# Words you can't pronounce
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-you-cant-pronounce/618279
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
**Created:** [April 9, 2012, 5:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-you-cant-pronounce/618279 "2012-04-09T17:23:36Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 3
### Author:  [@filmore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/filmore)
#### Post date: [April 10, 2012, 7:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-you-cant-pronounce/618279/41 "2012-04-10T19:01:13Z")
Nuclear and cellular. They come out nuc-a-lur and cell-lu-lar unless I really concentrate on saying them correctly. It’s something to do with my tongue not wanting to move correctly when saying those syllables.
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### Author:  [@tim-n-va](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tim-n-va)
#### Post date: [April 10, 2012, 7:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-you-cant-pronounce/618279/42 "2012-04-10T19:06:25Z")
“Rural” and “juror”.
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### Author:  [@Philliam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Philliam)
#### Post date: [April 10, 2012, 7:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-you-cant-pronounce/618279/43 "2012-04-10T19:08:47Z")
A friend says that leaves on a tree are ‘foilage’.
When I was a kid I misread (and then pronounced) the word ‘misled’ like ‘missled’ thinking that it meant much the same as ‘puzzled’. That pronunciation is now a deliberate family joke.
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### Author:  [@needscoffee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/needscoffee)
#### Post date: [April 10, 2012, 7:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-you-cant-pronounce/618279/44 "2012-04-10T19:45:05Z")
> [@Beastly\_Rotter](#):
>
> Shibboleth.
😃
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### Author:  [@dinahmoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dinahmoe)
#### Post date: [April 11, 2012, 12:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-you-cant-pronounce/618279/45 "2012-04-11T00:34:54Z")
> [@tim-n-va](#):
>
> “Rural” and “juror”.
And “furor”. Also, “harbor” makes my mouth go all funny. I blame growing up in New England.
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### Author:  [@Chefguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chefguy)
#### Post date: [April 11, 2012, 12:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-you-cant-pronounce/618279/46 "2012-04-11T00:50:50Z")
Anthropomorphize.
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### Author:  [@picunurse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/picunurse)
#### Post date: [April 11, 2012, 1:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-you-cant-pronounce/618279/47 "2012-04-11T01:08:05Z")
Vulnerable. Somehow I have to put c’s in it.
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### Author:  [@drewtwo99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drewtwo99)
#### Post date: [April 11, 2012, 1:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-you-cant-pronounce/618279/48 "2012-04-11T01:14:58Z")
statistician used to trip me up a lot, but I’ve gotten better.
worcestershire sauce used to cause me a lot of grief, but I’ve since learned that it’s just WUSS-ter-sher, so it’s not so bad anymore (hopefully that’s right).
probably often comes out as ‘probly’
I laugh at those who can’t say rural and juror, muahaha!
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### Author:  [@cmyk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmyk)
#### Post date: [April 11, 2012, 7:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-you-cant-pronounce/618279/49 "2012-04-11T07:08:20Z")
I invented a word made up of all silent letters, but I can’t pronounce it. I’d write it out for you here, but I only memorized its spelling phonetically.
**Rural** is as evil as they come. You’re forced to try and pronounce that with your lips and your tongue curled up.
**Dirigible.** Four syllables? Five? All those vowels and consonants equally shuffled in line. And it sounds stupid anyway. Can I just say “blimp?”
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### Author:  [@SuperSmartAlex](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SuperSmartAlex)
#### Post date: [April 11, 2012, 7:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-you-cant-pronounce/618279/50 "2012-04-11T07:20:42Z")
Supercalifwagelisticexpialidocious
I used to find it difficult to pronounce “r”, though I could roll my "r"s quite well. This meant that I could not pronounce a lot of words in English, but I could speak German without any pronunciation problems. For example, when I said something like “great” it sounded like “gweat”, and when I said something in German such as “Kreide” (chalk) I could pronounce it pewfectly!
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### Author:  [@Namkcalb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Namkcalb)
#### Post date: [April 11, 2012, 8:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-you-cant-pronounce/618279/51 "2012-04-11T08:08:53Z")
Bestial - it always comes out Beast-tea-all
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### Author:  [@Jack\_Crazyquilt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jack_Crazyquilt)
#### Post date: [April 11, 2012, 8:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-you-cant-pronounce/618279/52 "2012-04-11T08:18:59Z")
Sixth.
My tongue trips over those last three letters every time I try to say it. It usually comes out as either ‘sixt’ or ‘siksss’.
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### Author:  [@Oly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oly)
#### Post date: [April 11, 2012, 9:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-you-cant-pronounce/618279/53 "2012-04-11T09:08:04Z")
I’ve never met a German who could pronounce “squirrel”, and I’ve never met a native English speaker who could pronounce the German word for same.
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### Author:  [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)
#### Post date: [April 11, 2012, 9:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-you-cant-pronounce/618279/54 "2012-04-11T09:43:40Z")
> [@TonySinclair](#):
>
> May I ask you, since I suspect I may not get a completely honest answer from my Spanish friends who want to spare my feelings, what do native Spanish speakers think of someone who is otherwise fluent, but cannot pronounce “rr” correctly, and just makes it a hard “r”?
That he’s a foreigner whose native language doesn’t have rr. Many foreigners can’t pronounce rr, pronouncing r and rr as r is fine. The French usually pronounce them as French rs, so what? They’re French, we can’t pronounce their rs “properly” either but so long as we all understand each other it’s all great.
Foreigners whose Spanish is limited to “una cerveza por favor” tend to try and make each of those r’s (all of which are “soft”) sound like the rev-up before an F1 race; waiters are used to it and reach for the most expensive beer at hand or for the local best-seller before the customer has finished the first rev-up. This is considered bad; being described as “one of those SERRRRRRR be sah! pohRRR FAH FORRRRRR guys” is pretty much the equivalent of being called an Ugly Foreigner With Drunken Hooligan Tendencies.
I had a professor and a classmate (father and son) who couldn’t pronounce either r due to a defect in their tongues; their middling-common lastname had one of each, which led to some confused looks until people realized what the issue was.
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### Author:  [@tumbleddown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tumbleddown)
#### Post date: [April 11, 2012, 11:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-you-cant-pronounce/618279/55 "2012-04-11T11:24:38Z")
> [@Chefguy](#):
>
> Anthropomorphize.
I have problems with this one too.
Also “particularly.” I have to _think_ about it before I say it, which is particularly weird.
And I can say “rural” and “juror” but “rural juror” is hard, yo.
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### Author:  [@TokyoBayer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TokyoBayer)
#### Post date: [April 11, 2012, 12:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-you-cant-pronounce/618279/56 "2012-04-11T12:12:39Z")
Hubris
I’ve got the first vowel all wrong.
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### Author:  [@Colophon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colophon)
#### Post date: [April 11, 2012, 12:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-you-cant-pronounce/618279/57 "2012-04-11T12:14:41Z")
> [@drewtwo99](#):
>
> worcestershire sauce used to cause me a lot of grief, but I’ve since learned that it’s just WUSS-ter-sher, so it’s not so bad anymore (hopefully that’s right).
In fact it’s usually just pronounced “WUSS-ter”, as if it were called Worcester sauce.
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### Author:  [@Mr\_Shine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr_Shine)
#### Post date: [April 11, 2012, 12:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-you-cant-pronounce/618279/58 "2012-04-11T12:23:47Z")
Regarding rural do Americans pronounce it differently? (I pronounce it “roar-aul”), and I’m not sure why it is being singled out.
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### Author:  [@Laggard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Laggard)
#### Post date: [April 11, 2012, 1:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-you-cant-pronounce/618279/59 "2012-04-11T13:05:34Z")
> [@Mr\_Shine](#):
>
> Regarding rural do Americans pronounce it differently? (I pronounce it “roar-aul”), and I’m not sure why it is being singled out.
Rur that rhymes with “purr” and then ‘al’ as in the word “mural.”
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### Author:  [@Jophiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jophiel)
#### Post date: [April 11, 2012, 2:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-you-cant-pronounce/618279/60 "2012-04-11T14:22:30Z")
> [@tumbleddown](#):
>
> Also “particularly.” I have to _think_ about it before I say it, which is particularly weird.
I’m incapable of saying “specific” without either sounding like Sylvester the Cat or mangling it to sound like the name of an ocean. Usually I just lamely say “particular” instead.
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