# Words you couldn't pronounce when you were a kid
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-you-couldnt-pronounce-when-you-were-a-kid/654839
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
**Created:** [April 4, 2013, 5:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-you-couldnt-pronounce-when-you-were-a-kid/654839 "2013-04-04T17:13:35Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@PurpleClogs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PurpleClogs)
#### Post date: [April 4, 2013, 5:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-you-couldnt-pronounce-when-you-were-a-kid/654839/1 "2013-04-04T17:13:35Z")
Did you have a particular word that gave you trouble?
I couldn’t say interesting. It came out in-ster-sting.
I clearly remember the day I finally said it correctly, running downstairs like I’d won the lottery yelling, “Mom, Mom, I said it, I said it!”. Everyone in the house knew exactly what word I was talking about. We were packing the car for a road trip. No telling how many times they had to listen to that word on that trip!
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### Author:  [@Srsly\_Dad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Srsly_Dad)
#### Post date: [April 4, 2013, 5:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-you-couldnt-pronounce-when-you-were-a-kid/654839/2 "2013-04-04T17:32:31Z")
Not me, but my son. He had a toy take apart airplane. He just could not say propeller and it always came out as pimpiller.
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### Author:  [@MegaBee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MegaBee)
#### Post date: [April 4, 2013, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-you-couldnt-pronounce-when-you-were-a-kid/654839/3 "2013-04-04T17:39:40Z")
Elucidate. I always pronounced it ee-loo-di-kate.
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### Author:  [@Red\_Wiggler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Red_Wiggler)
#### Post date: [April 4, 2013, 5:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-you-couldnt-pronounce-when-you-were-a-kid/654839/4 "2013-04-04T17:55:24Z")
refrigerator
Ulysses
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### Author:  [@Paintcharge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Paintcharge)
#### Post date: [April 4, 2013, 5:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-you-couldnt-pronounce-when-you-were-a-kid/654839/5 "2013-04-04T17:56:00Z")
Ambulance. It was always amblyance.
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### Author:  [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)
#### Post date: [April 4, 2013, 6:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-you-couldnt-pronounce-when-you-were-a-kid/654839/6 "2013-04-04T18:10:43Z")
I don’t remember any words I mispronounced more than through ignorance (my wife and I are amused that our youngest kids are like we were, reading far past their age and thus having huge vocabularies they can’t pronounce) but my oldest was probably in his early teens before he could get out “spaghetti” without effort. It was always “bisketti.”
I was an adult and used the company name “Rayethon” several times in a meeting before someone gently suggested it was Raytheon. At least no one laughed.
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### Author:  [@mcgato](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mcgato)
#### Post date: [April 4, 2013, 6:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-you-couldnt-pronounce-when-you-were-a-kid/654839/7 "2013-04-04T18:13:12Z")
Cinnamon. It was usually something like “sim uh nin.”
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### Author:  [@llcoolbj77](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/llcoolbj77)
#### Post date: [April 4, 2013, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-you-couldnt-pronounce-when-you-were-a-kid/654839/8 "2013-04-04T18:25:45Z")
I couldn’t do a wolf-whistle. Actually, I could hardly whistle at all. But I wanted to make that noise… so I said it. “Swisssle-sweeelll.” My family still teases me about it today.
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### Author:  [@Machine\_Elf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Machine_Elf)
#### Post date: [April 4, 2013, 6:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-you-couldnt-pronounce-when-you-were-a-kid/654839/9 "2013-04-04T18:34:35Z")
> [@Paintcharge](#):
>
> Ambulance. It was always amblyance.
My brother (or my sister?) had the same issue.
For me, it was venchtables. You know, broccoli, green beans, carrots…
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### Author:  [@SciFiSam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SciFiSam)
#### Post date: [April 4, 2013, 6:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-you-couldnt-pronounce-when-you-were-a-kid/654839/10 "2013-04-04T18:40:57Z")
Cripspspsps. (Crisps). Still trips me up now and then.
Cars went in a par cark.
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### Author:  [@NeonMadman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NeonMadman)
#### Post date: [April 4, 2013, 6:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-you-couldnt-pronounce-when-you-were-a-kid/654839/11 "2013-04-04T18:41:33Z")
As a big \*Superman \*fan as a kid, I had trouble pronouncing the word “invulnerable.” Problem was, I had read it many times in the comics, but never heard it spoken. So I routinely pronounced it “in-vul-NEER-uh-bul.”
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### Author:  [@Filbert](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Filbert)
#### Post date: [April 4, 2013, 6:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-you-couldnt-pronounce-when-you-were-a-kid/654839/12 "2013-04-04T18:44:41Z")
That pinky purply colour- you know, ‘magneeta’.
Not just when I was a kid either, I still have to think about that one.
Luckily, my housemate also mispronounces it in exactly the same way, so we’ve just decided it’s an _extremely_ localised accent 😃
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### Author:  [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)
#### Post date: [April 4, 2013, 6:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-you-couldnt-pronounce-when-you-were-a-kid/654839/13 "2013-04-04T18:55:39Z")
> [@Filbert](#):
>
> That pinky purply colour- you know, ‘magneeta’.
An aside, really, but it took me forever to recognize that the popular storefront software is “Magento” and not “Magneto.”
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### Author:  [@YourAdHere](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/YourAdHere)
#### Post date: [April 4, 2013, 6:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-you-couldnt-pronounce-when-you-were-a-kid/654839/14 "2013-04-04T18:57:50Z")
Supposedly was “susposedly”
Spaghetti - “pisketti / pisgetti”
Pretzel / pencil- "prentsel "
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### Author:  [@Poysyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Poysyn)
#### Post date: [April 4, 2013, 6:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-you-couldnt-pronounce-when-you-were-a-kid/654839/15 "2013-04-04T18:59:55Z")
Specific. Just couldn’t, was more like Spsisisfic
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### Author:  [@Jman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jman)
#### Post date: [April 4, 2013, 7:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-you-couldnt-pronounce-when-you-were-a-kid/654839/16 "2013-04-04T19:08:52Z")
Can’t remember mine, but my daughter had the darndest time with “Burger”. It took her until she was nearly 4 before she could pronounce the first R. “I want a cheese booger.”
She speaks extremely clearly for an almost 5 year old, with a very large vocabulary and great diction, and has since she was 3, so it stuck out all the more.
As an aside, it’s quite humorous watching strangers listen to her speak in public, since she speaks like an 8 year old, but she’s positively TINY for her age, so she looks a year or so younger than she is…Many people think she’s 3, and then she starts talking in fully formed paragraphs using words most kids haven’t learned yet. It’s pretty funny.
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### Author:  [@Hampshire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hampshire)
#### Post date: [April 4, 2013, 7:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-you-couldnt-pronounce-when-you-were-a-kid/654839/17 "2013-04-04T19:21:40Z")
It’s not that I couldn’t pronounce it correctly it was more that I was too stubborn to believe it was incorrect.
“Today we went to the libary.”
“You mean library.”
“What?”
“It’s pronounced library.”
“That sounds dumb. As I was saying, today we went to the libary.”
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### Author:  [@Slypork](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slypork)
#### Post date: [April 4, 2013, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-you-couldnt-pronounce-when-you-were-a-kid/654839/18 "2013-04-04T21:12:02Z")
My son couldn’t “bemember” where he put things.
My niece called her toy frog a “shrog”. In her mind she was saying it right so if we ever called it a shrog she would get angry and say, “No, it’s not a shrog! It’s a shrog!”
My friend’s son couldn’t say breakfast. It came out as fuckfist. He was very entertaining in restaurant telling the waitress, “I want canpakes for fuckfist.”
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### Author:  [@Cazzle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cazzle)
#### Post date: [April 4, 2013, 10:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-you-couldnt-pronounce-when-you-were-a-kid/654839/19 "2013-04-04T22:55:39Z")
My five year old pronounces “Elizabeth” as “Alibberdess”.
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### Author:  [@Ms.Pumpkin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ms.Pumpkin)
#### Post date: [April 4, 2013, 11:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-you-couldnt-pronounce-when-you-were-a-kid/654839/20 "2013-04-04T23:37:56Z")
Um… my name. ☹
-Sincerely,
Nonna (Donna)
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