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Original poster

Words you realised you pronounce different or wrong?

238 replies

heartbroken22 · 04/12/2023 05:59

What words have you realised aren't pronounced the way you pronounce them? How did you find out? Tribute was pronounced try bute by me. Only realised when a child corrected me 😂

OP posts:
flowerchild2000 · 04/12/2023 06:07

I read a lot as a child and I grew up in the country so I never heard a lot of the words I knew spoken aloud. It bled over in adulthood which was so embarrassing. One time I pronounced Seoul as "Seh-ool". Luckily it was a friend who corrected me and not one of the many Koreans I worked with at the time. Another time I was at a fancy brunch with some ladies I worked with, and one of them said she was from Missouri. (I'm in the US) I had never met anyone from there and didn't know how to pronounce it with my country accent at play. She pronounced it "Mizzuruh" and I excitedly proclaimed OH that's how you say it!! Everyone looked at me in horror- they obviously thought I was making fun of her Midwest accent but I truly was delighted. I still think about that often, years later and die inside a little more with embarrassment.

Original poster
heartbroken22 · 04/12/2023 06:33

😂 that's funny.

OP posts:
Slavica · 04/12/2023 06:45

I am not a native speaker and I encountered many English words on the page before I heard them spoken. A classic is "awry" - aw-rhee instead of ah-rhye. I was very embarrassed when I said it and nobody could figure out what I meant until I rephrased.

distinctpossibility · 04/12/2023 06:48

In sixth form English lit I had to read aloud a passage including "Che sera sera". Aka "Shay Sarah Sarah'"

ohdamnitjanet · 04/12/2023 07:00

flowerchild2000 · 04/12/2023 06:07

I read a lot as a child and I grew up in the country so I never heard a lot of the words I knew spoken aloud. It bled over in adulthood which was so embarrassing. One time I pronounced Seoul as "Seh-ool". Luckily it was a friend who corrected me and not one of the many Koreans I worked with at the time. Another time I was at a fancy brunch with some ladies I worked with, and one of them said she was from Missouri. (I'm in the US) I had never met anyone from there and didn't know how to pronounce it with my country accent at play. She pronounced it "Mizzuruh" and I excitedly proclaimed OH that's how you say it!! Everyone looked at me in horror- they obviously thought I was making fun of her Midwest accent but I truly was delighted. I still think about that often, years later and die inside a little more with embarrassment.

I’m in the UK and it’s only in the last year or two I realised Arkansas and Arkansaw aren’t two different places …

ohdamnitjanet · 04/12/2023 07:01

Slavica · 04/12/2023 06:45

I am not a native speaker and I encountered many English words on the page before I heard them spoken. A classic is "awry" - aw-rhee instead of ah-rhye. I was very embarrassed when I said it and nobody could figure out what I meant until I rephrased.

Me too @Slavica and I’m UK. I doubt we’re alone tbh!

Justleaveitblankthen · 04/12/2023 07:06

A guy I met one night was boasting about being some hot shot Hollywood producer and every year for twenty years visits the Cannes Film Festival.
His face was a picture when I eventually asked why he pronounced the "S" in Cannes? 😂

LadyOfTheCanyon · 04/12/2023 07:08

I was a voracious reader as a child so for ages read ( in my head - I didn't move in the sort of circles where I'd be called upon to pronounce them!) words wrong.
A selection:
Diaspora
Segue
Detritus
Biopic
Parabola
Tragedians
Hyperbole
Quinoa

MadisonAvenue · 04/12/2023 07:09

ohdamnitjanet · 04/12/2023 07:01

Me too @Slavica and I’m UK. I doubt we’re alone tbh!

Show quote history

You’re definitely not alone, awry is one that I pronounced incorrectly until a couple of years ago 🤭

flowerchild2000 · 04/12/2023 07:12

ohdamnitjanet · 04/12/2023 07:00

I’m in the UK and it’s only in the last year or two I realised Arkansas and Arkansaw aren’t two different places …

Show quote history

This made me laugh out loud! 😆

MogHog · 04/12/2023 07:13

Hyperbole which I'd always thought was as its written. I only realised after 40 that it's hi-per-buh-lee

flowerchild2000 · 04/12/2023 07:14

Slavica · 04/12/2023 06:45

I am not a native speaker and I encountered many English words on the page before I heard them spoken. A classic is "awry" - aw-rhee instead of ah-rhye. I was very embarrassed when I said it and nobody could figure out what I meant until I rephrased.

I still have to stop myself before saying this word, like "please say it correctly.." because for SO long it was ah-ree in my head!

ToBeOrNotToBee · 04/12/2023 08:04

Fatigue was pronounced fat-e-goo until I was 29.

ChanelNo19EDT · 04/12/2023 08:07

English must be so hard for non native speakers, i was just wondering yesterday if Car and War rhyme in England. They don't for me at all and that struck me as strange, just three letters and there's room for variance in the pronunciation.

Nannyfannybanny · 04/12/2023 08:10

Hyperbole, and rendezvous. Dalziel (and pascoe)

smilesup · 04/12/2023 08:14

I still read Grand Pricks in my head before changing it when F1 is on.

pickledandpuzzled · 04/12/2023 08:17

Gingham (like ginger)
Archipelago- emphasis on lay
Quay
quite a lot of sea related words, actually. Think I read a watery book very young.
embarrassment- emphasis on ass.
Maurice emphasis on Reese…

Many many more. The perils of being a young advanced reader!

SpringMeadows · 04/12/2023 08:20

Innovative. I used to stress the NO rather than the I at the front of the word.

Newtonianmechanics · 04/12/2023 08:25

I remember Simon Cowell and hyperbole on BGT.

I have to consciously correct Suite as in a hotel Suite. I say Suit.

My friend says wardrum for a wardrobe. Have not corrected her in 35 years. It's cute.

PandaG · 04/12/2023 08:26

Picturesque - as a voracious young reader I had read this but not heard it. I pronounced it picture - skwee in my head for ages, but thankfully the first time I used it out loud was in front of my Mum who corrected me.

GETTINGLIKEMYMOTHER · 04/12/2023 09:04

My Dbro was a voracious reader from a very early age, so often mispronounced words he’d read and understood, but had never heard spoken.

Family favourites were ‘denny’ as in ‘I know it was you, so you needn’t denny it!’
but best was perhaps ‘Gribble-ayter’ (as in the Rock of…).
We still call it that!

GETTINGLIKEMYMOTHER · 04/12/2023 09:06

My own ‘best’ was ‘fuchsia’, from the fairy in the Flower Fairies book - which I pronounced ‘fuckseeya’ - until an aunt hastily but tactfully corrected me!

AgnesX · 04/12/2023 09:12

Chaos..... Choss ( when I was as teen)

In my 20s pinot grigio....I was corrected by a waiter for pronouncing grigio with a hard g 😔

Fromage · 04/12/2023 09:17

Gillespie is not pronounce 'Jill, a spy'

LadyDanburysHat · 04/12/2023 09:25

I had a few of these being a big reader too. Some obvious ones mentioned, hyperbole, awry. But when I was young I read the Sweet Valley High books and in my head Phoebe as Fo-bee. You didn't get many Phoebes in the 1980s so had never heard it in real life.