phenomenon
phenima phenoma phenomnin phenominin,awful when the film was out and I would tell people how much I wanted to see it.
Glomerulus and juxtaglomerular.
Gotta read something else than medical text…
Anthropomorphic.…and variants, like anthropomorphise.
For some reason this is a word I use with some regularity but cannot say right. So I just say anthro~whatsis instead.
You could always move to Quebec. The R’s are easier. (Of course, the vowels are more difficult.)
Oh! I forgot Worcestershire (the Sauce). But I think that’s like Hieroglyphics–no one really knows how it’s supposed to be pronounced.
I have to stop and think about it before I say it. I can never remember if it’s “uh-NEN-uh-ME” or “uh-NEM-uh-NEE” or “uh-MEN-uh-MEE” or…
Well, now I feel like a complete idiot. I can’t even spell it right.
(I just looked it up and realized its anemone.
I had to say magnificence in a play the other day. It just didn’t sound like a real word.
Other than that I haven’t had too much trouble.
P.S. I knew “anenome” didn’t look right!
My husband has real difficulty with “oxygen”. He always says “oxy-GIN” (hard “g” as in “gun”) and has to say it 3 or 4 times before he gets it right. It’s aggravating to hear.
I have tons of these. I think it’s because I was always reading adult-level books, and in them I’d run across words that I’d not heard in conversation. At least not often enough that I recognized them. So I devised my own pronounciations, and to this day they trip me up. Gesture. Lunatic. Asylum (Isn’t it prettier as “AZ-uh-lum?” that’s how I thought it was said.) The list goes on.
I cannot pronounce Worcestershire, either. And I have to think very hard about which way to say “Bass” given the context.
I don’t live in France, don’t speak French, yet until I quit my last job a month ago, was expected to be able to! I was an assistant sommelier, to a master sommelier, but couldn’t and still can’t say that damn word. Always comes out as Somolian. “Who may I speak to about a good white wine”… Me: “I only know reds…go talk to the Somolian over there”… “What Somolian”? … Me: “The blonde guy over there”… “He’s a Somolian”?.. Me: “No, not Somolian… Somolian…Somol…Som… The Wine Guru”… (damn wine snobs)
BWAhahahahaha!
I cannot even fathom how obfusciatrist is pronounced, and when I met Omniscient in person, he seemed stunned that I didn’t know how his name was pronounced. What can I say, sometimes I’m an idiot.
I always have problems with exacerbate, I always wanna say exCABerate.
I don’t know about you guys, but [bold]floccinaucinihilipilification[/bold] gets me every time.
phenomenonally sp? i agree with eirroc on this one
but the -ally, is even harder
and there is a poem Phenominal Woman, that I love, but try saiying that
“I am a woman phenominally,
Phenominal woman, thats me”
I always thought respite (RES-spit) was (res-SPITE) and primer (prim-mer like the book) was pronounced pri-mer (like the paint). The correct way doesn’t sound right at all, so I avoid using them. My husband says or-kes-ter for orchestrate and stas-tis-tics for statistics. Why are other people’s little mistakes so annoying? He knows statistics gives him a problem, but hasn’t a clue about orchestrate and he LOVES that word! And I can’t bring myself to correct him either without sounding like a know-it-all putz.
I always pronounce it Wor-Chest-er-Shire, but that’s probably wrong too.
Sue - I still can’t figure out how to say Obfusciatrist. But I do know how to say Omniscient.
The one that got me for the longest time was the name of one of our beloved posters, Persephone. I kept on pronouncing it Purse-a-phony for the longest time. I just finally in the last month or so figured out it was pronounced Per-seph-o-knee.
This is easy if you’re a New Englander.
Forget the “shire” for a sec and focus on “worcester”, also known as a city in MA. I’ll try to explain:
“wor” is pronounced like “whuh” with a little “woo” smeared in.
Forget the “ce” part.
“ster” is pronounced like “stuh” combined with “sta”
Put it all together and it sounds kind of like “whuss-tah”
Add “shiah” instead of “Shire” and you’ve got it!
Don’t get me started on Gloucester or Leicester.
I assume “Gloster” and “Lester” are pronounced just the way they are in England? A lot easier than pronouncing Featheringstonehaigh as “Funshaw”.
There are lots of words that I pronounce differently. Drives my friends nuts.
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by Sue Duhnym *
**
Funny you should mention that. Until just a few years ago, I learned that Gloucester wasn’t phonetic. It drove me freakin bananas as a little kid reading my nursery rhymes… Doctor Foster went to Glou-ces-ter, in a puddle of rain, blah blah blah… I thought it was stupid to have a nursery rhyme that didn’t rhyme! I’ll tell ya, between the French and the damn New Englanders…
Misunderestimated 