# Words You’ve Never Heard Pronounced **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [May 1, 2022, 10:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-you-ve-never-heard-pronounced/963774 "2022-05-01T22:23:23Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 11
**Author:** ![Senegoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senegoid/32/6606_2.png) [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2022, 4:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-you-ve-never-heard-pronounced/963774/201 "2022-05-13T04:10:31Z")
> [@pulykamell](#): > > The problem is simply that one had heard the word “misled” or “awry” many times in the past and just never made the connection that those words correspond to those spellings. That’s completely understandable. I’m sure it’s happened to me, but I can’t think specifically of what word surprised me when I made the connection. > > ETA: Actually, “segue” would work for me. Took me years before I realized “segue” and what is spoken as “seg-way” are the same word, and I heard the latter many times. I just read it as “SEEG”. “Epitome” is the famous example there. And I simply canNOT grok that segue is pronounced any way other than SEEG. ETA: How should we pronounce Montague? How would Romeo have pronounced it? I knew a guy by that name, but I never found out for sure how he said it. It was also the name of a semi-major street in my childhood neighborhood. I always heard it pronounced as “MON-ta-gyoo” ---
**Author:** ![Isamu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/7c8e57/32.png) [@Isamu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Isamu)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2022, 4:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-you-ve-never-heard-pronounced/963774/202 "2022-05-13T16:21:03Z")
> [@doreen](#): > > It might seem strange for someone to think “misled” was pronounced “mizzled” when they have actually heard “misled” spoken That’s what I’m saying. > [@doreen](#): > > but it’s not so strange if the person has only read “misled”, never heard it That’s what I’m saying. ---
**Author:** ![Yllaria](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yllaria/32/3452_2.png) [@Yllaria](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yllaria)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2022, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-you-ve-never-heard-pronounced/963774/203 "2022-05-13T16:43:17Z")
When I was young, I thought there was a subtle difference between the words subtle and suttle. ---
**Author:** ![Sternvogel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bc79bd/32.png) [@Sternvogel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sternvogel)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2022, 4:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-you-ve-never-heard-pronounced/963774/204 "2022-05-13T16:46:16Z")
> [@Senegoid](#): > > ETA: How should we pronounce Montague? How would Romeo have pronounced it? I knew a guy by that name, but I never found out for sure how he said it. It was also the name of a semi-major street in my childhood neighborhood. I always heard it pronounced as “MON-ta-gyoo” I first encountered the word in a [book about the 1908 New York-to-Paris auto race](https://www.amazon.com/Road-Race-Around-World-Paris/dp/B000KIIBKS), in which one of the drivers was Montague Roberts. In my head, I pronounced his name “Mon-TAGUE”, as in “plague”. Years later, I studied _Romeo and Juliet_, and the teacher said Romeo’s surname the way you’ve heard it, so I figured that pronunciation also applied to Montague Avenue when I saw that name on signs in North Charleston, South Carolina. ---
**Author:** ![DPRK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4491bb/32.png) [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2022, 7:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-you-ve-never-heard-pronounced/963774/205 "2022-05-13T19:10:58Z")
There is a running joke in _The Hateful Eight_: “You either give up by the time I count to three, or I shoot Dah-mer-goo in the head!” … “We’re all gang members. The Jody Doe-ming-grey Gang!” [As opposed to the President of France, or the actress in _Cult of the Cobra._ That was Domergue rather than Montague, but same difference.] ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2022, 8:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-you-ve-never-heard-pronounced/963774/206 "2022-05-13T20:03:22Z")
> [@Senegoid](#): > > And I simply canNOT grok that segue is pronounced any way other than SEEG. > > ETA: How should we pronounce Montague? How would Romeo have pronounced it? I knew a guy by that name, but I never found out for sure how he said it. It was also the name of a semi-major street in my childhood neighborhood. I always heard it pronounced as “MON-ta-gyoo” _Segue_ is Italian and is thus pronounced using Italian pronunciation rules. _Montague_ is an Anglo-Norman-French name (originally _Montagu_). ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2022, 5:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-you-ve-never-heard-pronounced/963774/207 "2022-05-14T05:36:06Z")
And I say it’s not weird at all. I just thought of the word that confused me for years: biopic. My brain has always parsed that as “bi-opic” and that’s how I would say it, even though I have heard “bio-pic” aloud many times. It took me a couple of years to make the connection that the word “biopic” and the spoken “bio-pic” were the same word. I felt like quite the idiot when I came to that realization, but that’s exactly like “misled.” If you asked me how to spell “biopic” it would be that combination of letters, though I would have probably spelled it as “bio-pic” or “bio pic.” When your brain sees it as “bi-opic,” just like when you see “misled” as “misle+d”, it’s hard to break that mis-segmentation and make the connection. I don’t know why this is controversial or hard to understand. ---
**Author:** ![Paul\_was\_in\_Saudi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/b77776/32.png) [@Paul\_was\_in\_Saudi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Paul_was_in_Saudi)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2022, 9:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-you-ve-never-heard-pronounced/963774/208 "2022-05-14T09:46:24Z")
> [@Hatchie](#): > > nowadays I say it the wrong way on purpose because it’s funnier. Army creole gave me many words I mispronounce on purpose. These include “specific” and “vehicle.” I ought to stop doing that. ---
**Author:** ![Limmin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f04885/32.png) [@Limmin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Limmin)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2022, 1:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-you-ve-never-heard-pronounced/963774/209 "2022-05-14T13:26:06Z")
When traveling on a US airline, after enduring the never ending “officialese” speaking style in which flight attendants abuse the term “at this time…” I often hear “en route” pronounced “in route.” I thought it was supposed to be closer to “on route,” being from the French language…? I heard a fellow engineering student (undergrad) insistently saying “FAT-ih-gyoo” for fatigue, in the sense of metal fatigue. I gently tried correcting him but he just kept steaming along in his assertion that he was pronouncing it correctly. I imagine he’d only read, but never heard, the word spoken. And misled…I too thought it was “misseled,” for years. ---
**Author:** ![gnagtcha1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/4491bb/32.png) [@gnagtcha1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gnagtcha1)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2022, 3:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-you-ve-never-heard-pronounced/963774/210 "2022-05-14T15:13:17Z")
When I was young I loved to read on long road trips with the family. This one particular time I looked up from my book and asked my Mom what a yah-ket was. I remember she seemed kind of puzzled and asked if I was reading about animals, assuming it might have something to do with yaks. I told her no, some guys are out in the ocean on a yah-ket. She asked me to spell the word and I did: yacht. She told me the correct pronunciation saving me from future embarrassment. ---
**Author:** ![Peter\_Morris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peter_morris/32/359_2.png) [@Peter\_Morris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peter_Morris)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2022, 4:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-you-ve-never-heard-pronounced/963774/211 "2022-05-14T16:06:33Z")
> [@gnagtcha1](#): > > She asked me to spell the word and I did: yacht. She > told me the correct pronunciation mangrove. ---
**Author:** ![Riemann](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/riemann/32/3133_2.png) [@Riemann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riemann)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2022, 4:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-you-ve-never-heard-pronounced/963774/212 "2022-05-14T16:14:11Z")
> [@Peter\_Morris](#): > > mangrove. Huh? Is this word pronounced in some unexpected way that makes it an intelligible response to the post you replied to? ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2022, 4:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-you-ve-never-heard-pronounced/963774/213 "2022-05-14T16:26:21Z")
It’s a reference. > **[Monty Python - Raymond Luxury Yacht - video Dailymotion](https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x7uv0n8)** > > Watch Monty Python - Raymond Luxury Yacht - Travis Hickey on Dailymotion It’s also the name of Tony Stark’s big-ass boat. ---
**Author:** ![ekedolphin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ekedolphin/32/10003_2.png) [@ekedolphin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ekedolphin)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2022, 4:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-you-ve-never-heard-pronounced/963774/214 "2022-05-14T16:34:56Z")
I didn’t realize until I was going through the new _Lincoln Lawyer_ series on Netflix that I’d never heard the word “infantilize” pronounced before. ---
**Author:** ![Riemann](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/riemann/32/3133_2.png) [@Riemann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riemann)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2022, 4:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-you-ve-never-heard-pronounced/963774/215 "2022-05-14T16:37:27Z")
> [@ekedolphin](#): > > infantilize Was it not what you expected? I’m trying to work out what other plausible possibility there is. Pronouncing the “infant” part the same as the root word? ---
**Author:** ![ekedolphin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ekedolphin/32/10003_2.png) [@ekedolphin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ekedolphin)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2022, 4:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-you-ve-never-heard-pronounced/963774/216 "2022-05-14T16:40:14Z")
Yes. I had it pronounced in my head as “INN-fint-il-ize”, like saying “infant” and then adding “-ilize” to it. But it’s correctly pronounced “inn-FANT-il-ize”. ---
**Author:** ![Senegoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senegoid/32/6606_2.png) [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2022, 7:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-you-ve-never-heard-pronounced/963774/217 "2022-05-14T19:31:20Z")
> [@Paul\_was\_in\_Saudi](#): > > Army creole gave me many words I mispronounce on purpose. These include “specific” and “vehicle.” I ought to stop doing that. How do they say “specific” in the Army? And “vehicle”? Do they say “veee- **HICK** -el” ? With the first syllable prolonged and a _strong_ accent on the HICK? I heard it said that way in an episode of M\*A\*S\*H. > [@silenus](#): > > It’s also the name of Tony Stark’s big-ass boat. Or, as I suppose Randall Munroe would put it, “Tony Stark’s big ass-boat”. ( [Reference](https://xkcd.com/37/) ) > [@ekedolphin](#): > > Yes. I had it pronounced in my head as “INN-fint-il-ize”, like saying “infant” and then adding “-ilize” to it. But it’s correctly pronounced “inn-FANT-il-ize”. I have always thought of this as approximately like @ekedolphin says, with the emphasis on the first first syllable, but only mildly so (like a secondary accented syllable) with no strong accent on any other syllable. ---
**Author:** ![Senegoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senegoid/32/6606_2.png) [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2022, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-you-ve-never-heard-pronounced/963774/218 "2022-05-14T19:36:13Z")
Now this: I had seen “docent” often before hearing it pronounced. I had always thought the accent goes on the first syllable. Wrong. It’s “do-SENT”. This strikes me as very weird. Although there are a few other analogous words (none of which I can think of right now in my encroaching senescence). (ETA: The o in “do” is long, like in “flow”) ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2022, 8:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-you-ve-never-heard-pronounced/963774/219 "2022-05-14T20:15:09Z")
Says who? I’ve only heard the word with the first syllable stressed and both Merriam-Webster online and [dictionary.com](http://dictionary.com) give that as the first pronunciation. ---
**Author:** ![Paul\_was\_in\_Saudi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/b77776/32.png) [@Paul\_was\_in\_Saudi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Paul_was_in_Saudi)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2022, 8:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-you-ve-never-heard-pronounced/963774/220 "2022-05-14T20:50:03Z")
> [@Senegoid](#): > > How do they say “specific” in the Army? “Pacific.” [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-you-ve-never-heard-pronounced/963774.md?page=10) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-you-ve-never-heard-pronounced/963774.md?page=12)