For some reason I always thought “anathema” was pronounced an-a-THEEM-a. Someone finally corrected me…it is an-ATH-a-ma. And I still catch myself saying “drouth” (with the “th”), instead of “droudt”. However, this isn’t exactly incorrect…it is an archaic pronounciation that is still used by a number of rural characters.
SS
assuage.
Looks like sausage, thought it was pronounced like sausage. Ah-sodge.
That tasty salad made with tuna? Nick-oise.
How is it pronounced? a-SWAJE? I used to pronounce it to rhyme with massage.
When I was younger, it was “gazebo” and “compromise.” I can pronounce them now, but I still read them as I mispronounced them as a kid.
One of my oldest and dearest friends has a reader’s vocabulary. As long as I’ve known her (since 1987, in fact,) she has pronounced the word “stead” as “steed.” I tried a couple of times (gently) to correct her, but it’s just not gonna happen. Love her anyway!
Woah.
I learned something to day. Both in definition and sound.
That’s pretty close. Merriam-Webster has a button you can click to hear it pronounced.
Back when I was writing commercials, the announcer staff used to argue whether a suite of furniture was pronounced “sweet” or “suit.” (My dictionary says both.)
I had a classics professor who pronounced the title and main character of the book Don Juan as Don Joo-an, because, as he put it “Byron was English, not Spanish.”
PED-uh-gaw-jee
Minutiae and athame.
I’ve been caught up by a number of the above-cited examples. To add: “draught” in reference to ales and such. Never made the connection to “draft,” and I think I pronounced it like “drought.”
One that is perhaps limited to just me… back in the '80s, I was active in computer user groups as a kid, programmed stuff, gave presentations. I gave a user group presentation on creating high-resolution pictures in some obscure mode on the Commodore 128. I then described a method by which one could save them in “Hires” format. Hires, like the root beer brand, or “hires” like “He ‘hires’ the secretary that caught his eye.” Associated in the Commodore world with pictures using monochrome mode for higher resolution. Odd looks from the fellow Commie geeks… a hand goes up. “‘Hires’ mode? What’s that?”
I began to explain… 640x200 or 320x200 rather than chunky 160x120 full-color mode…
“Oh, ‘Hi-Res’ mode?”
Hadn’t caught the connection between “high-resolution” and “hires” before, and not sure that the best place to learn was in front of an audience who expected me to know the connection…
When I was a kid, I asked my parents if we could play Mono Polly some time.
My favourite is my friend (who’s a bit of a geography buff) talking about New Ham-Sphere. That would be an interesting and delicious place to visit!
Victuals.
Forte.
Penelope.
Thank you. I was never sure if the last G was hard or not.
There’s a bunch of them, but I can’t think of a good example off the top of my head. I do remember one of my old roommate’s examples: For the longest time, as a kid, he would read the word “misled” as if it were the past tense of “misle,” rather than “mis-led.” I always found that amusing.
“Imbecile”.
I pronounced it “IM-buh-cymbal”.
Which is ironic.
Not me, but a classmate in a college acting class. We were doing a Greek play, and he had to say the name “Euridice.” It came out “uterus.” And yes, that became his nickname.
Posthumously. Post-humously.
I give anyone a pass for pronouncing French words the way they’re spelled. French is fucked up.
I’ve read ‘misled’ that way many times. Also, I keep reading the word ‘gunshy’ such that it rhymes with ‘Banshee’. IMO, ‘misled’ and ‘gunshy’ badly need hyphens.
When I first saw this thread, I had to look up the pronunciation of prix fixe. It’s been driving me nuts for a while. I’ve avoided certain restaurants because of it.