So many, but the funniest has been "meme" (English is not my first language). My online friends who are English speakers were eternally amused by it, sadly my audhd brain has forgotten how I pronounced it.
my audhd brain has forgotten how I pronounced it.
Maybe "mehmeh" or "meemee"?
My first encounter with it was from the Selfish Gene, where Dawkins describes it as a "mind version of a gene", so he thought meme sounded fine. Hearing Maymay was bonkers to me.
While we're on the subject who the fuck decided lingerie should be pronounced lawn-jer-ay
? Petition to stop letting the French decide how words are spelled because if I have to try to correctly spell burgiouisey one more time I'm going to flip.
if the english were managing their language so well why did they lose the battle of Hastings?
I gave up and have started to just opt for calling them bourge. Can't pronounce it either.
Not trying to troll or creep. I didn’t realize what instance I was on at first. But I read your spelling and my head immediately jumped to the Borgs from Star Trek. Got a solid cackle from me. It’s been a long disappointing day so genuinely, thank you for my laughter. I’ve seen too much RISA maybe. Have a great one
It's "lɛ̃ʒ.ʁi" in French with the "ee" instead of "ay"
All of them (technically)
I'm ESL
Paradigm. I pronounced it para-dig-m, like an idiot
To me that makes it sound like an insect - It's kinda like a no see em but bigger with a worse bite.
No see em is another name for biting midges
Segue, how the fuck are you supposed to guess the pronounciation of that when there's hardly any other english words like it? I pretty much didn't learn the actual way to say it until university. I always said it "SEGG" and just assumed the rest was silent because it's ridiculous.
I remember mispronouncing Montague (from shakespeare) for the same reason.
ennui, but really do french derived words count
Everyone in my elementary school pronounced zealot as zeal-lot.
Now I wish that was the pronunciation.
Melee
I still say it wrong
There's a significant population of 20- and 30-somethings who know the proper pronunciation of melee
entirely because of Smash Bros.
pls no dox
Parable of the Sower... I thought it was a book about pigs (sows). I still mispronounce it in my head.😅
Sower Patch Kids
don’t have a good answer to OP’s question but i just want to give a shoutout to my fellow IPA literate sickos in this thread fighting the good fight
Death to America
Hexbear won't understand this coded message: /'dəþ 'tu 'ði æm'εrɪkən 'længwədʒ/
IPA
My brain interprets that as a horrible foreign language so if I want to share a pronunciation for simplicity's sake I use dictionary.com. An example...
SEG-wey
It's not perfect but it's the best site I know.
"Calliope". I thought it was "Kal-ee-ope". I found out like last week it's "Kal-I-Oh-Pee".
Kal-ee-ope
My favorite online dictionary is usually spot on. It has two pronunciations. The only way I've heard it pronounced is the first pronunciation - kuh-LAHY-uh-pee. The second is KAL-ee-ohp which I don't think I ever heard until a minute ago in that digital voice.
Subpoena, pronounced it as sʌb-pəʊ-ena (/suhb-pou-ehna/)
. There is no argument that oe should make an [i] sound. I refuse to entertain the thought.
What is one word you realized you were pronouncing wrong until you heard someone else say it?
Mine: affidavit
Pronounced it a-fit-a-vit (not unlike "a Fitbit") for about 3 months in college trying to get out of a dorm contract I wasn't happy with.
I'm dyslexic so my relationship to words like "affidavit" is a strange one. My first exposure to the word must have been via a tv series. I watched an insane amout of tv as a kid. So I heard the word many years before I ever saw the written form. With such words - there's confusion in my mind when I see the written form. If I were to look at the word and try to pronounce it - I'd likely mispronounce it like then I was a kid coping with pretty easy words that still gave me grief.
ptolemy. and ptolemy.
Ennui
Used to say it Enh-ooey
Wait....how do you say it 👀
Dachshund and indicted:
Dash-Hound In-Dicked-ed
Even though I heard people pronounce dachshund I didn't connect it to the written word until I was in my 30's probably. I knew that a weiner dog was a "doc-sun" but didn't know how it was spelled
All of them. I read everything phonetically and then my brain jumbles it up for extra word flavor. I mispronounce words you can't even imagine
Worcestershire sauce. If it was meant to be pronounced wooster why did you add the rce bit
Same goes for Leicester.
Ironically, shibboleth.
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