Things that you thought were said differently

[BabyLlamaZen]

When I first read Harry Potter I thought it was 'hermy-own' - was gobsmacked when I heard how it was pronounced when the films started coming out! I also thought mirror of Erised was pronounced 'i-rye-sd'

[AvonCallingBarksdale]

Segue is definitely Segway - here’s the phonetic spelling:

ˈsɛɡweɪ

[sotiredofthislonelylife]

@MillicentMartha

But biopic is short for biographical picture. Bio- Pic. How else would you pronounce it, to rhyme with myopic?

Absolutely - like myopic!! Which comes from the condition Myopia, but no-one would pronounce it ‘my-oh-pick’.

How do you pronounce ‘biography’? Bi-oh-graffy?? No, of course not.

Bi-oh-pick just sounds ridiculous, and it’s only been pronounced like that (by some people) recently.

[MrsIronfoundersson]

@GETTINGLIKEMYMOTHER

At maybe 8 or 9 I had the Flower Fairy books.
My favourite was the fuchsia fairy, only I thought it was pronounced
fuckseeya - all very well until I said it out loud one day!
Needless to say, I was hastily corrected, but didn’t realise for another couple of years why ‘fuckseeya’ raised eyebrows.

Fuchsia was named after Leonhart Fuchs so it should be fooksia!

[SimplySteveRedux]

Yoghurt = Yog-hurt, rather than yo-gert

[Doingtheboxerbeat]

Hawick in the Scottish Borders is pronounced hoik!!!

[DuesToTheDirt]

I always have trouble in my head (hardly ever say it) with hearse, and need to think for a while to decide if it's like "heard" or "heart".

[merryhouse]

misled, awry, hyperbole, Arkanbloodysas, fuchsia, quinoa

... but not Penelope because we knew someone called Penelope and the first time I saw it written down was in the Oompa-Loompa's song which made it obvious how it should scan

I had a friend who claimed to have witnessed furriners (colonial and ex-colonial respectively) talking about the Midland towns Looga-barooga and Leemington Spay...

[Preoilai]

I didn’t know that about Arkansas/Arkansas!

The one that always gets me is décolleté. I want to (and do) say “decotelle”.

[DookaDakkaDikku]

Watched a car race as a kid. It was held in Indiana-pole-is (Indianapolis)

[ssd]

Ds used to call windscreen wipers window skelpers

[Killerqueen2244]

We were staying in a place in the US where Bradenton was the main city. We were pronouncing it Brad-enton when asking for directions but after some confused looks and raised eyebrows we were corrected- it was ‘Braid-enton’. Cringe!!

I recently read Joe Wicks apparently called Wensleydale ‘Wenslay-dahl-lay’ on Instagram, which makes me laugh every time I think about it. I hope it’s not true for his sake!!

[Lexilooo]

Poor Loughborough, not only does it suffer Loogabarooga but also the Americans pronouncing ough as ow so they call it lowborrow

[AgeLikeWine]

@Elouera

The Essex town of Harwich- isn't pronounced HAR-WICH like sandwich, its H-ARIDGE!!!

Leicester-isn't LI-CESTER, its LESTER!

Or, if you’re a local, Les-toh.

[Lurleene]

I've said this one in here many moons ago I think. When I was young I thought my Mum was describing the state of my bedroom as looking like a bomsytit. I didn't know what a bomsytit was just that it must be something very messy.

I also remember asking the waiter in Wagamama what vegetables were in a dish. He told us that one was man-get-out so obviously that is what we still call it in this house. I wonder how many times he called it that before he realised.

[Summer15coming]

I still don't know how to pronounce aspartame, so I avoid saying it. Any views?

[AhBallix]

I remember reading out a passage from a textbook at school and reading the word heifer as hi-fer instead of heffer. I never bloody lived it down. I knew the word colloquially, but had never seen it in print.

I also read determined as detter-mined. After much braying and guffawing from my sister, it was like someone had flooded my brain with light. It's not as if I hadn't heard the word before but I just didn't make the connection.

[AhBallix]

@Summer15coming

Ahspart-amay.

I fink!!

[7ofNine]

I say a-spar-tame
No idea if that's correct though.

[123Dancewithme]

A-spar-tame, I think.

[MillicentMartha]

I pronounce it ASS par taim, no idea if that’s right?

[MadisonAvenue]

@SunsetBeetch

I used to think awry was pronounced aw-ree. I'd only ever seen it written down.

Same!

Me too!

[WeBuiltThisBuffetOnSausageRoll]

Can't beat we are four pages in and lingerie hasn't had a mention. I was in my late teens before I found out it wasn't ling ga ree! Luckily a few women at work were laughing at some other poor sod who mispronounced it out loud!

Hardly anybody in the English-speaking pronounces it properly, though. 'Linger-ee' is obviously wrong (and sounds comical), but if you pronounced it that way, almost everybody would laugh at you and 'correct' it to 'lon-jher-AY'. Why, I've no idea as the last syllable is pronounced 'ee'. Ironically, I think it makes more sense to pronounce it 'linger-ee' (as a native English speaker using logical English pronunciation) than 'lon-jher-AY', which is basically cod French and unilaterally unauthentic. I always think the same with 'envelope' - either say it as 'on-veh-loppe' (French) or 'en-vuh-lope' (English) - yet so many people use a bizarre hybrid and say 'on-vuh-lope'.

Harass is another one where the US pronunciation has almost completely taken over in the UK. In British English, it should be 'HARR-uss' (sounding very similar to the surname Harris), but you invariably hear 'harr-ASS'. I blame Frank Spencer! The same is the case with 'wrath' and 'schedule'.

[elp30]

This thread is good for me.
I hadn't realized how many words I've been mispronouncing.
The Harry Potter female character trips me up each and every time.
I suppose it's because I have never encountered the name in my life but I can indeed pronounce the name "Cuauhtemoc" as I know two.

I was watching "How I Met Your Mother" yesterday and I came across an episode that is perfect for this thread. Enjoy!

Chameleon

[WeBuiltThisBuffetOnSausageRoll]

I pronounce it ASS par taim, no idea if that’s right?

I presume that's the accepted pronunciation, sounding more American (to me - I may be wrong), as it was basically introduced to the world by Donald Rumsfeld and has made him a very, very rich man indeed.

Not wanting to derail the thread, but its introduction was/is subject to a great deal of controversy - some very interesting info about it online. Incidentally, that's another word which has almost universally lost its British pronunciation in the UK ('CON-truh-ver-see') in favour of the US 'con-TRO-ver-see'!

[WeBuiltThisBuffetOnSausageRoll]

Hardly anybody in the English-speaking pronounces it properly

I just noticed that there was a 'world' missing from that sentence.