Words you pronounced wrong because you only read them

In the case of valet, my understanding is that you’re correct: that’s how Jeeves and his young employer would have pronounced it.

I once saw a music video for a Paula Abdul song named Vibeology. I saw the name of the song at the beginning and was surprised to hear her sing “vibe ology” instead of “vibby ology” which is clearly the right way to pronounce that “word”. Okay, so she made it up, but I contend that she also spelled it wrong!

That reminds me of the voila/walla thing.

I’ve seen it spelled Cohog. And this from a rabid Family Guy fan, where the name is seen in print in nearly every episode.

Many, but the latest one is ‘respite’. I thought it was pronounced RE-spite.

Only if you’ve already spote. Hence the old saying: “Once spitten, twice shy”.

This truly has to be a phenomena more likely among introverts that don’t engage in a wide variety of conversation with other people or exclusively chat on-line and not in real life. How could a normal adult not have heard most of these words in conversation or even in movies for that matter and only in the written form?

Wait, “dour” is supposed to rhyme with “sewer?” I’ve spent my whole life rhyming it with “sour” and no one has corrected me.

I read a lot when I was a kid, so by the time I heard a word spoken, I’d probably already encountered it written. Sometimes I made the connection, sometimes not.

Yup. (Although apparently enough people have been pronouncing it like sour that that’s become an “alternative” pronunciation.)

cacophony (I was pronouncing it ‘KACK-o-foh-nee’) - This one I was only corrected on recently.
segue (I was pronouncing it ‘seeg’)

In high school I was asked to read something and I pronounced ‘fetish’ as feet-ish. Chuckles abounded.

I just thought of another one. Recently, I was tripped up by a science article which was referring to “unionized ammonia.” Took me a couple of do-overs of that sentence to realize they were talking about “un-ionized” ammonia and not “union-ized” ammonia.

I always thought ‘vaudeville’ was a two-syllable word until I heard Tony Randall on *The Tonight Show *point out to Johnny Carson that it is pronounced vaud-e-ville.

I only see two-syllable pronunciations of the word here. ETA: That should be two of the three pronunciations. The last one given is the three-syllable one.

Have we had “chimera” yet? I thought it was such a mellifluous name, perfect for a strange mythical beast: “SHIM-mer-ah”. I was so disappointed to learn the real pronunciation.

Whenever I am preparing lessons, I always need to take a good look at the vocab that I’m covering for a week in case there are any words that I forget how to pronounce for this reason. Words that have been issues:

NONPAREIL (for some reason, I always want to say non-pah-REEL, so I have to make a post-it note for myself and try to think, although it’s stupid, "Cair Paravel, nun-puh-rel)

APPLIQUE (I accidentally said “app-LEEKS” when talking to my mother about fixing a coat…again, I never say the word, I just read it)

Flubs from my students:

ANTIGONE: anti-gone
CREON: cray-on (Is it that hard to say CREE-on?)
PENELOPE: peh-neh-lope
CRUCIBLE: cruck-i-ble, cruss-i-ble

Can you blame ammonia? For too long, ammonia has been forced to work in janitorial services with no pay or benefits. It’s about time ammonia got organized for better treatment.

And don’t try to pretend there’s not a racial issue here. Ammonia would never have been treated this way if it was an oxide.

Another prefix problem word (at least for Alton Brown) is astaxanthin- the red pigment in lobsters. The “x” is pronounced as a “z” since asta- is a prefix.

Israeli. My first day of classes for my Master’s Degree in Journalism, and I had to read a newspaper article out loud to the rest of the class. I’d seen the word a million times but had never had to say it out loud. I stumbled and then sputtered out “Iz-ray-ELL-ee.”

Just the other day at work I had to read aloud the word incongruous. I put the emphasis on the 3rd syllable and blushed madly. And I’m a professional writer. It was awful, and I was teased mercilessly.

This just burned me. I read your second sentence, didn’t understand it, and then read it a few more times. WTF is “union-ized ammonia?” I kept asking myself. :smack:

To get that “ng” sound at the beginning of a syllable, it’s good to practice saying the word “singing,” whittling it down to just the “-nging” part. “Singing, inging, nging, nging, ngi-.”