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[Closed] Words you've always pronounced incorrectly

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Stoic.... and stoical, I suppose.
stoike? Or stow-ick?
I've always used the latter, but a vet pronounced our elderly dog as being quite stoike a few weeks ago (he has a touch of arfur-itis) and that just sounded bloody weird to me


 
Posted : 30/03/2022 3:45 pm
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I believe you're right, and your vet should stick to vetting.


 
Posted : 30/03/2022 3:46 pm
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Yeah, fair enough, my phonetic spelling was ambiguous. He said 'Sh-say', with a flourish. It's shassee, like Massey (Ferguson).

Oh, another was the pompous twazzock who asked me for 'Cal-va-doth' when wine waiting at some toy-sellers guild meal in Manchester back in the 90's, explaining that it's 'Spanish apple brandy' I suppose assuming I'd neither heard of it nor knew it's in fact French.


 
Posted : 30/03/2022 3:50 pm
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Not me, but a former housemate pronounced chassis, “shassey”.

I think there is either 'Sch-assy' or 'Ch-assy'.

Steve Jones off GMBN is always saying Ch-assy.
Might be a Welsh lilt.
I say Shassy me.


 
Posted : 30/03/2022 3:52 pm
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Tchotchke is pronounced Chat-ka (if you’re interested)

I was. Huh, found this on a quick google just there:

tchotchke comes from the Yiddish tshatshke of the same meaning, and ultimately from a now-obsolete Polish word, czaczko

So it's actually an American word which is derived from a Yiddish word which is derived from a Polish word. And amazingly still as unpronounceable (in English) as when it started!

How about “Braun”?

German innit? Brown. Not brawn.


 
Posted : 30/03/2022 3:59 pm
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(* – shut it, Squirrelface)

🤣 🤐


 
Posted : 30/03/2022 4:16 pm
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I once heard someone in a seminar pronounce French philosopher Saint-Simon as 'Saint Simon'. I was discombobulated wondering whether Marx ever debated with zealots from the bible.


 
Posted : 30/03/2022 4:46 pm
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Similar to that,

Stringfellow Hawk's deceased brother in Airwolf, "Sinjin." I read the book and spent half of it wondering who the hell this Saint John bloke was that they kept mentioning.


 
Posted : 30/03/2022 5:15 pm
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Have we had ‘segue’ yet?

That one I learned the correct pronunciation years ago, from radio DJ’s.

I learned that one from Frank Zappa who described a particular link between two tunes as "a rickety segue".

Oh and I'm delighted the STW massive know how to pronounce Braun. Shame the masses don't seem to.


 
Posted : 30/03/2022 7:08 pm
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I remember the first time I saw the word paradigm.

Never a word I use so I wouldn't mispronounce but for a long time I never made a connection between the word as as heard and the word as read and must have imagined they were different words that meant the same thing.


 
Posted : 30/03/2022 7:50 pm
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Dictating computer game instructions, “type LOAD double quotation mark MANIC double quotation mark and press enter.”

I think young people would find it quaint that we used to use cassette players to load computer games  - but actually dictating them is properly oldschool


 
Posted : 30/03/2022 7:56 pm
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Not a mispronunciation, but I have mixed up etymology and entomology in conversation (and I just had to google now to confirm which meaning is correct for each word).


 
Posted : 30/03/2022 8:04 pm
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Aitch or Haitch?


 
Posted : 30/03/2022 8:23 pm
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Aitch or Haitch?

'H' spelled 'Aitch' but 'Aitch' is pronounced 'Haitch'

The pronunciation of 'Aitch' is an example of 'H-adding' - the opposite of dropping the H - verbally we add an H where there isn't one.

I'm not sure if H-Adding has fallen out of use - featured in things like My Fair Lady "'Ampshire, 'urricanes 'ardly hever 'appen" - makes me think of Drill Sargents - dropping Hs where they belong and adding them where they don't

'Marchin hup and down the square'


 
Posted : 30/03/2022 8:41 pm
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I have mixed up etymology and entomology in conversation

People who can't distinguish between etymology and entomology bug me in ways I cannot put into words.


 
Posted : 30/03/2022 8:43 pm
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Electoral.


 
Posted : 30/03/2022 9:28 pm
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Quite a few of my family seem to say Houmous as 'Who-muss' instead of 'Hoommus'
Not really sure how to express it the 'normal' way but I believe it's more of a rapid 'hoom' than a drawn out 'whom'.

Oh god, and I've heard Falafel as 'Fall-a-fell'
It's sooooo embarassing 😂

What about 'Arks'?

'Have you arksed him?'
'Arks him yourself!'


 
Posted : 30/03/2022 9:57 pm
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Aks is a legitimate form of ask


 
Posted : 30/03/2022 10:38 pm
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Oh, interesting.


 
Posted : 30/03/2022 11:48 pm
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Words you of always pronounced incorrectly.


 
Posted : 30/03/2022 11:54 pm
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All this talking proper stuff has made me think of Gyles Brandreth (the man with the knitted head, if anyone can remember that far back?)

See him? See his pish about pronunciation? He can stick his queen's English where the kwinoa don't shine! Right beside a couple of fresh croy-sants.


 
Posted : 31/03/2022 1:26 am
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I always struggle when people are attempting to pronounce 'specific' and end up somewhere in the middle of the 'pacific' ocean.

Where pacifically would you like item x to be delivered? Somewhere between Los Angeles and New Zealand would be an appropriate answer*.

*if I was being a git and a pedant.


 
Posted : 31/03/2022 9:23 am
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This is one I came and stumbled accross recently. Dint know it: chthonic

Answers on a postcard pls.


 
Posted : 31/03/2022 9:36 am
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On the brand name thing, and bike related, I'd always thought "Leatt" was pronounced "Leet" but on one of the Xmas giveaway videos (or similar) Hannah was pronouncing it "Layatt" and I've since since a video from them where they call themselves "Leeyatt".


 
Posted : 31/03/2022 9:37 am
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Arkansas
Someone I unfortunately worked with said ‘Ar-Kansas’, instead of Ar-can-saw.
True story.

I-dint-know-dat. Ta, 1% less thick now 🙃


 
Posted : 31/03/2022 12:34 pm
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I pronounce shitake incorrectly just for giggles.


 
Posted : 31/03/2022 12:42 pm
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In the ambulance service, I hear the word ‘ospickle’ a lot. It makes my left eyelid twitch every single time. Especially if preceded with the words ‘to’ and ‘rushed’.


 
Posted : 31/03/2022 12:50 pm
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Aks is a legitimate form of ask

If you're a rapper, sure.


 
Posted : 31/03/2022 4:12 pm
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On the brand name thing, and bike related

Giant


 
Posted : 31/03/2022 11:16 pm
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Commen-kal
Commence-al
Commen-sal


 
Posted : 01/04/2022 4:16 am
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I was working with a company called Quay pharma and I spent quite a long time calling them “kway” pharma. I’d like to think it was because the word was out of context but really it’s because I’m an idiot.


 
Posted : 01/04/2022 10:30 am
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Wound (injury) I've been reading/internally pronouncing as wound (wrapped around) all my life. Luckily I don't have cause to say it out loud very often.


 
Posted : 01/04/2022 10:35 am
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If you’re a rapper, sure.

Or a medievalist. It's probably not a million miles away from how middle English - think about 900CE-1300CE would have pronounced Ask


 
Posted : 01/04/2022 10:36 am
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My partner and our youngest daughter say Noo when pronouncing the word new.
Also hear it a lot on broadcast media as well.
Am I wrong?


 
Posted : 01/04/2022 10:48 am
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I was working with a company called Quay pharma and I spent quite a long time calling them “kway” pharma. I’d like to think it was because the word was out of context but really it’s because I’m an idiot.

similarly, working with a company called Visaq.  Spent my first meeting there pronouncing it 'Visa-Queue" before realising they made contact lenses so had something to do with vision and it was actually pronounced Viz-ak.

clumsy name though.


 
Posted : 01/04/2022 10:50 am
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clumsy name though

Its annoying working for these companies. Having people mispronounce or spell it all the time (not their fault usually) is bad but having to spend ages trying to explain your email address gets tiresome. I worked at a place with "at" in its name. "My email, yes, its nick at, that's the symbol at then at, that's the word at, then a dash, the symbol, hello, are you still there..."


 
Posted : 01/04/2022 10:57 am
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“My email, yes, its nick at, that’s the symbol at then at, that’s the word at, then a dash, the symbol, hello, are you still there…”

our office manager who is often the first point of contact for new clients has a double barreled first name where both of those names have multiple common spellings. The number of times a day she has to spell out her full email address and sometimes explain which one is the hyphen, I wonder how many potential clients we have lost into the ether.
She's got an obvious last name since getting married, so that has shortened the process slightly.


 
Posted : 01/04/2022 11:02 am
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I haven't waded through all seven pages, so apols if this has already been posted.


 
Posted : 01/04/2022 11:11 am
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My email, yes, its nick at, that’s the symbol at then at, that’s the word at, then a dash, the symbol, hello, are you still there…”

"Nick at A T hyphen..."

If it's that much of a pain maybe do it the other way around, ask them for their address and mail them so they can reply. TBH I don't know why "exchanging addresses" isn't more commonplace, it halves the chance of getting cocked up.

our office manager who is often the first point of contact for new clients has a double barreled first name where both of those names have multiple common spellings.

"Multiple" might be a pain, but with a name with a common misspelling it can be added as an alias on an Exchange mailbox.


 
Posted : 01/04/2022 11:22 am
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Halcyon.

I pronounce shitake incorrectly just for giggles.

Thats just one up from a pisstake, right?

Mickey < Piss < Shit ?


 
Posted : 01/04/2022 11:27 am
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Shitakes and gigglakes?


 
Posted : 01/04/2022 11:35 am
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“Nick at A T hyphen…”

is that nick@80- or nick@athyphen or nick@atea- or nick@eighty- etc

If it’s that much of a pain maybe...

It was easier to leave 🙂


 
Posted : 01/04/2022 11:55 am
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The number of times a day she has to spell out her full email address

I used to work in an orgnanistion in the Highlands and quite a few groups I'd correspond with had their entire organisation's name, in Gaelic, as their domain name.... and spent a lot of time explaining it over the phone.

Mindful of that when I went back to being freelance rather than try and register a domain that related to me or my business I sought out the shortest chain of characters available which turned out to be one numeral, and two letters and I don't even bother putting my name in front of it so no risk of mis-spelling that. Easy - mail@***.co.uk. yes?

Well no - the number of people who'll write done the number as a word rather than the numeral is surprising but also one of the letters is 'L' which they jot down as 'l' then later type as'1'

So I have to dictate it s 'number* capital * capital *' even though its not case sensitive just so they write the letters down as capitals and then be able to read them correctly later. Quite as lot of talking for a string of three characters.


 
Posted : 01/04/2022 2:34 pm
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Look at all those chrees in the park!


 
Posted : 01/04/2022 2:49 pm
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It was easier to leave 🙂

Seems a bit of an overreaction if I'm honest.


 
Posted : 01/04/2022 2:52 pm
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