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?

Banal does rhyme with Canal! (In the UK)

Really after 4/5 pages, peopke still insist IT DOES or IT DOESN'T

It only took about 3 posts for people to realsise that obviously it different parts of the UK it does and doesn't rhyme depending on accent!

In my accent, (broadly southern) they do not rhyme. as has been said - Can-al (short second a)
and ban-aal (long second a)

But obviously in some parts of UK, in some accents, they do rhyme.

It is incredible naval gazing to insist that they do or don't depending on how you say it.

@Bluntness100

I’m in the U.K. and definitely don’t think banal and canal rhyme! (“Banarl” vs “can-al

There is no r in banal. It must be dialect, I attached the correct pronunciation link above.

Top tip: If you are going to try and pronounce English words purely from their spelling, it is just not going to work.

Yes, ambivalent and ambiguous are often confused.
I thought it was 'renumeration' for years.
Avuncular I only learned quite late.

On a lighter note, the first time I saw 'ballache' I thought it was a French word pronounced ballash..

[quote Bluntness100]Not according to the Oxford English Dictionary

According to Oxford they do.

www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/definition/english/banal

www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/definition/english/canal?q=Canal[/quote]
They don’t even rhyme in your examples.

Top tip: If you are going to try and pronounce English words purely from their spelling, it is just not going to work

This makes no sense, because it is pronounced phonetically. Oxford English Dictionary confirms this. Accents account for th difference.

Guillermo.

Candelabra Just looked it up ........"Flammable and inflammable do not mean the same thing. If something is flammable it means it can be set fire to, such as a piece of wood. However, inflammable means that a substance is capable of bursting into flames without the need for any ignition. ... The opposite of both words is non-flammable."

@Bluntness100

I’m in the U.K. and definitely don’t think banal and canal rhyme! (“Banarl” vs “can-al

There is no r in banal. It must be dialect, I attached the correct pronunciation link above.

ar is a way or writing a long a sound in a non rhotic accent.

Non rhotic accents (eg RP) do not pronounce r in lots of places. And use ar as a shorthand for the long a sound to try and show on paper what they are saying. It is because it is the same sound as in car. Because in a non rhotic accent you don't actually say the r in car.

For years from mid teens onwards I had only ever read the word awry (usually in a newspaper) but never heard it said out loud. In my head I read it as 'OAR-ee', as in oar used to row a boat. I worked out from the context what it meant, and just assumed the pronunciation. I was was very surprised to learn I was completely wrong.

I always assumed mortified meant to be so embarrassed you wished you were dead (or something along those lines).

Agree I hear it used a lot to mean terribly upset. She was mortified when her father died. Though that could just be a regional thing.

They do mean the same thing: something that is easily set on fire.
Flammable does not mean it is easily set on fire. It means it is capable of being set on fire. Hence why when saying something is easily set on fire, it usually has the word 'highly' in front if it.
Something is Inflammable when it is a substance that will (not just that it is capable) of bursting into flames. There is a difference.

Well, I'm not ever saying 'banal' again in public, just in case.

@nemeton

I had a colleague whose mum thought that fornicating meant fawning... Ooh, he's such a fornicator

That's a polite way of calling someone a fucker

Lots of people say 'weary' when they mean 'wary'.

[quote Bluntness100]Not according to the Oxford English Dictionary

According to Oxford they do.

www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/definition/english/banal

www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/definition/english/canal?q=Canal[/quote]
But those two pronunciations don't rhyme!

I'm in the 'they don't rhyme' camp and pronounce them the way those links do.

Isn't it strange how we can hear the same two words as different and the same? Language is amazing and confusing!

Like KiposWonderbeasts I would also like to know how "mortified" can be misused. I have only ever heard it meaning horribly embarrassed...

@Faircastle

I'm never quite sure whether nonplussed means disconcerted / perplexed / taken aback, or whether it means the opposite of that. I've seen it used in both contexts.

Apparently it means both. HTH

Infamous - lots of people (including myself in the past) misuse it to mean 'very famous' not notorious for something bad.

steppemum, forgive me for pointing out that naval gazing is something an admiral might do when considering warships, but contemplating your inner thought processes is navel-gazing.

My internal pedant cannot resist correcting your error.

Polite request that we stop with the banal/canal chat seeing as the original poster clarified that they mis-typed and meant to say she previously thought it rhymed with anal:

I clearly can't spell either! I discovered it DOES rhyme with canal! I was running round saying it as in anal with a b at the start

But many thanks for explaining rhotic/non-rhotic. Not a word I knew, but grateful to enrich my vocabulary.

how to pronounce banal - Egnlish v American

*English

One thing banal does not rhyme with is anal.

I say ban-arl or ban-aaahl
and
Can-al but the al sounds half way to owl. Can-aul

The Oxford English dictionary says canal and banal are pronounced differently. But clearly they're pronounced the same in many regional accents.