Gee, I am glad I am not the only one who pronounced “whore” wrong.
The kid that went on to become one of the top two or three in the high school graduating class was in one of my classes in grade school. We were given words to look up and tell the whole class about. He got “reciprocal” [ri-sip-ruh-kuhl] (accent on the second syllable.) http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/reciprocal
Except he pronounced it like [ri-si-pro-kuhl] (accent on the third syllable.)
It was hilarious! I guess you had to have been there.
A thread for me? Oh you shouldn’t have! I am NOTORIOUS for this. I taught myself to read a few months after I got my first hearing aids (at 3/4) So I tend to pronounce words phonticly.
I heard hyperbole, but I never connected it with the written word. I to this day read it as hyper-bowl and have to correct myself if I’m reading out loud. I even thing hyper-bowl sounds like a more legitimate word in many contexts, to the point where, if I have a choice, I will probably say exaggeration.
Another I had was “awry,” pronouncing it AW-ree or OR-ree.. It’s the same story as above, but I do now read it correctly even in my mind, so I can still use the word. Epitome changed similarly.
I also learned something in this thread. While I knew that post-humously was not the preferred pronunciation, I did not know it was actually considered wrong. It’s likely going to be another word like hyperbole.
That’s one of the acceptable pronunciations for the adjective that means not valid. For the noun or adjective that refers to a sick person, IN-vuh-lid is the only acceptable pronunciation. (From Merriam-Webster)
Another person just learned that. I also just learned that it was originally key-SHOW-teh [kiˈʃote], and that English traditionally changed the pronunciation to quick-soat, and we only alter went to the modern Spanish pronunciation.
Mosin Nagant. I’ve only read it in gun forums, I’ve never heard it pronounced in person. When I was a kid I couldn’t ever pronounce Mercury right. I’d think “Is it mer-surrey? Murr-curie?” Took me years to get over it.
I’ve noodled around with guitars for years, but I only learnt a few weeks ago that “luthier” (someone who makes or maintains guitars) is pronounced “lootier”. As in “lute”, obviously.
I also embarrased myself once by referring to canapés as “can-apes”. Don’t know how I missed that acute accent.
I’ve mentioned this before, but some asshole threw me and my friends out of a pub where we’d had lunch because one of them had arrived on a moped, and there was a sign on the door that said “No bikers”. He didn’t notice the guy’s helmet sitting under the table until after we’d eaten and paid for our meals, whereupon he barred us from ever entering the premises again.
The reason I mention that is because I got pre-emptive intellectual Schadenfreude: while on the menu it said hors d’œuvres, when he took our order he asked us if we wanted any “orzy doovries”.
quinoa. My friend and I were in the supermarket and she reached for it.
“Oh, Quinn-Noah.”
BAW HAW HAW!
I insisted that at least in Japanese, it was pronounced that way. But it was not. Damn.
Duodenal. Why can’t we say “do-ODD-eh-nal”? Why?? “Do-a-DEE-nal” sounds so affected.
And for fellow Japanese-speaking dopers, in my very first interpreting assignment for the medical device company that would ultimately become my employer, I thought vein, which is written 静脈(jou-myaku) was pronounced sei-myaku. THANK GOD someone corrected me before the meeting started.
That’s odd. I read someone’s recollection of being taken by surprise by the pronunciation of “mariner” because as kids they always pronounced “submariner” as “sub-ma-REEN-er”. As, I admit, did I. It would never have occurred to me to pronounce “Sub-Mariner” with a short “i” and no emphasis on the third syllable.
I apologize if it’s against the spirit of this thread to post about someone else, but I quite enjoy this story. About a year ago, my boyfriend went out and bought some alcohol for a party. When his friend asked him what he had brought, he replied that he had brought some “Gran Marinara.” We had a good laugh when we discovered that he had bought gran merlot.
Earlier this month, this month this same friend asked him to pick up some sake at the store. My boyfriend got on the phone and started reading the labels on the bottle, telling him the different kinds of “sake,” prounounced like when you say “for heaven’s sake!”. I told him we should pick up a bottle of gran marinara while we were at it.
I’ve had exactly the same thing happen (in fact I think I’ve mentioned it on here) - ordering “broo-SKETT-a” and being corrected by a waitress, who looked and sounded Italian.
Another one, which is only a minor mispronunciation but led me to totally misinterpret the etymology until embarrassingly recently: painstaking.
That’s “PAINZ-taking”, not “PAIN-staking”. :smack:
An Australian efriend to came to New York said he was going home via California to visit another efriend in “La Joy-la.” It took me a minute to translate that into “La Hoy-a.”
