Words You've Read But Never Heard Said

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
21

Actually, what messes me up are domain specific words and acronyms. Probably because there is disagreement about the correct way to pronounce them. Think “GIF” as jif or hard-g gif.

  • “SQL” (a database language) is it the spoken letters S-Q-L or “sequel”
  • “png” (an image format) is similar as either P-N-G or ping
  • “sysop” (a historic way to say super-moderator), but if it’s just a shortening of “system operator” why is it often pronounced sighs-op instead of sis-op
  • “etc” (a system directory in Unix-like systems) is maybe et-see, or E-T-C, or, very rarely, et cetera
  • “sudo” (a Unix-like command) Sue-do or Sue-dough
  • “fsck” (a command to do a filesystem check) is often f-sick, but sometimes fisk, or f*ck when it is failing
  • “daemon” (a background system process) is demon or day-mon

Most of these, like gif/gif are just culture debate fodder, and not really important. It can be a problem if you get it “wrong” and sound like a noob on a job interview, or something.

22

Defenestration.

No matter how many people that you throw out of a window, the word never seems to come up, not in police reports or causal conversation.

23

Svelte.

24

You use it only to cache a Czech.

25

I knew a whole family who said the word misled correctly (“miss-led”), but read it as rhyming with “fizzled” - to them that was a different word.

26

Detritus. Never having heard anyone say it but having seen it on various occasions, I thought it was DET-rih-tus. Then, a while back, we were watching Wilfred, and he busted out with deh-TRY-tus. Oh, wow. Never would have guessed.

27

Just my personal opinion, but for caesura, detritus, … I will accept a Classical pronunciation (just thinking of the word as borrowed as-is from a foreign language.)

28

When I was studying in the States, the prof challenged the class to pronounce a certain French-derived word correctly.

I put up my hand and pronounced it.

He looked at me and said « That doesn’t count. You’re Canadian. «

29

Now that I reread this part of my post, I’m not sure it made sense.

What I’m saying is that I have trouble remembering whether or not I’ve ever heard a word spoken out loud. I only realize I must have only ever read it once I hear someone else say it correctly.

And I’m also having trouble remembering specific examples.

30

It was a long time before I heard someone say “banal”. And when I heard it, I didn’t recognize it as the same word. I had my own pronunciation…

31

Well-played!

32

One plural form of octopus is octopodes, which I assumed was pronounced as it appears: OCK-to-podes, emphasis on the first syllable.

So imagine my surprise when a friend pronounced it oc-TOP-o-dees. Imagine my even greater surprise when I found out she was right, and I had been wrong for many years. Luckily, I never pronounced it incorrectly in public, AFAIK.

33

There are dozens of such words. They often appear as answers on Jeopardy!, and I am surprised to hear them pronounced differently than my assumption.

34

I’m not sure if you’re joking and aware of this, but that’s the British pronunciation.

35

I use this sometimes with reference to everyday shenanigans, just because it’s such a lovely word. I guess I do tend to exaggerate the French pronunciation in a self-mocking way, to deflect any sense that I’m so pretentious that I really think it’s a normal word to use in everyday conversation.

36

Nothing will precipitate a relationship crisis more quickly than if one person thinks the sex is becoming banal.

37

I only recently learned this myself, and I wasn’t sure if they were kidding. So I guess they were not.

And it makes sense, because it matches with ‘antipodes’ which many people also often get wrong.

38

While I’d seen the word “lilac” in print countless times, I’d never heard it in a conversation until fairly recently. So, for decades, I pronounced it li-LAK.

I still think it sounds better this way, actually.

39

Which one? Pronouncing it properly or like the thing you keep in the back of the truck for the kids?

40

And here I sit, at 65 years of age, learning two new pronunciations. Thankfully I’ve not yet verbalized either of these words. Thank you for saving me from such horror.

Makes me wonder what else my brain is ignorant of.

mmm

(FWIW I just confirmed that “antipode” is pronounced ANT-i-pode, so I would have been correct with the singular pronunciation)