Words that sound strange to you

In My Humble Opinion
1

I was listening to an audiobook about the US Civil War, and the word “musket” was used a number of times.

I know what a musket is, and the author was a soldier in the Confederate Army, so I am sure the use of the word is correct. That is what soldiers called the rifles they used during the war.

However, each time I hear the word, it sounds strangely made-up.

I think ot may have to do with the movie “Suicide Kings”, where Denis Leary gets into an argument with a homeless person, who uses the word “busket” instead of bucket… I have no idea if this has anything to do with it or not, but “musket” still sounds like a made up word to me now.

Anyone have a similar word (or words) that hit your ear in a strange way?

2

None at the moment, but I do have that from time to time - for the written word as well as spoken. Usually when I’m reading through a document and I see the same word over and over. It just sounds ‘wrong’ in a way that I can’t define.
Usually I’m over the feeling in an hour or so.

3

Semantic satiation

I have a problem with the word “solder” ever since I learned from the Dope several months ago that it’s the same word that I’ve been pronouncing as “sotter” (a common U.S. pronounciation) for my entire life.

4

Hmm, I never knew it was an actual thing. I always thought it was just me being weird. Thanks! :slight_smile:

5

Rhinoceros.

There’s something wrong with that word, either it’s missing a syllable or has one too many, I’m not sure.

6

Probably the odd pronunciation of the final “o”.

7

Obstreporous. It just feels so cumbersome to add that ‘r’ in after the ‘t’. It SHOULD be obsteperous.

8

Not spoken so much as written. The worst is “doing.” I go through phases where I can’t read it any other way than rhyming with boing.

Doing, doing, doing, doing!

It’s very annoying.

9

Behoove. "It behooves us to . . . "

I keep thinking it has to do with cattle.

10

That could very well be, and probably why I initially spelled it as “rhinocerous”.

11

Thanks for this link.

Nice to know there is a name for this strange phenomenon…

12

French-style words that have g before n like insignia, sphygnomanometer, signet, eggnog.

13

It’s sphygmomanometer.

14

Missed it. :wink:

15

Ophthalmologist. It should be sounded as EYE DOCTOR!

16

I have always thought that syllable is too long of a word. It has too many of itself in it.

17

Oh, I have quite a few, but mischievous should be misCHEEVEEous in my brain. I don’t care if it’s wrong, it just somehow connotes better with that (mis)pronunciation.

18

shyster
February

19

As a nitpick, unless it specifically used this way in the civil war (and feel free to educate me if so), a musket is not a rifle. A musket is the pre-rifle gun that fired round balls. A rifle uses etching inside the barrel to impart spin on a more oblong projectile, significantly improving aim.

However, the idea that a musketeer was a person who used a musket, as opposed to just being a synonym for buddy, occurred to me embarrassingly late in life. I think The Three Musketeers and The Three Amigos got conflated in my head somehow…

20

The nickname “Mal” looks wrong, or at least unpleasant, to me, because “mal” means “bad” in French. (It’s also part of English words describing less-pleasant things like malaise and malpractice.)