# Written words you mispronounced until hearing them **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [November 1, 2016, 7:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/written-words-you-mispronounced-until-hearing-them/770395 "2016-11-01T19:46:48Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 8
**Author:** ![Soylent\_Juicy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/82dd89/32.png) [@Soylent\_Juicy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Soylent_Juicy)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2016, 7:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/written-words-you-mispronounced-until-hearing-them/770395/141 "2016-11-03T19:21:50Z")
> [@somepumpkin](#): > > I’m a little surprised that the word \*ennui \*hadn’t shown-up in this thread. Yet. My brain says “enn-you-eye”. What is it really? ---
**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:** [November 3, 2016, 7:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/written-words-you-mispronounced-until-hearing-them/770395/142 "2016-11-03T19:37:15Z")
On-we. That was the “Word of the Day” at my school a few years ago. It was really amusing listening to the student doing the announcements trying to pronounce it. ---
**Author:** ![Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/qadgop_the_mercotan/32/83_2.png) [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qadgop_the_Mercotan)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2016, 7:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/written-words-you-mispronounced-until-hearing-them/770395/143 "2016-11-03T19:43:33Z")
> [@Soylent\_Juicy](#): > > My brain says “enn-you-eye”. What is it really? Sort of like “on-we” except more frenchified ---
**Author:** ![Tzigone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/839c29/32.png) [@Tzigone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tzigone)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2016, 7:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/written-words-you-mispronounced-until-hearing-them/770395/144 "2016-11-03T19:48:11Z")
Facade - I though it was pronounced with a hard “c” and and ending like lemonade until high school. ---
**Author:** ![burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/burpo_the_wonder_mutt/32/365_2.png) [@burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/burpo_the_wonder_mutt)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2016, 7:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/written-words-you-mispronounced-until-hearing-them/770395/145 "2016-11-03T19:51:59Z")
> [@Soylent\_Juicy](#): > > My brain says “enn-you-eye”. What is it really? I just couldn’t care less; _le sigh_. ---
**Author:** ![Hey\_Hey\_Paula](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/85e7bf/32.png) [@Hey\_Hey\_Paula](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hey_Hey_Paula)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2016, 2:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/written-words-you-mispronounced-until-hearing-them/770395/146 "2016-11-04T02:53:36Z")
> [@Barrett\_Bonden](#): > > hors d’oeuvres (I never even really tried to pronounce it in my head - it was just a mysterious symbol meaning finger food.) This. As a child, it took me a long time to realize that the word I heard (on television shows, never in my own home) as “orderbs” meaning fancy party finger foods was that same word I read in books but couldn’t figure out how to pronounce. I had a very large vocabulary and read a lot, but some words (usually foreign ones) stumped me. ---
**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 4, 2016, 2:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/written-words-you-mispronounced-until-hearing-them/770395/147 "2016-11-04T14:28:56Z")
Another one. when I was doing a voice over for a medical information DVD, I said Doo-wad-enum instead of Dou-O-Deen-um for duodenum. I had to re-record a several sentences the next day. I hate mispronouncing words like that. another memory, when I was doing morning radio news, I said Domineecan instead of Dominican in a live broadcast. It wouldn’t have been so bad, but Ed Bradley from 60 minutes was touring the station and heard me. Called me on it when I got to shake his hand. Sigh. The bad part was, I knew how to pronounce Dominican, I just had a brain fart. ---
**Author:** ![WOOKINPANUB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wookinpanub/32/132_2.png) [@WOOKINPANUB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WOOKINPANUB)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2016, 2:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/written-words-you-mispronounced-until-hearing-them/770395/148 "2016-11-04T14:44:25Z")
> [@yanceylebeef](#): > > Another one. when I was doing a voice over for a medical information DVD, I said Doo-wad-enum instead of Dou-O-Deen-um for duodenum. \ I always though it was pronounced the first way too, and I learned it from my mom who suffered from a duodenal ulcer. In grade school I used to get called on a lot to read aloud from our textbooks because I had pretty advanced reading skills at the time. Except the day I pronounced Caracas as Cara Cass. ---
**Author:** ![Arcite](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/67e7ee/32.png) [@Arcite](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arcite)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2016, 3:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/written-words-you-mispronounced-until-hearing-them/770395/149 "2016-11-04T15:21:46Z")
> [@WOOKINPANUB](#): > > I always though it was pronounced the first way too, and I learned it from my mom who suffered from a duodenal ulcer. Just checked a few online dictionaries and they list both pronunciations. However, I have noticed, as someone pointed out upthread, that these online dictionaries in the last decade or so (does anyone consult print dictionaries anymore?) have begun including more and more pronunciations that were widely considered incorrect until very recently. In medical school, there are attendings who will correct you. Surgeons are particularly notorious for this, and in particular, being asses about it. E.g., “doo-AH-den-um? What’s that? I’ve never heard of that structure before.” Medicine has a whole host of pronunciation controversies, in addition to doo-AH-den-um vs. doo-oh-DEEN-um. A few more: ANN-jin-uh vs. ann-JIE-nuh um-BILL-ih-kuss vs. um-bill-EYE-kuss SKELL-et-ull vs. skull-EE-tull And everyone’s personal favorite, SAHNT-ih-meet-er for centimeter. Surgeons again are notorious for this. Legend has it this got its start when American medicine was still relatively primitive, just starting to become scientific, and European medicine was more advanced; we were importing all these experts from Europe to come over and teach American doctors, who thought it was more “correct” to mimic the French pronunciation because SI units were originally developed in France. ---
**Author:** ![burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/burpo_the_wonder_mutt/32/365_2.png) [@burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/burpo_the_wonder_mutt)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2016, 3:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/written-words-you-mispronounced-until-hearing-them/770395/150 "2016-11-04T15:31:47Z")
FWIW, the only thing I remember from high school English was our teacher telling us if a word was from the Greek, the accent was on the second syllable from the right. If Latin, third syllable from the right. Duodenum is Latin, ergo Doo-WAD-e-num. Trash this at will, I don’t mind. (Here she comes, just a-walkin’ down the street, singin’ Doo-wah-de-num-de-num-dum-de-num-doo.) ---
**Author:** ![Sangahyando](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f14d63/32.png) [@Sangahyando](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sangahyando)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2016, 4:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/written-words-you-mispronounced-until-hearing-them/770395/151 "2016-11-04T16:57:52Z")
> [@yanceylebeef](#): > > another memory, when I was doing morning radio news, I said Domineecan instead of Dominican in a live broadcast. It wouldn’t have been so bad, but Ed Bradley from 60 minutes was touring the station and heard me. Called me on it when I got to shake his hand. Sigh. The bad part was, I knew how to pronounce Dominican, I just had a brain fart. Isn’t that matter, affected by where in the West Indies you happen to be talking about? If I have things rightly: Haiti’s neighbour is the Do-MIN-ican Republic; but the island nation some hundreds of miles eastward thereof, is pronounced Do-min-EE-ca – so its associated adjective _is_ Do-min-EE-can. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/written-words-you-mispronounced-until-hearing-them/770395.md?page=7)