" Avoirdupois" the system of “dry weight.”
We hear it quite a lot in the UK, because it often crops up in historical documentaries and plays. When I was a kid, it was said AJ-in-kort. Nowadays they try to say it in a more French way, something like AZH-in-koor.
Well how DO you pronounce it?
I never thought I’d write a letter to Penthouse Forum this thread, but this really happened to me tonight.
I’ve known for a long time – and may even have learned here at the Dope – that the most pretentiously correct plural of octopus is octopodes. So when, on a Zoom call tonight, a friend of mine mispronounced it, I immediately went online to find a source for the proper pronunciation so I could correct her.
Imagine my chagrin when I discovered that the correct pronunciation actually is ok-TOP-oh-DEEZ, as she had said, and not OK-to-POADS, as I had always assumed. 
Hey, I knew that! And yes, I learned it right here on the Dope, in whatever-thread-it-was where we talked about the plural of octopus.
Not to be confused (or maybe to be confused) with Panoche, a little hidden valley and community that time forgot in California. I had expected it to be pronounced Pa-NO-chay, as it would be in proper Spanish. The locals (all three of them) pronounce it Pa-NOACH (rhymes with coach, roach, or poach). The area, a mostly barren wasteland, is much used by off-road vehicles, shooters, birders, and gliders. They all call it Pa-NOACH.
That’s interesting about “outre” I’ve never actually seen it spelled with the accent until this thread. So I’ve always assumed it was one of those words from French that include -re at the end, and are pronounced “-ruh”, like oeuvre. Heck, I’ve even pronounced “outre” with the French R and schwa.
I’m actually a bit proponent of arguing that accents are optional with full English words. But I wish I’d seen it spelled “outré” spelled so I wouldn’t have sounded like an idiot.
And here I was saying “ockt-oh-POE-deez” like some backwater hick. I now stand corrected.
covfefe
Oh, and mole sauce should have an accent on the end so I don’t pronounce it like it’s made from the little bugger who keeps eating my strawberries.
I see why an accent on mole (the sauce) might help some English speakers, but it wouldn’t be proper Spanish. In French, the accents are (usually) to indicate pronunciations. In Spanish, the one accent mark is used when stress is on an unexpected syllable (each vowel in Spanish essentially has only a single pronunciation).
So, “molé” would be pronounced moh-LAY,* which the saucy word is not.
(*yes, I know — no “ee” at the end. But this thread is for English speakers).
See, this is what I get for taking French in high school instead of Spanish.
Moles are not vegetarian. Some other critter is gobbling your fruit.
So I take it that you have never heard Antipodes spoken? I can’t think of any other word that would guide you.
I was watching a video yesterday about the ancient Greeks. I had read about the Mycenaean Greeks but this was the first time I had heard somebody use the term verbally.
So yesterday was when I learned the word is pronounced my-ken-ay-en not my-sen-ay-en as I had always thought.
They say My-sen-ean here
I have heard it pronounced many times with a soft C, and I would call that more in accord with common usage. The hard K is more in accord with the Greek, so there’s obviously a good argument for that. But it’s hardly definitive, we don’t say Paris the way the French do. I think both are probably okay.
And today I learned it’s more complicated.
I think everyone agrees that the Mycenaeans pronounced it my-ken-ay-en. But if enough modern English speakers incorrectly pronounce it my-sen-ay-en does that become the correct pronunciation? And what about the fussy British academics who insist it’s pronounced my-chen-ay-en?
This kind of prescriptivist vs descriptivist argument makes me roll my eyes and/or eyen.