Miss Purl McKnittington/QUOTE] Superfluous. For years I pronounced it as “super-flew-us.” My family still mocks me about it. How do you pronounce it now? That looks correct to me, depending on the accentuation, which did not show in your post. Su PER flew us is correct, IINM. * * * zweisamkeit Quote: Originally Posted by sidle And how do you say that, Chefguy? (Always wondered myself). “Sault Ste. Marie” (note that it’s “Ste.”, not just “St.”) is pronounced (roughly) “Soo Saint Marie”, not “Salt Saint Marie.” No problem on the soo but how does your emphasized **Ste.** change the pronunciation of the Sainte from Saint? Would the French be Sant-uh? * * * And as for victuals, in some 350-year-old New England towns, they still grant licenses annually to all restaurants and they are called “Common victualers’ licenses”, pronounced “…vitchallers…”! * * * Dunedin (Florida and Scotland). I first pronounced it to a native as Doondin, vs. dun EE din. Got a laugh. * * * Ng (there have been threads on this with no total agreement.) * * * semen (not that I say it much). At first I thought it was semmen, but no, it’s just like seaman or seamen, such as in seaman semen. ---
**Author:** ![Ignatz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/3be4f8/32.png) [@Ignatz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ignatz)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2004, 1:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-that-make-you-sound-stupid-if-you-pronounce-them-the-way-theyre-spelled/278933/124 "2004-12-21T01:52:07Z")
> [@TellMeI'mNotCrazy](#): > > Wow. I cross myself off the “reasonably erudite” - I’ve been mispronouncing _and_ misspelling barbiturate my entire life. Had absolutely no clue it wasn’t barbituate. I hear so many pronounce “erudite” as if it were “eriudite”. ---
**Author:** ![Beware\_of\_Doug](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/278dde/32.png) [@Beware\_of\_Doug](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beware_of_Doug)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2004, 2:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-that-make-you-sound-stupid-if-you-pronounce-them-the-way-theyre-spelled/278933/125 "2004-12-21T02:19:06Z")
Basically anything French. I was well into my 20s before I realized that “denouement” doesn’t have a “you” sound in it. (I was saying dayn-you-mahnh’, which is pretty good considering I originally thought it was pronounced de-now’-a-ment.) I try to avoid the word “Nazism” entirely, because it doesn’t look right when you spell it the way it’s pronounced (“Naziism”), and doesn’t sound right when you pronounce it the way it’s spelled (not’-ziz-um). ---
**Author:** ![PastAllReason](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/f07891/32.png) [@PastAllReason](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PastAllReason)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2004, 3:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-that-make-you-sound-stupid-if-you-pronounce-them-the-way-theyre-spelled/278933/126 "2004-12-21T03:05:22Z")
> [@faithfool](#): > > [ul] > [li]debacle – debba cul[/li][/ul] I had no idea I’d been mispronouncing victuals all these years. I feel very let down by Battlestar Galactica where they ate vic-shoo-als all the time! Because I’ve seen it a couple of times in the thread, I’ve gotta ask: are the posters who have included minutae meaning minutiae? And faithfool, if it’s any consolation to you [Merriam Webster](http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?book=Dictionary&va=debacle) includes the way you’ve pronounced debacle as one of the alternatives. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2004, 3:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-that-make-you-sound-stupid-if-you-pronounce-them-the-way-theyre-spelled/278933/127 "2004-12-21T03:36:46Z")
> [@faithfool](#): > > And in keeping with the theme… > > [Check this out!](http://yourdictionary.com/library/mispron.html) A lot of these are bullshit. “Card shark” isn’t acceptable? It’s a perfectly good phrase, and in fact is better and more descriptive than “Card sharp,” which hardly anyone uses anymore. A lot of the other complaints are just bullshit about regional pronounciations. If you’re going to be picky about pronounciations, English is the wrong language for you; it has NEVER been pronounced one standard way, ever. ---
**Author:** ![Miss\_Purl\_McKnittington](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e9a140/32.png) [@Miss\_Purl\_McKnittington](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miss_Purl_McKnittington)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2004, 4:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-that-make-you-sound-stupid-if-you-pronounce-them-the-way-theyre-spelled/278933/128 "2004-12-21T04:51:48Z")
> [@Ignatz](#): > > 12-09-2004, 02:28 PM #32 > > > [@Miss Purl McKnittington](#): > > > > Superfluous. For years I pronounced it as “super-flew-us.” My family still mocks me about it. > > How do you pronounce it now? That looks correct to me, depending on the accentuation, which did not show in your post. Su PER flew us is correct, IINM. I used to pronounce it like there was this super hero, Super Flew Us. So, SU-per-FLEW-us. Now I say it closer to soo-PURR-fl’us. ---
**Author:** ![Cinnamon\_Girl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/9d8465/32.png) [@Cinnamon\_Girl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cinnamon_Girl)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2004, 9:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-that-make-you-sound-stupid-if-you-pronounce-them-the-way-theyre-spelled/278933/129 "2004-12-21T09:25:17Z")
Erudite does not rhyme with crudites. And I learned (lurnd) he was a learned (lur ned) man. You break the evening fast when you eat breakfast (brekfest).\* I was in fifth grade (I won the spelling bee that year) reviewing our vocabulary list with a classmate when I mispronounced this word and racked my brain trying to figure out what is this mysterious word I’ve never heard. Says my classmate to befuddled me, “Um, you eat it in the morning.” :smack: Yes, I was a phonetic learner. Homonymy is often (silent t, like soften) misspelled and mispronounced. But it’s fun to repeat once quickly you get it. Sounds similar to Hermione (which is not her-me-own). **sidle** , I also corrected my husband on scion. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![lost\_in\_the\_post](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/50afbb/32.png) [@lost\_in\_the\_post](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lost_in_the_post)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2004, 2:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-that-make-you-sound-stupid-if-you-pronounce-them-the-way-theyre-spelled/278933/130 "2004-12-22T02:35:39Z")
Pshaw! ---
**Author:** ![TellMeI\_mNotCrazy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tellmei_mnotcrazy/32/3419_2.png) [@TellMeI\_mNotCrazy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TellMeI_mNotCrazy)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2004, 4:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-that-make-you-sound-stupid-if-you-pronounce-them-the-way-theyre-spelled/278933/131 "2004-12-22T04:26:25Z")
I saw a restaurant last night called the Winking Lizard Tavern. I commented to the two women with me “Win-king? What the heck is a Win-King? Is it Chinese? Win-king…” They were too busy laughing to point out that it was actually “Winking” and not Win King. ---
**Author:** ![nivlac](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/3bc359/32.png) [@nivlac](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nivlac)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2004, 6:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-that-make-you-sound-stupid-if-you-pronounce-them-the-way-theyre-spelled/278933/132 "2004-12-28T18:51:41Z")
A place in the news right now: Phuket, Thailand Pronounced poo-KET, not exactly how I pronounced it in my head when I first saw it on the screen. ---
**Author:** ![Terrorcotta](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/dbc845/32.png) [@Terrorcotta](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terrorcotta)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2004, 7:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-that-make-you-sound-stupid-if-you-pronounce-them-the-way-theyre-spelled/278933/133 "2004-12-28T19:05:18Z")
> [@nivlac](#): > > A place in the news right now: Phuket, Thailand > Pronounced poo-KET, not exactly how I pronounced it in my head when I first saw it on the screen. That’s one that has always bothered me since it sounds more like a command. “PHUKET, Thailand!” Sort of like, “Ball STATE, Indiana!” I hear voices in my head… ---
**Author:** ![amarinth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3be4f8/32.png) [@amarinth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/amarinth)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2004, 9:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-that-make-you-sound-stupid-if-you-pronounce-them-the-way-theyre-spelled/278933/134 "2004-12-28T21:04:54Z")
> [@Colophon](#): > > **Sign**. Although, because most people come up against “sign” first, it’s **signal** that’s more likely to trip 'em up. Sweetheart does the same thing. ---
**Author:** ![Marathon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7cd45c/32.png) [@Marathon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marathon)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2004, 9:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-that-make-you-sound-stupid-if-you-pronounce-them-the-way-theyre-spelled/278933/135 "2004-12-28T21:34:42Z")
When I was in high school, we were taking turns reading aloud in history class. I came across the word “machinist” during my turn, and after a quick stumble (I actually don’t think I’d seen the word in print before) I pronounced it “MACK-in-ist”. I’m still embarrassed. ---
**Author:** ![Beware\_of\_Doug](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/278dde/32.png) [@Beware\_of\_Doug](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beware_of_Doug)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2004, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-that-make-you-sound-stupid-if-you-pronounce-them-the-way-theyre-spelled/278933/136 "2004-12-30T17:36:22Z")
This is NOT pronouncing it how it’s spelled, but when I was Very Young I saw the word “ubiquitous” and, without even learning what it meant, I somehow decided it was pronounced “oo-bitch’-ick-us.” ---
**Author:** ![TellMeI\_mNotCrazy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tellmei_mnotcrazy/32/3419_2.png) [@TellMeI\_mNotCrazy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TellMeI_mNotCrazy)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2004, 7:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-that-make-you-sound-stupid-if-you-pronounce-them-the-way-theyre-spelled/278933/137 "2004-12-30T19:33:05Z")
> [@Beware of Doug](#): > > This is NOT pronouncing it how it’s spelled, but when I was Very Young I saw the word “ubiquitous” and, without even learning what it meant, I somehow decided it was pronounced “oo-bitch’-ick-us.” I knew someone who pronounced it “yew-buh-KWITE-is”. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-that-make-you-sound-stupid-if-you-pronounce-them-the-way-theyre-spelled/278933.md?page=6)