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?
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.
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.
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.
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…
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.)