To have misunderstood the meaning of this word my whole life?

[Lemonsaretheonlyfruit]

Salubrious.

I always thought it meant luxurious. Turns out it means healthy or health giving. (My 10 year old DS asked me this morning so I looked it up just to double check I was giving him the correct definition!)

Who knew? (Probably everyone apart from me). Any more of these to share?

If we are talking about misheard / incorrect phrases too, I have an otherwise learned friend who used to put people on a "pedal stool" 🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️

@GuillermoVanHelsing

Spendthrift. To me, that should mean a miserly, penny pinching person not some irresponsible cash splasher

Yes that one always confuses me. I think because of the use of 'thrift' whereas thrifty means being careful with money

Seen often on MN and elsewhere:

Off one's own back

The correct phrase is 'Off one's own bat' - refers to runs scored in cricket off one's own bat.

Banal and canal both have a French etymology, and they most definitely rhyme in French. There’s no inherent reason why they would be pronounced differently in English.

The word that baffles me is gingerly. Why does it mean ‘Very cautiously’ In what way is ginger cautious?

Until fairly recently I thought it meant ‘very quickly’. It turns out it has nothing at all to do with ginger.

There was one on a thread here recently - fisty cuffs.

I can never remember if dearth means a lot of something or hardly any.

@Twattergy

For years I thought it was 'remuneration'. Still don't really understand why it is remuneration, when it's like, about numbers innit?!?!?!

It’s about “muney”

Moot has two opposite meanings. It can mean that there is no need to discuss it or that it’s up for discussion.

Dearth= not enough of

Remuneration isn't really about numbers, it's about money.

I always thought the phrase "you can't have your cake and eat it too" made no sense - what else would you do with it? But I found out on here it is supposed to be "you can't eat your cake and have it too" which makes total sense.

I've long wondered about deceptively whatever, eg, deceptively large, does that mean it's large but it's deceiving you and really it's small, or small but it's pretending to be large. But I looked it up and it could be either

Inflammable sounds weird but makes sense if you consider the word inflammed.

@HarryLimeFoxtrot

Moot has two opposite meanings. It can mean that there is no need to discuss it or that it’s up for discussion.

I didn't know that. Is that where Entmoot comes from?

@unlikelytobe

Is it 'chomping at the bit' or 'champing at the bit' for eagerness?

It’s “champing” at the bit, because chomping means taking an actual bite out of something and the horse doesn’t actually bite through the bit, it just jiggles it around in its mouth.

The word ‘quite’ can mean different things. If someone is really quite lovely, quite is a positive modifier. If they are only quite nice, quite is a limiting modification. I can remember an argument over its use in a Jane Austen book at school when someone was described as quite eligible, and the meaning was very eligible rather than slightly eligible.

I’m English, I don’t pronounce banal (ban ahl) and canal (can al) the same. I think that I pronounce canal as an English word in my accent and banal as a borrowed French word, hence the difference.

@NellyJames

Please stop saying that banal and canal don’t rhyme and that those who think they do are saying it wrong. It’s very rude. They may not rhyme is some UK accents but they most certainly do in others.

I agree. But, more importantly, the poster who originally said she was so embarrassed to have been wrong about this need but feel any embarrassment whatsoever.

Need not.

I've long wondered about deceptively whatever, eg, deceptively large, does that mean it's large but it's deceiving you and really it's small, or small but it's pretending to be large. But I looked it up and it could be either confused

Unless it's said by an estate agent, then you just feel suspicious!

[quote WhereverIGoddamnLike]@Flaunch

In the UK, they both sound the same.
Bah-nal
Cah-nal[/quote]
Aaaaaaaaaargh!!

When will this end?

The 'correct' (and that's deliberately inverted commas) pronunciation in the UK, as has been shown on her via various links is:

cuh-NAL
bah-NAAHL

In various accents it is different. For the US posters on here it also seems that it's different.

Until and unless posters say where they're from when they post their opinion on this, the thread will continue to go round in circles.

@PatriciaHolm

Well, in relation to a place, salubrious does mean nice/agreeable/pleasant etc. You can refer to, for example "very salubrious surroundings".

For me - iconoclast always sounds as if it should be something to do with being an icon, not to do with attacking them!

The suffix -clast in biology indicates a cell that destroys/breaks down something. So osteoclasts break down bone cells.

And osteoblasts build them up.

I’m English, I don’t pronounce banal (ban ahl) and canal (can al) the same. I think that I pronounce canal as an English word in my accent and banal as a borrowed French word, hence the difference.

I think that might be the other way around? The 'ahl' / 'aahl' pronunciation sounds very English to me, not French. (I'm Irish, btw).

@saraclara, I’m pretty sure that most UK rhotic accents pronounce those words to rhyme. I know they don’t rhyme in most accents from around SE England but that is not to say one is correct and the other not. The links are not proof of anything other that how that particular person pronounces the word.

@Hangingover

I thought calling a spade a spade was about shovels. I said it for years. Mortified.

It IS about spades and shovels. There was a very unfunny racist ‘joke’ version of the proverb that went about in the 1960s but that wasn’t the original version.

And I actually am from the SE but that is complicated from having Irish parents and spending some of my childhood in Ireland then attending university in Scotland.

@LadyMonicaBaddingham

There's a street in Swansea called Salubrious Passage 😂

That just sounds so, "And then she showed me her salubrious passage, if you know what I mean," nudge, nudge, wink, wink,

@kitnkaboodle, your mum was correct, on both counts.