I used to think Hyperbole was pronounced Hi-per-bowl

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As self-professed pedants do you have any equally embarrassing admissions?

When he was a boy, my dad (now 80) used to think picturesque was pronounced picture skew.

I have to FORCE myself to say "booookaaay" of flowers instead of ""bowkwett" - how come it is "bankwett" and not "bonkaay"??

and always used to read "phoebe" as "fobe"...

I mean how come it is bankwett and not bonket?

you mean bon-kaaaaaay shurely

i am none the wiser

what is a hyperbole and how must one pronounce it?

You are not alone, TheYuleLogLady, I have no clue either what it is or how indeed it is pronounced.

Thought Penelope was Penny-lope, and Socrates Sock-rates until I heard them spoken proper. Just recently heard of an American reading Clitheroe for the first time. He thought the second half was 'hero', you can work out the rest (if only!...)

I was in a meeting once with an American that pronounced vauxhall as vaux (as in faux) hal. I nearly, and rather unprofessionally, fell about laughing.

My nana always pronounced Barbados as barb-ah-dos, which I often do too, as a fond memory of her.

My sister once read a sign for a pottery shop called Chinacave as 'Chin-a-carve' which still cracks me up

When I was about 9 a friend got hold of 'The Little Red Schoolbook' (60's anarchist sex-ed book for kids). We enthusiastically read about the Pennis, the Vagg-in-ah, scrott-um, ovv-um, gonn-ads, etc.

Then we learnt all about Herps and Gonn-oh-riah.

We felt very smug and mature.

I remember a girl in my school, reading aloud a piece of creative writing that she'd done, pronouncing poignant as pwag-nant. It was even more funny that she clearly had high aspirations of being supremely good at English and wasn't too pleased when I pointed out the correct pronounciation

I studied Romeo and Juliet at school, in year 8 so I was 12ish. There's a speech at the beginning that mentions "holding day with the Antipodes". For some reason nobody corrected me (teachers, the students were none the wiser) so I ended up reading it aloud in assembly as "anti-podes", not "an-tip-o-dees"

My MIL visits primary schools as part of her job to do specialist teacher training, in one school she found a whole class doing a project about Nambia. They had a wall full of Nambia displays. She had to take the teacher to one side to gently tell her "I think it's Namibia" and the teacher said "no, it's not, it's Nambia!"

The next time she was there there were little i's inserted all over the wall displays

I remember as a child reading a story that had a "been-lo-vent old gentleman" in it. I also asked my Mum what a "jypes-eye" was - turns out it was a gypsy! (she still giggles about that to this day)

I thought escalopes were pronounced like envelopes.

My granny always pronounced Peugeot cars Pew-gotts!

Achilles as in tendon. I had ack and the hilles part to rhyme with 'smiles''!!

TheYuleLogLady

Pronounced high PER buli (stress on the middle syllable). It means exaggeration, as in 'he didn't really mean it, it was hyperbole'

I was an early reader, and I can still recall being confused, around the age of 4, by the written word "between". The only way I could see that was as "bet-ween" which, of course, made no sense whatsoever. But I also recall that delicious lightbulb moment when I eventually figured it out all by myself.