# words you've always mispronounced **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [June 18, 2003, 3:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-youve-always-mispronounced/182611 "2003-06-18T03:13:01Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2011, 4:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-youve-always-mispronounced/182611/61 "2011-11-08T16:05:58Z")
> [@Terr](#): > > Rhymes-with-sour is an acceptable pronunciation of “dour”. I think it’s becoming acceptable (probably due to so many people like us pronouncing it that way) but the rhymes-with-bluer pronunciation is clearly the primary one. > [@Terr](#): > > Again, AFAIK, the correct pronunciation is, in fact, “sooperfloous”. What did the really arrogant bastard tell you it should be? The primary pronunciation is sooPERfloous. ---
**Author:** ![Eyebrows\_0f\_Doom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eyebrows_0f_doom/32/3119_2.png) [@Eyebrows\_0f\_Doom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eyebrows_0f_Doom)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2011, 4:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-youve-always-mispronounced/182611/62 "2011-11-08T16:06:49Z")
> [@Terr](#): > > Again, AFAIK, the correct pronunciation is, in fact, “sooperfloous”. What did the really arrogant bastard tell you it should be? soo-PER-floo-us, not SOO-per-FLOO-us. ---
**Author:** ![Terr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/839c29/32.png) [@Terr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terr)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2011, 4:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-youve-always-mispronounced/182611/63 "2011-11-08T16:11:53Z")
> [@Eyebrows\_0f\_Doom](#): > > soo-PER-floo-us, not SOO-per-FLOO-us. Ahh you meant which is the accented syllable. Yes, the really arrogant bastard was right 🙂 Maybe because English is not my native tongue, I usually avoid trying to pronounce words that I have only seen written, although I can’t think of any at the moment. I think it’s ok for people to mispronounce some word that they only use very rarely. But what always amazed me is when people constantly use a word but don’t bother to learn how to pronounce it. Like WoW players who in vent mispronounce “melee” in various very inventive ways. But they can tell you what the difference between a mace and morning-star is. ---
**Author:** ![Spoke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@Spoke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoke)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2011, 4:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-youve-always-mispronounced/182611/64 "2011-11-08T16:33:52Z")
I always mention [victuals](http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/victual?show=0&t=1318911659) in these threads. (Properly pronounced “vittles.”) ---
**Author:** ![yanceylebeef](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yanceylebeef/32/12290_2.png) [@yanceylebeef](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yanceylebeef)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2011, 4:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-youve-always-mispronounced/182611/65 "2011-11-08T16:38:45Z")
Unless I think about it, Strategy will invariably come out as Stragedy. I blame Bugs Bunny. ---
**Author:** ![smiling\_bandit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9a140/32.png) [@smiling\_bandit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smiling_bandit)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2011, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-youve-always-mispronounced/182611/66 "2011-11-08T16:43:54Z")
I still say carmel for caramel, and probabyl always will. I friend says many weird words like cyrogenic (for **cryo** genic). ---
**Author:** ![ZipperJJ](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zipperjj/32/211_2.png) [@ZipperJJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZipperJJ)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2011, 4:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-youve-always-mispronounced/182611/67 "2011-11-08T16:44:14Z")
I can’t not see “Hyundai” as “hi-un-die.” “Lien” is “lee-en.” For the longest time I thought “expletive” was “ex-pel-tive.” I figured that one out tho. My friend carved Cthulhu in his pumpkin this year and none of us at the pumpkin carving party had any idea how to pronounce it. We’d never actually heard it pronounced before, just written. ---
**Author:** ![Lord\_Il\_Palazzo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Lord\_Il\_Palazzo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lord_Il_Palazzo)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2011, 4:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-youve-always-mispronounced/182611/68 "2011-11-08T16:59:09Z")
> [@typhoon](#): > > I pronounced “melee” like “mee-lee” for a while. I have a couple of friends who pronounce it like that and it drives me crazy. (They’re brothers which I suppose explains the shared pronunciation.) It wouldn’t be too bad, except that I play role playing games with them so the word comes up fairly often. > [@KidCharlemagne](#): > > Gaia > > I always thought it was GUY-uh, but it’s GAY-uh. Same here. I blame Captain Planet. For me, I always have trouble with “rural”. The two “R” sounds always blur together for me and I have to be careful to enunciate the first syllable or I sound like I’m saying “rull”. The word “horror” similarly (and embarrassingly) sounds like “whore” if I’m not careful. ---
**Author:** ![Maggie\_the\_Ocelot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/df705f/32.png) [@Maggie\_the\_Ocelot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maggie_the_Ocelot)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2011, 5:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-youve-always-mispronounced/182611/69 "2011-11-08T17:29:25Z")
I cannot for the life of me properly pronounce that headache medicine that you shouldn’t take when you’ve been drinking. You know… Acetamuna… Acitiminifina… Acinnamoonafun… Tylenol. ---
**Author:** ![Maggie\_the\_Ocelot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/df705f/32.png) [@Maggie\_the\_Ocelot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maggie_the_Ocelot)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2011, 5:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-youve-always-mispronounced/182611/70 "2011-11-08T17:35:49Z")
Here’s another one, that I blame on my midwestern grandparents. Both my mother and I grew up thinking that bagel rhyming with haggle was a legitimate alternate prononuciation. Apparently not, only BAYgle is correct. I also have to think hard in order to not say “nucular.” I did think for a long time that Schroeder’s favorite composer was pronounced BEETH (like teeth) - oven (like where you bake cakes). ---
**Author:** ![Jbone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/58f4c7/32.png) [@Jbone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jbone)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2011, 9:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-youve-always-mispronounced/182611/71 "2011-11-08T21:39:57Z")
Soooo…superfluous. sue-per-flu-ous, right? The “soo” makes me sound it out like my long, drawn out “so” at the start of this. I have always been a pretty good speller/pronouncer of words, but some “foreign” words can always be tricky and I do not mind mispronouncing them until I’m corrected. I figure that since It’s not my main language, I’m allowed a little leeway. Nowadays though it seems new words pop up everywhere. “Meme” I always pronounced as “me-me” until I read this thread. That got me to thinkin’ about how the “younger” generation “tweaks” common words and usage until it almost becomes a new language (See just about anything on Reddit). I’m a firm believer that language is always changing, and I support that. I’m not usually a “grammar nazi” because sometimes people make honest mistakes that I feel do not need to be pointed out and have them criticized. In these cases I use my reading comprehension ability and some common sense to figure out what people are trying to say (or type, as it were). On the other hand, some words just make me mad. For instance, “Staycation”, I pronounce it as “Don’t-Fuckin’-Say-That-Word”. Maybe that makes me a bit of a hypocrite, but I’m ok with that. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Filbert](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/filbert/32/3433_2.png) [@Filbert](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Filbert)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2011, 10:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-youve-always-mispronounced/182611/72 "2011-11-08T22:13:38Z")
I always pronounced ‘magenta’ as ‘mag-nee-ta’; sort of like Magneto’s little sister. 😉 Fortunately, my housemate does the same thing, so in this house, it’s the _right_ way to say it, dagnammit! ---
**Author:** ![RadicalPi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/radicalpi/32/9806_2.png) [@RadicalPi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RadicalPi)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2011, 12:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-youve-always-mispronounced/182611/73 "2011-11-09T00:42:21Z")
> [@Maggie\_the\_Ocelot](#): > > I cannot for the life of me properly pronounce that headache medicine that you shouldn’t take when you’ve been drinking. You know… > > Acetamuna… > Acitiminifina.. > Acinnamoonafun.. > > Tylenol. Acetaminophen: a-SEAT-uh-MIN-uh-fin. > [@ZipperJJ](#): > > My friend carved Cthulhu in his pumpkin this year and none of us at the pumpkin carving party had any idea how to pronounce it. We’d never actually heard it pronounced before, just written. Apparently, Cthulhu is pronounced as if there were an _uh_ between the _C_ and the _th_. So it’s kuh-THOO-loo. And I had no idea about _dour_. But now I do. ---
**Author:** ![DHMO](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ecc23a/32.png) [@DHMO](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DHMO)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2011, 1:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-youve-always-mispronounced/182611/74 "2011-11-09T01:04:04Z")
My main gripe is with English-ized foreign words. Especially from languages where they do not use a roman alphabet. For example: feng shui. The original Chinese characters bear no resemblance to the English transliterated letters, so why not _spell_ it like it’s supposed to be _pronounced_, fung-shway? ---
**Author:** ![Greg\_Charles](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/839c29/32.png) [@Greg\_Charles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Greg_Charles)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2011, 2:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-youve-always-mispronounced/182611/75 "2011-11-09T02:12:10Z")
It’s feng shui in the pinyin system, or really, fēng shuǐ. ---
**Author:** ![Trick\_Rider](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/d6d6ee/32.png) [@Trick\_Rider](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trick_Rider)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2011, 2:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-youve-always-mispronounced/182611/76 "2011-11-09T02:17:48Z")
I thought mishap was pronounced “mi-SHAP” for the longest time. ---
**Author:** ![voguevixen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/b5ac83/32.png) [@voguevixen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/voguevixen)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2011, 2:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-youve-always-mispronounced/182611/77 "2011-11-09T02:35:55Z")
Meme tripped me up too. It’s still hard for me to think of it as “Meem.” For the longest time I thought “Hirsute” had an extra “i” in it was was saying “her-SWEET”. I was describing someone to my friend as “hirsuite” and she stared at me a minute and said "I think you mean “hirsute?” I didn’t believe it and we actually got out the dictionary to check. Man did I feel dumb! ---
**Author:** ![lew\_cody](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e274bd/32.png) [@lew\_cody](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lew_cody)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2011, 2:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-youve-always-mispronounced/182611/78 "2011-11-09T02:55:38Z")
**Grocery** –I have a bad habit of saying “gro-shree” when most dictionaries prefer something closer to “grossery”. **Hegemony** –I assumed it was “HEDGE-uh-mo-nee”, but “he-JEM-uh-nee” is listed first in the dictionary I consulted, and that’s the way I’ve heard it more often. **Elicit** –For years, I mentally pronounced it “ee-LIKT”, not bothering to notice the second I. :o **Chimera** –I heard it in biology class as “ky-MEER-uh”, but I was briefly floored when I heard someone else pronounce it “shimmer-uh”. The first pronunciation was correct, thankfully. The majority of “wh-” words are really supposed to begin with a /hw-/ sound, and I know someone who makes a point of pronouncing it that way, but I think it requires a bit of effort and am a big fan of the “wine-whine” merger. ---
**Author:** ![nikonikosuru](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/5f8ce5/32.png) [@nikonikosuru](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nikonikosuru)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2011, 3:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-youve-always-mispronounced/182611/79 "2011-11-09T03:26:20Z")
I used to prononce epitome as “epi-tome.” To be far, it kind of looked right! The one I can never get is bagel. If I think it IPA, begl, I can pronounce it just fine. But about 75% of the time during normal speech it’ll come out as bɶgl. Bag (as in shopping bag) + el. Much to everyone’s amusement but mine. I better switch over to the correct pronunciation somehow as I just started working at Panera. :smack: ---
**Author:** ![GameHat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/ed655f/32.png) [@GameHat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GameHat)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2011, 3:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-youve-always-mispronounced/182611/80 "2011-11-09T03:43:48Z")
> [@flano1](#): > > It came as a great shock ( well, not really ) that I had been > > mispronouncing SEGUE wrongly forever If it’s any consolation, while I never mispronounced it I knew the meaning and pronunciation of the vocal “segue” for years. But I didn’t connect it to the written word “segue” until I was a sophomore in college. My good friend and roommate teased me mercilessly about this ("I thought it was some crazy written word, “seh-goo”!) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-youve-always-mispronounced/182611.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-youve-always-mispronounced/182611.md?page=5)