What stupid things have you believed/said/assumed before finding out to your embarrassment you were wrong?

Oh, I thought that 'meat' (you ate) and 'muscle' (what makes you move) were two quite seperate things....

oops, sorry about the ASCII code in the middle! It's the phonetics!

It's Wiki, but apparently:

"English speakers generally attempt something close to the modern Spanish pronunciation when saying Quixote (Quijote), as [dɒŋ kiːˈhoʊteɪ], although the traditional English pronunciation /ˈkwɪksət/ or /ˈkwɪksoʊt/ is still sometimes used.

The traditional English rendering is preserved in the pronunciation of the adjectival form quixotic, i.e., /kwɪkˈsoʊtɨk/ or /kwɪkˈsɒtɪk/, the foolishly impractical pursuit of ideals, typically marked with rash and lofty romantic ideals."

Dh thought ham and pork were two different parts of a pig.

Gala 'freed from desire' (that classic song) - a dear friend thought the lyrics were 'he's got his tambourine' rather than 'strong beliefs'

I have no idea BalloonSlayer. But you would say Don Key-hoe-tay was Quick-zaw-tic!

That's what I thought, Tee.

But why not Kee-hote-ic?

(Mind you I heard Jeremey Paxman pronounce Don Juan as it reads rather than "Don Hwan" and I was but I looked it up and apparently it's OK to say it both ways.)

quicks-ottic. I suppose it's been Anglicised. I doubt the Spanish have the expression 'quixotic behaviour' anyway. Although happy to be proved wrong, as, actually, I have no idea!

Quick-Zaw-tic, BalloonSlayer.

And to add to the mix, last night I remembered the time when my twenty three year old self argued long and hard with a man from the north east of England, stridently proclaiming to him that County Durham was in Northern Ireland.

< cringe >

But when someone is described as exhibiting "quixotic behaviour" how do you pronounce that?

A blackguard is an old fashioned term for a scoundrel (and, afaik, does not have any racist connotations)

When I was young my mum used to pronounce 'Donkey Houghtey' as 'Donkey Shot'. I hope I learnt the correct pronunciation before I actually said it publicly, Stealth

I had to leave Weightwatchers because I was not able to take advice from a leader who kept extolling the virtues of Brock-O-lie

Ah, that makes sense, thanks Tee

Because they are words from different native languages with different pronunciations. The spellings have just been 'Americanized'.

Yes, they are native American names, but if 'Kansas' is pronounced as it is spelled then why not Ar-kansas?? I feel aggrieved and 'tricked.

I have also learned about ligers and tigons and li-tigons and ti-ligers after googling the creature at the first mention of liger as I was convinced it was just made up

As a child I hated cucumber and my gran told me eating cucumber made you fast . I was staying on her farm for the summer holidays and amongst other things had been trying to catch flies with my bare hands - yes, I was easily amused. Had a piece of cucumber and whaddayakno caught a frigging fly!! I believed cucumber made you fast for many, many years...

What is "blackguard"
DH used to pronounce "caveat" as "cav-eet" - not a word we use in daily conversation so I only discovered this at the age of about 28/29. I corrected him and he was laughing at me and adamant he was right. Then I found one of those talking dictionary things on the web.

BIL used to thnk the word was "molticoloured" and did not see that it was made up of "multi" and "coloured".

Am I on my own with Donkey Houghtey then?

See, now I just always thought scampi was the recipe name!

For the confused, Arkansas, Yosemite etc are Native American names. Hence the not usual pronunciation.

I thought Arkansas was pronounced phonetically- I knew that there was also a state pronounced "Ar-kan-saw" but I never connected the two

Not me, but my best friend; the first time she ordered whitebait in a restaurant she asked the waiter if they could be filleted. We're still laughing about it some...erm...30 years later

I knew what a blackguard was - and I knew the pronunciation was 'blaggard' - but still managed to refer to a blackguard as a 'black guard' - aged 23, much to the hilarity of an older colleague

stealth - yeah, it's crossing the road at a non-designated crossing place - utterly mad! I'm glad I'm not the only one thought it was something much dodgier.

Scampi is an actual creature - called Norway lobster or Dublin bay prawns or in French, Langoustine - all different names for the same critter apparently. I have no idea though, why we then call it Scampi once it's been crumbed and fried!

i have just remembered that dp's friend always used to call the kerb the kerv (like curve)

and dp used to say alumiLium instead of aluminium

ok....you've really got me going now...a very close friend was discussing 'menstruaLATION' with a group of women! She must have mentioned it 10 times. I did not have the heart to correct her! Still cringe with embarrassment at the thought of it!

might as well add another one....a colleague pronounced the word "awry" as "awree" - she was corrected amid hysterical laughing!