When I was a kid I used to pronouce “chaos” with a “ch” sound (rhyming with “laos”) whenever I saw it in print. I had heard the word pronounced, and I had seen the word in print, it just didn’t occur to me that they were the same word.
another “ennui” victim
Resign vs. Re-sign.
Always gets me reading a Sports article:
“Tony LaRussa resigned? Oh crap!! Oh wait…GRR!!!”
Verbatim. I always read it as “ver-ba-tim”, with the accent on the first syllable.
I knew that the written word “hors d’oeuvre” meant a little appetizer, but it took me a long time to associate it with the spoken pronuciation of “orderve”.
egregious=eh-GREG-rious (I always confuse it with gregarious).
imply = imp-LEE (It was out of context, on a vocab test in elem. school)
I also have a friend (you know who you are!) who said fictitious as fic-TITTY-ous…lol
What about the rank of lieutenant ? (placeholder ?)
British : * lef te nant*
American : * loo te nant *
Any one more accepted ?
What do you teach?
I always read “retired” as “retarded”
There are more like that that I will think of the minute I submit this…
Oh, and photography. You know, Photo-Graffy.
I’m always doing this when I’m reading - I read things phonetically. Read them out as how they’re spelt. It’s worse when it’s a word that you haven’t heard said aloud before, only read. Names are always a problem, especially foreign ones. Like Siobhan. And Hermione… in my head, it was “Her-me-own” when it should have been “Her-my-oh-nee”.
I do remember feeling quite embarassed once when discussing with a teacher her comments on one of my assignments. She’d written that something I’d written was superflous. I asked her what “super-flu-us” meant. :smack:
I almost always read “strategically” as “stragetically”. Since I’ve noticed this, I make myself reread the word, pronouncing it correctly.
receipt=REE-cept
celtic=SELL-tick
“Celtic” is especially annoying, because I know damn well how it’s really pronounced and I pronounce it properly in conversation all the time. I guess my internal monologue doesn’t know how a hard C sounds.
When I was about 8, I embarassed myself the first time I tried to use “ettiquite” in conversation. I’d only seen it in books. Turns out it’s not pronounced “eck-wa-TEEK.” God only knows how I transposed sounds and letters to come up with that.
I always pronounced enmity en-NIM-ity. I didn’t know I was wrong until I saw it here!
Also didn’t know how to pronounce Deus ex machina until just now. I went to refdesk.com to hear it before posting this reply.
I am so glad I opened this thread. It will save me future embarassment.
Here is my most recent mispronunciation discovery:
Victuals = Vittles! (not vick-SHU-uhls). I thought vittles was just a countrified way to say victuals! DUH!
Juniper200, according to Merriam Webster, it is acceptable to pronounce “Celtic” as “SELL-tick”.
Dave, I too had the emnity/enmity problem. and notcynical, I second the DEbacle/deBACle.
I always want to say AUTOmaton instead of auTOMaton. And for the longest time I used to think concupiscence was concuspience. I don’t know why. Resume and resume (the one with the accents on the "e"s)–I want to pronounce both as the verb resume.
** colonel ** I pronounce it phonetically, it bothers me that it is pronounced “KER - nal”
** Socrates ** think: Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure. No joke, EVERYTIME I see this word I say it like that in my head. “SO-krates”
Despite seeing one every Sunday, my mind somehow still manages to pronounce priest to rhyme with heist or iced. I’ve managed to cut down on it in the last few years, but I still catch myself thinking it fairly often.
looks around to make sure no one is looking
consults Meriam Webster…
Peace,
~mixie
(who has been saying “bi-opic” for all her twenty-one years)
duh. Bio-pic. Makes total sense now. I was saying bi-opic and I couldn’t figure out how it would be different.
I have trouble with:
Data
Chaos
Colonel
Balogna
I only recently became aware of how “segue” was spelled. I’d used the word before, but always read it (in my head) as rhyming with “fugue.” Luckily, I was properly informed in the presence of friends who will, I expect, stop teasing me any day now.
heinous = hay-nee-us
segue = rhymes with vague
I excuse myself on segue as I know no other word ending in vowel-gue where the ue is pronounced as a separate syllable.