# Words you enjoy mispronouncing **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [August 19, 2005, 8:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-you-enjoy-mispronouncing/317800 "2005-08-19T20:45:32Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 18\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Largo62](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/45deac/32.png) [@Largo62](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Largo62)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2005, 10:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-you-enjoy-mispronouncing/317800/81 "2005-08-20T22:25:48Z")
Along with several of the above, I use heckelopter for helicopter, flutterby for butterfly, and “do you stand under me?” for “do you understand me?” Most people just ignore it. I know it’s pretty strange behavior for a grammar Nazi. ---
**Author:** ![deevee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/57b2e6/32.png) [@deevee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/deevee)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2005, 10:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-you-enjoy-mispronouncing/317800/82 "2005-08-20T22:27:47Z")
Untill I read this thread I didn’t realize how many freakin (my pronunciation of fucking) words I purposly mispronounce. At least half on this list. ---
**Author:** ![Omniscient](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/omniscient/32/3290_2.png) [@Omniscient](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omniscient)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2005, 10:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-you-enjoy-mispronouncing/317800/83 "2005-08-20T22:54:15Z")
> [@parthenokinesis](#): > > As an American, I like to drop the special accented letters that my language does not use. So for example Pâté is both spelled and pronounced pate. Of course, I believe this tendency, even more than our foreign policy, is the reason the rest of the world loves us so much. 3:) Agreed, which is why it’s also “MINE-strone”. ---
**Author:** ![Jake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f475e1/32.png) [@Jake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jake)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2005, 11:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-you-enjoy-mispronouncing/317800/84 "2005-08-20T23:54:18Z")
I don’t have time to read ALL these posts but. I love saying nucular instead on nuclear to the uninformed. I also say “num-nums” to my cat for treats, but again that’s my cat. ---
**Author:** ![KeithT](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/e47774/32.png) [@KeithT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KeithT)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2005, 12:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-you-enjoy-mispronouncing/317800/85 "2005-08-21T00:48:34Z")
Fragile: **fra-GEE-lay** , _vis-a-vis_ the dad in _A Christmas Story_. Pigeon: **PIG-ee-on**. Knight: **ka-NIG-it** , _vis-a-vis_ the French guards in _Monty Python and the Holy Grail_ ---
**Author:** ![RFBluesValentine](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ecccb3/32.png) [@RFBluesValentine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RFBluesValentine)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2005, 2:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-you-enjoy-mispronouncing/317800/86 "2005-08-21T02:07:55Z")
I like to pronounce “fajita” with a long I, 'cause then it sounds like “vagina,” and I ` **am** five years old on the inside… ---
**Author:** ![NajaNivea](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/22d042/32.png) [@NajaNivea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NajaNivea)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2005, 3:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-you-enjoy-mispronouncing/317800/87 "2005-08-21T03:49:20Z")
The one I use almost daily is “fitty” for “fifty”. Being uber-white, Mr. Armadillo and I find this terribly amusing. Also, frag-ile (fragile) and strategery, which is not really a mispronunciation so much as a non-word. I think it’s a fake Bush-ism from SNL or something. ---
**Author:** ![tarragon918](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/d26b3c/32.png) [@tarragon918](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tarragon918)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2005, 7:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-you-enjoy-mispronouncing/317800/88 "2005-08-21T07:31:06Z")
My favorite is “underella” for umbrella - a friend’s young son called it that many years ago, and I’ve been using it ever since. 🙂 I’m also one of the many “Tar-zhay” people, apparently. And while I shouldn’t admit to this, I also like “tookenen,” which I probably first heard used by the Beaver on “Leave it to Beaver,” and use it too frequently in place of taken. Now my Dad is a huge “malapropism” person - I can’t even repeat some of his favorite ones, because they’re … er, inappropriate is probably the best word to describe them! 😃 And now, all I can think of as examples are those. Geeze! You’ll have to take my word for it - he does it all the time, most he makes up on his own (spoonerisms, I think they might be called?) but many others he picks up from family and friends who probably use them unknowingly. I do recall one he got that way from an older family friend who told him about a friend who’d suffered a “massy heart attack.” I’ll come back later if I remember any printable versions my Dad uses. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Podkayne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/edb3f5/32.png) [@Podkayne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Podkayne)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2005, 3:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-you-enjoy-mispronouncing/317800/89 "2005-08-21T15:00:23Z")
For some reason, I pronounce it Wor-chester-sha-shire sauce. But _strategery_ has a different meaning from _strategy._ “Strategery” is a word you apply to someone else’s bad strategy, especially when they think they’re being Terribly Clever, or it can also be applied to your own half-assed, spur-of-the-moment strategy ideas. My college roomate and I used to do _corn-fused_, too, until one day we switched to saying “All my/his/their maize has grown together,” which garnered us a lot of strange looks. My family uses a lot of my (German) dad’s mispronounciations: pee-yama for pyjamas, Willich Inn for Village Inn, chogurt for yogurt, Veed Vacker for Weed Whacker . . . ---
**Author:** ![cabdude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/58956e/32.png) [@cabdude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cabdude)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2005, 3:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-you-enjoy-mispronouncing/317800/90 "2005-08-21T15:35:03Z")
Oh, and nagivator. ---
**Author:** ![Greywolf73](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/d9b06d/32.png) [@Greywolf73](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Greywolf73)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2005, 4:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-you-enjoy-mispronouncing/317800/91 "2005-08-21T16:32:45Z")
> [@KeithT](#): > > Fragile: **fra-GEE-lay** , _vis-a-vis_ the dad in _A Christmas Story_. I do this too. In fact, my whole family does it. I also pronounce “chihuahua” phonetically: CHI-Hoowah-Hoowah. A veterinarian I worked with years ago pronounced it like that and it’s stuck with me ever since. I’ve also taken to calling “Waffle House” “Der Waffle House” but that’s more because of my undying love for “Dead Like Me” than any compulsion to misprounce it. ---
**Author:** ![NajaNivea](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/22d042/32.png) [@NajaNivea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NajaNivea)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2005, 4:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-you-enjoy-mispronouncing/317800/92 "2005-08-21T16:52:41Z")
> [@Podkayne](#): > > But _strategery_ has a different meaning from _strategy._ “Strategery” is a word you apply to someone else’s bad strategy, especially when they think they’re being Terribly Clever, or it can also be applied to your own half-assed, spur-of-the-moment strategy ideas. ExActibly! 😃 ---
**Author:** ![EnderWay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/d26b3c/32.png) [@EnderWay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EnderWay)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2005, 11:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-you-enjoy-mispronouncing/317800/93 "2005-08-21T23:14:57Z")
I can’t beleive, knowing how many Simpson’s fans must be here, no one has mentioned … “chow-dah” for chowder ---
**Author:** ![dearissues](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/919ad9/32.png) [@dearissues](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dearissues)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2005, 11:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-you-enjoy-mispronouncing/317800/94 "2005-08-21T23:35:01Z")
My best friend doesn’t intentionally mispronounce these words, she is just unable, for some reason or another, to say them correctly. But I think it’s hilarious, so I always mispronounce them with her. salsa = sa-la-sa Mitsubishi = mister boo shi A lot of the ones that I do have already been mentioned I think. Physic, physo, or psycho for psychic; instead of ESP we say ESPN; aks instead of ask; pasketti, matoes, and speaking with funny accents. ---
**Author:** ![rjk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ed655f/32.png) [@rjk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rjk)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2005, 1:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-you-enjoy-mispronouncing/317800/95 "2005-08-22T01:28:33Z")
> [@SpectBrain](#): > > I refer to my daughter as my dafter (shouldn’t the “ght” in daughter be pronounced the same way as the “ght” in laughter?). and besides I think it sounds so swave and deboner. Shouldn’t that be “swave and a boutonniere”? 🆒 And I always want to say “heli-chop-ter” when one passes over. ---
**Author:** ![N9IWP](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/n9iwp/32/3154_2.png) [@N9IWP](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/N9IWP)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2005, 1:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-you-enjoy-mispronouncing/317800/96 "2005-08-22T01:34:22Z")
Yose-a-mite park. (slightly off topic: Home Despot and Office Despot) Brian ---
**Author:** ![Beware\_of\_Doug](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/278dde/32.png) [@Beware\_of\_Doug](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beware_of_Doug)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2005, 3:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-you-enjoy-mispronouncing/317800/97 "2005-08-22T03:19:33Z")
Because kilometer is abbreviated km, I call it kitten-mitten. ---
**Author:** ![Zoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/a4c791/32.png) [@Zoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zoe)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2005, 6:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-you-enjoy-mispronouncing/317800/98 "2005-08-22T06:24:07Z")
My husband buys electronic stuff at Suck It Silly. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-you-enjoy-mispronouncing/317800.md?page=4)