Hors d’oeuvres is to me what “misled” was to some other people. In addition to what’s been said upthread, somebody in a previous thread once said that not only did he mispronounce “misled,” but actually thought for a time there were two separate words, one he had encountered in print, spelled “misled” and pronounced MIZZ-ld, the other he had heard only in speech, pronounced miss-LED with no idea how it was spelled. That’s what hors d’oeuvres was to me. For the longest time as a kid into my teenage years,I was aware of two things: 1) there were appetizers/finger foods called “or-DERVES” (with no idea how that was actually spelled,) and 2) there were appetizers/finger foods represented by what looked to be a French phrase spelled “hors d’oeuvres” (with no idea how that was pronounced.) And until I somehow learned, I can’t remember how, that they were the same thing, it had never occurred to me to connect the two before.
This reminds me of another one, albeit* a fictional proper name. I read The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy in 5th grade, and in my head I pronounced Zaphod Beeblebrox’s first name as ZAA-phod (short “a”, as in “flab”.) I was surprised when I later heard a recording of the radio show and learned it was ZAY-phod as Douglas Adams apparently intended.
*And speaking of “albeit,” for a while I thought it was all-BITE, as though it were German.
There are numerous examples in this thread of people mistakenly pronouncing a word with the accent on the next-to-last syllable (penult,) when it’s actually pronounced with the accent on the third-to-last (antepenult.) My example of that is Episcopal. When I was a kid we used to drive past this sign for an Episcopal church, and in my head I sounded it out as “eh-pih-SCOPE-ul.” The one day my 5th grade social studies teacher said the word out loud, and it clicked.
[sub](Sorry, pedants, I can’t be bothered to learn this IPA business.
And yes, I’m aware I called other people pedants after using the words penult and antepenult.)[/sub]
Semi-OT but related: did it irk anyone else as a kid, when you’d ask a parent or teacher how to spell a word, and in response they’d tell you to look it up in the dictionary? How can I look it up in the dictionary if I don’t know how to spell it?!
For edutainment, clicking on the vowels in this interactive chart is quite addictive. You can devise your own soundtrack to people of various nationalities being horribly murdered.
ETA: I just discovered that if you click quickly, all the sounds overlap. Try it with the non-pulmonic consonants.
Not a word, but a name. “Aloysius,” which I pronounced “Al-LOY-see-us.” I’d even heard the name “Al-oh-WISH-us,” but I didn’t make the connection between the two for a long time.
WOW! I couldn’t think of anything but as I read so many reminded me! It’s kind of cute and endearing, I remembered awry, omnipotent, hyperbole, misled you really get transported through time don’t you! How sweet we are as children, my favourite was magician as ma gick e ann , thanks so much it’s a real treat to retrieve a sweet memory!
I learned “awry” was “a-wry” when we did Hamlet in high school. Nothing to do with spelling, but I also realized that “goodbye” evolved from “God be with ye” when we read “the Rivals” (it was “God be wi’ye” in that play, pronounced “God-bway”, if Mr. Cotter had it right). Lesson: you can learn a lot in high school English.
I also used to read Schroeder’s idol as “beeth-oven” before a friend set me straight, but that was well before high school. There were quite a few words I saw in “Peanuts” before anywhere else, so I’m sure I mispronounced a fair number in my head,
I remember a “Shoe” cartoon wherein Skyler had to define “hyperbole” and he answered something like “the contest for the championship of Madison Avenue”.
Speaking of place names: along the same lines as my hors d’oeuvres example above, for a long time I was aware, having seen it on maps, of a town in California called La Jolla–that is, la JOLE-uh–and simultaneously aware that there was a another place I would occasionally hear people talk about called “la HOY-uh.”
A tough one for me was indeterminate. I said it with a long A, in-dee-term-in-ATE, with emphasis on the final syllable. It should be in-dee-TERM-in-it.
I first saw the word in a Little Lulu comic when I was six. For years, I too thought “misled” was pronounced “MY-zeld” and (from context) meant “cheated.” I must have been twenty or so when I finally realized it was “mis-LED.”
Wasn’t that far off on the meaning, though.
I remember Lew Marie mispronouncing “awry” in an early episode of That Girl. I had seen the word in print before, but had never thought about how it was pronounced. (I was ten at the time.)
I was watching a documentary the other night, and the presenter (a guy with whom I’ve worked in the past) pronounced “Grantham” (the city in England) as GRANTH-am, not GRANT-am (silent “H”).
Not nearly as bad as when I was 22 and trying to find the American Embassy in London. I asked someone where “GROS-venner Square” was, and he was greatly amused.
It’s written **Grosvenor **and pronounced “GROVE-ner.” I still cringe when I think of this, especially since I’d already been living in the UK for more than a year.
For your oral/aural gratification, there is the word “orrery”, which is quite close in sound to the mispronounced “aw-ry”. And an orrery is also an pretty cool thing to have a special word for.
As with my claimed-ex-nun acquaintance, mentioned upthread; only she rendered it to herself as “eh-pih-SCOP-ul” (short “o”).
I did just the same, for a long time (well, the name does look exactly as you render the pronunciation): IIRC it was a good number of years, before I heard the name spoken – likely not being Catholic, and long knowing few if any Catholics, contributed to that.
“Drifting” slightly – I seem to think I’ve read that the Arkansas River, in its westerly reaches outside of Arkansas state, is pronounced not “Arkansaw”, but “Ar-kansas” (the last two syllables, just like the state of Kansas) – or have I imagined that, prompted by a desire to consider you Yanks to be barmy?
Until my freshman year of college, I had only ever seen the word “carotid,” as in carotid artery, in print, but never heard it pronounced. I had never taken a close look at its spelling and had assumed it was “CAR-toyed.”
