When I was a kid, my expansive vocabulary was a source of much pride. Until one day I told my English teacher that I was reading “Danse Mack-a-burr”.
My non-native English speaking husband can never ever pronounce buoy, no matter how many times he asks me to correct him.
Also, I almost died laughing the time we were in the grocery store and he started talking about buying crust-ah-SEE-ans. It was funny because he’s so very well spoken and writes English better than the majority of native speakers. (Luckily I can get away with laughing because of the sex thing.)
I prefer Churchill’s pronunciation: Nar-zee
More English places named to confuse the enemy:
Bicester (bisster)
Mind you there are some US place names I’m never sure about like Boyes, Des Moines and St Louis. It took me some time to realise that Arkansas was not pronounced phonetically.
My childhood spent away from English speaking lands, but reading English incessantly, resulted in several words I never quite learned to translate:
quarrel
interesting
plaid (as in tartan)
There are more.
err, make that** to pronounce**. :smack:
You don’t mean… Boise, (boy-zee) do you?
Yup, that’s the one. Not my day, clearly. 
Words that make you look stupid when you spell them wrong, too.
I forgot some of the Oxbridge names like Magdalen (Maudlin) and Caius (keys): devised to make the outsider feel like… an outsider.
That wasn’t too bad by my US dictionary it ends Kab’re Kab’ or Ka’ber
Mack-a-burr is pretty close to ending Ka’ber
I’ll add
Worcestershire sauce
As if that isn’t bad enough, have them take a stab at Sault Ste. Marie.
And how do you say that, Chefguy?
(Always wondered myself).
My husband says scion like “skee-uhn”.
Or at least he did until he met me.
Epitome also comes to mind.
Here’s the poem:
English is Tough Stuff
Dearest creature in creation,
Study English pronunciation.
I will teach you in my verse
Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse.
I will keep you, Suzy, busy,
Make your head with heat grow dizzy.
Tear in eye, your dress will tear.
So shall I! Oh hear my prayer.
Just compare heart, beard, and heard,
Dies and diet, lord and word,
Sword and sward, retain and Britain.
(Mind the latter, how it’s written.)
Now I surely will not plague you
With such words as plaque and ague.
But be careful how you speak:
Say break and steak, but bleak and streak;
Cloven, oven, how and low,
Script, receipt, show, poem, and toe.
Hear me say, devoid of trickery,
Daughter, laughter, and Terpsichore,
Typhoid, measles, topsails, aisles,
Exiles, similes, and reviles;
Scholar, vicar, and cigar,
Solar, mica, war and far;
One, anemone, Balmoral,
Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel;
Gertrude, German, wind and mind,
Scene, Melpomene, mankind.
Billet does not rhyme with ballet,
Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet.
Blood and flood are not like food,
Nor is mould like should and would.
Viscous, viscount, load and broad,
Toward, to forward, to reward.
And your pronunciation’s okay
When you correctly say croquet,
Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve,
Friend and fiend, alive and live.
Ivy, privy, famous; clamour
And enamour rhyme with hammer.
River, rival, tomb, bomb, comb,
Doll and roll and some and home.
Stranger does not rhyme with anger,
Neither does devour with clangour.
Souls but foul, haunt but aunt,
Font, front, wont, want, grand, and grant,
Shoes, goes, does. Now first say finger,
And then singer, ginger, linger,
Real, zeal, mauve, gauze, gouge and gauge,
Marriage, foliage, mirage, and age.
Query does not rhyme with very,
Nor does fury sound like bury.
Dost, lost, post and doth, cloth, loth.
Job, nob, bosom, transom, oath.
Though the differences seem little,
We say actual but victual.
Refer does not rhyme with deafer.
Foeffer does, and zephyr, heifer.
Mint, pint, senate and sedate;
Dull, bull, and George ate late.
Scenic, Arabic, Pacific,
Science, conscience, scientific.
Liberty, library, heave and heaven,
Rachel, ache, moustache, eleven.
We say hallowed, but allowed,
People, leopard, towed, but vowed.
Mark the differences, moreover,
Between mover, cover, clover;
Leeches, breeches, wise, precise,
Chalice, but police and lice;
Camel, constable, unstable,
Principle, disciple, label.
Petal, panel, and canal,
Wait, surprise, plait, promise, pal.
Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair,
Senator, spectator, mayor.
Tour, but our and succour, four.
Gas, alas, and Arkansas.
Sea, idea, Korea, area,
Psalm, Maria, but malaria.
Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean.
Doctrine, turpentine, marine.
Compare alien with Italian,
Dandelion and battalion.
Sally with ally, yea, ye,
Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, and key.
Say aver, but ever, fever,
Neither, leisure, skein, deceiver.
Heron, granary, canary.
Crevice and device and aerie.
Face, but preface, not efface.
Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass.
Large, but target, gin, give, verging,
Ought, out, joust and scour, scourging.
Ear, but earn and wear and tear
Do not rhyme with here but ere.
Seven is right, but so is even,
Hyphen, roughen, nephew Stephen,
Monkey, donkey, Turk and jerk,
Ask, grasp, wasp, and cork and work.
Pronunciation – think of Psyche!
Is a paling stout and spikey?
Won’t it make you lose your wits,
Writing groats and saying grits?
It’s a dark abyss or tunnel:
Strewn with stones, stowed, solace, gunwale,
Islington and Isle of Wight,
Housewife, verdict and indict.
Finally, which rhymes with enough–
Though, through, plough, or dough, or cough?
Hiccough has the sound of cup.
My advice is: give it up!!!
I once heard an announcer use the word cacophony during a televised funeral–only he pronounced it CACK-uh-fonee.
OK, I have to ask–how DO you pronounce whilst? hangs head in shame at own ignorance
suave
When in doubt, you can hear pronunciations at
Go there, plug in the word in the Dictionary box and when you see the definition you will also see a speaker icon. Click on it to hear the word.
It’s simpler if you use Internet Explorer, however. (Which I usually do not.)
You might have to register, first, but it’s free.
wyelst
The first part rhymes with piles. Then just add the t sound.
Better yet, hear it at
http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?book=Dictionary&va=whilst&x=22&y=18
Whew! That’s the way I always said it, but I was starting to wonder if I had it wrong!
How are people mispronouncing it? (I don’t really ever hear anyone use the word, after all!)
Ennui.
I read it the way it was spelled - will-st - until I heard it pronounced.
Lingerie
It’s pronounced Salt Saint Marie. At least in southern Indiana.
Another location. Louisville, KY. Most non-locals pronounce it Lewisville. It’s named after King Louis, and should be pronounced Louieville. However, the natives pronounce it Lo-uh-vull.
How about maligned? I thought it was pronounced like malignant when I first saw it.
Then again, just about any word with the -gn pattern.
Me too, until I used it once with a Britisher in the room. She gave me a quizzical look and said do you mean while-st? I said, umm, sure. 