Do character names count? Anytime I read a foreign/fantasy book I anglicize any weird names I can’t pronounce in english.
Well seing as you asked,
upholstry = u-folstry
I’m never sure what “miscellaneous” sounds like.
I can’t read “rhetoric” without rhyming it with “caloric”. It leaves such a bad taste in my mouth I have to go back to the beginning of the sentence and force myself to re-read until I get it right.
Epitome (epi-TOME) and segue (seh-GYEW), for me. Thankfully they only sound like that in my head, and not when they come out my mouth.
English place names seem to have different rules for pronounciations.
Grosvenor (also a street in toronto). I always want to pronounce it ‘Gross - Venor’ because - guess what? - that’s how it’s SPELLED. But the Queen’s English sez it’s ‘Groves - nor.’ It also encourages non-intuitive pronounciations of Leicester (‘Lesta’ - or, I suppose you could get away with ‘Lester’ if you’re N American), Greenwich (‘Gren-ich’), Tottenham (‘Tot-num’) and so on.
Also in England I was mocked for my utter inability to say ‘Albermarle’ anywhere close to the way they say it.
I know this isn’t technically an issue of ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ … just makes pronounciation annoying.
Me too for “awry”. gets me every time!
Epitome
Draught
Rehtoric
Colonel
I know better but my brain just has it’s own way about it…
Even now that I have long since known better, the word “Bravo!” looks like you’re commending someone for their bravery.
I invariably read “bass” as the fish, not as the musical instrument. It makes music reviews a lot more fun.
I’m worse than I thought. Add Draught, Rehtoric, and Awry to my growing list.
I used to read (many years ago) debacle as DEB-u-cul. I was set straight by a friend of mine that the true pronunciation of the word was de-BAC-ul. It was one of those words that I had encountered many times in my prodigious reading, but had never heard anyone say.
On another note, I used to read a lot of spy novels, and a word that came up many times in them was rendezvous. Of course, I thought it was pronounced, REN-dez-vows. It took me a while to realize that the word in the Amazing Rhythm Aces song was the same as the word that I had screwed up for so long was of course, RAN-de-vou. I still rememeber when I finally got it.
I mispronounced and misspelled “enmity” for my whole life (at least since I first learned the word) until I heard it pronounced on a TV program. I was so sure that the speaker had mispronounced it as “enmity” instead of my version, “emnity,” that I went immediately and looked it up. Imagine my surprize.
Wilkes-Barre, PA.
Wait. It’s not emnity??
Welcome to my world.
From Merriam-Webster Collegiate:
enmity - positive, active and typically mutual, hatred or ill will.
I’m still reeling from the shock of Alias being announced as “a-ly-as” instead of “ay-lee-as”.
And I can’t bring myself to pronounce “chasm” with a k sound at the beginning. Ah, the remnants of reading Piers Anthony at a too tender age to know its correct pronounciation…
:o How embarassing. I have to admit I didn’t really believe you and actually double-checked on you.
Boy is my face red.
I thought of another word, BTW: factetious. FAS-et -ous. Nonono! faSEEshus.
I had to read The Ancient Mariner in front of my 8th grade English class. I was so embarrassed when they all laughed when I said “Ma-REEN-er.”
I also can never remember how to pronounce gesture. :: goes to look it up :: It’s jest-ure— not gess-ture…
And duodenum… oh! I just looked it up too - both pronunciations are correct! doo-oh-DEE-num and doo-AH-di-num
hyperbole - hyper-bowl
superflous - super-flu-us
ennui - in’ yu ee