Ah yes, and also "quay, which I forever thought was “kway.” I was landlocked until very late in life.
Lots. Can’t remember them, but yes, there were lots, especially as I read challenging stuff quite young.
I was in 2nd grade and learning phonics, when I saw a sign for pistachio ice cream. I was positive it should be “pis-ta-KY-o.”
So my father started calling me “PistaKYo Pete.” I hated that.
I think it was back in the 60s, when a local politician was on TV, complaining about all the “derbies” in the river.
So which way is the correct way? I’ve heard it “corrected” in both directions so many times that I don’t have any idea how it’s actually pronounced at this point.
Huh. Who knew? I learned something today.
I hear this one a lot. I had a surgical procedure that contains the word “duodenal” so I am very familiar with the way it’s pronounced, but I’ve been “corrected” before to the wrong way. :rolleyes:
Just last night, I discovered that Tagalog was NOT pronounced like “Tag-along” without the “n”.
For the terminally lazy and unread amonst us, please type the pronunciations for:
sidereal
Tagalog
quay
Thanks!
side-ERIE-ul
tuh-GAL-og
Kay
(I think)
I thought quay was “key.”
Off to check…
ETA: I believe it is “key.”
That would explain southern Florida.
There was a “Donkey Hotey” (a donkey puppet) on the old Mr. Rogers show.
Quixote is of course pronounced kee-hoty, but quixotic, which comes from Don Quixote, is pronounced kwixotic. What’s up with that?
When I was about 5 years old, I pronounced Panama Canal as Panamma Cannal (accent on the second syllable of Panama and the first syllable of Canal. Try it, it is quite musical.) My mother teased me about that for…well, actually she still teases me about it once in a while and I’ll be 42 in a couple of weeks.
My brother called hors d’oeuvres “Whores De Ovreez” once with similar consequences.
Let’s see…I used to pronounce “Baroque” as something akin to your current President’s name. But I study music FT now, so no more. I still don’t know how to pronounce “Synecdoche” right. Some people say it the same as the city, others don’t!
Stoic
Heh, I pronounced that SOY-ox in the third grade.
Once I finally learned to pronounce “quay,” I learned it as “kee,” but my American Heritage dictionary gives both “kee” and “kay” as proper. But it’s definitely not “kway” like I used to think.
How IS that pronounced?
quay, key, cay- homophones.
Including some that have already been mentioned:
Hors d’oeuvres - To add to my embarrassment it took me a long time to realize the word I knew by sight and the word I knew by sound were actually the same word.
Dour - I finally have grudgingly accepted that it’s supposed to rhyme with sewer. But I still think it sounds better if it rhymes with sour.
Nguyen - I kept trying to pronounce it the way it looked - something like na-goo-yen. I finally heard somebody pronounce it correctly. It’s nwin.
Film Noir - I thought noir rhymed with more. It’s actually nwar.
Agincourt - I’ve been reading military history for decades. But it wasn’t until about a year ago I found out this battle is pronounced ah-zhin-kor not a-gin-kort.
Grand Marnier - I like it. But if I can’t find the bottle on the shelf myself I don’t know how to ask for it. Is it pronounced mar-nyay?
sigh-deer-ee-ul
dour = sour is fine by me.
Some of these, such as misled - hitherto, sword are some others - I internally mispronounce them when reading just as an in-joke to myself. But I can easily see myself accidentally doing it out loud should the occasion arise.
“do-ODD-eh-nal” is acceptable, so far as I know. There’s two pronunciations for “duodenum.” “due-uh-DEE-num” and (as I was taught) “due-ODD-uh-num.”