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Twitter Users Are Sharing The Words They Thought They Were Pronouncing Right But Were Wrong The Entire Time (31 Tweets)
Everyone keeps telling you that you should be a writer and that you’re an ace at literature. It gets to your head. You start believing your own hype. And that’s the moment that somebody tells you that you’ve been completely mispronouncing some of the words you’ve learned from reading. Embarrassing? Yup! Something that’s happened to a lot of us? Double yup!
When Andree Lau asked Twitter to share some of the words they’ve been mispronouncing the entire time, people responded with gusto. And their answers are amazing and bound to make you giggle. Scroll on down and upvote your fave pronunciations, dear Pandas. If you feel up for sharing, let us know what words you’ve been saying wrong in the comment section (personally, I’d been saying ‘Hermione’ like Viktor Krum until Book 4 of HP).
"Pronunciation is hard even for native speakers, especially when it comes to less-common words like “epitome.” I’ve known lots of people who learned words by reading, not by hearing, and so had no idea how they were pronounced. But for people learning English, pronunciation can be a real nightmare," Lisa McLendon, the News and Information Track Chair and the Coordinator at the Bremner Editing Center at the University of Kansas School of Journalism, told Bored Panda. Read on to learn more about chaotic English pronunciations, Pandas.
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#2
Tiger Pearl 4 years ago
I bet JK Rowling included that scene just to teach readers the correct pronunciation.
According to McLendon, the English language has words that are spelled similarly but pronounced differently (for example, bomb, comb, and tomb), as well as words that are spelled differently but sound the same (like peek, peak, and pique). "Plus, English has a lot of words that have silent letters, which can be confusing," the language expert explained.
We wanted to find out if the rules governing English pronunciations were a lot different than those found in other languages. McLendon stressed that in terms of how spelling reflects pronunciation and vice versa, English pronunciation is "a lot more chaotic."
#5
McLendon detailed: "English is a Gallic overlay on a Germanic base, plus it has borrowed liberally from languages all around the world throughout is development. So when a word comes into English, where it comes from, and when a spelling gets standardized all affect how a word is written in relation to how it sounds."
McLendon noted that other languages may not be exactly "spelled like it sounds," however, they have set patterns of how pronunciation doesn't correspond with spelling.
Before you start feeling bad about making mistakes when it comes to English, it’s best to remember that the language has errrr ‘some’ irregularities when it comes to spelling and pronunciation. That’s why just reading or just watching English TV shows is never enough!
The poem ‘The Chaos’ by Dutch writer, traveler, and teacher Gerard Nolst Trenité (aka Charivarius) perfectly illustrates the disconnect between spelling and pronunciation.
The poem includes around 800 examples of irregular spelling and you can read it right here. Better yet, declaim it out loud for everyone to hear! But be careful not to break off your tongue, native speaker or not.
#10
Marcellus the Third 4 years ago
Hyperbole and parabola come from the same Greek roots so why didn't they stay the same (either hyperbole & parabole or hyperbola & parabola)?
English words mainly derive from old German and Norman French. While pronunciations of all 3 languages have changed enormously since 1066, it’s English that stands out with its unreliable pronunciation and very varied spellings for identical sounds.
According to The English Spelling Society, the consistency of English spelling started getting corrupted after it was reinstated as the official language of England in the 15th century.
The bible wars of the following century also meant that English consistency was thrown off course even more by foreign printers. Allegedly, there hasn’t been a coordinated attempt to try and remove all the corruptions in the English language. This is why some foreign students still find English to be a chaotic and beautiful headache.
#13
Arctic Fox Lover 4 years ago
Haha, my grandmother and I used to think it was that too. My mom corrected me, but I think my grandma still thinks it's "fox"...
#15
Arctic Fox Lover 4 years ago
:O Omg, same! And then I was like. "Mom, is it auto-spy report?" and she was like "No..."
#18
#23
Roxanne D'souza 4 years ago
OMG I once read it as "chah-ohs" in school when I was asked to read something aloud and I had the smart girls laugh at me until I played it off as a joke and on purpose mis-pronounced other words as well. The rest of the class high-fived me later because no one really liked that particular teacher and they thought I was doing it to annoy her.
#25
Kevin Berry 4 years ago
Mine was 'Colonel'. I still don't understand how or why it is pronounced 'Kernel'.
#26
Lord Mysticlaw 4 years ago
My mom still says all-bite and i can't convince her that it's wrong 🤷🏻♀️
#28
Arctic Fox Lover 4 years ago
Lol, Vegeta from Dragon Ball Z probably messed up every kids' pronunciation of fajita.
#29
Jo Johannsen 4 years ago
When I am being sarcastic about someone's LACK of subtlety, I use sub-tull on porpoise.
#30
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What do you think ?
Aragorn II Elessar 4 years ago
Ain’t nobody asking the real questions though: carmel or car-a-mel?
WilvanderHeijden 4 years ago
In the Netherlands it's fashionable to give shops English names, which are immediately butchered by us. A shop called "Action" becomes A,C,-tion and "Cool cat" becomes Coal cat. I guess someone could make an entire topic about this.
Kahlo Smith 4 years ago
For years, I thought daquiri was pronounced "duh-queer-ee". My only experience with the word was that there was a sorbet at Baskin-Robbins named after it.
Louloubelle 4 years ago
Okay, so worst mother in the world. My stepdaughter moved in with us when she was 16, so I never heard her say this word, until a few years later. We were talking about a documentary that had "dolphins" in it. But she was saying "dol-a-fins". And I just said, What? What are you saying? She repeated it, and I laughed.
Geth 4 years ago
Many of these appear to be confusion related to French words borrowed into English, like "fatigue," "debut," and "chic."
Evil Little Thing 4 years ago
My kid's paternal grandmother says "flustrated" instead of frustrated. Made me want to choke her. I had other reasons to want to choke her, too.
Your Local Lizard 4 years ago
I used to pronounce social studies as "sokial stooodeez" when i was in first grade and nobody but the teacher noticed when i gave a speech ;-;
Jess-a-men 4 years ago
Coincidence. Took me a long time to realize that it's not pronounced coin-cidence.
Agfox 4 years ago
Archangel - I pronounced it as it reads rather than arkangel for years when I was young Reminds me of a comeback by the then Australian Prime Minister, Bob Menzies at a public meeting he was addressing. A woman in the audience yelled out "I wouldn't vote for you if you were the archangel Gabriel", to which the PM responded "If I were the archangel Gabriel, Madam, I'm afraid you wouldn't be in my Constituency"
Mandra 4 years ago
I used to pronounce 'heir' like 'hire'... I worked as a tour guide and used this word quite a lot with English-speaking tourists. One day, after one of my tours, a visitor kindly told me how to say it properly and I cringed, knowing how many times I said it incorrectly... Same for 'level', which I pronouced 'lee-vel' (for my defense: English is not my native language)
Bowtechie 4 years ago
When I was little my dad and I would read together, alternating passages. I got stuck on the word "through" and he tried to logic me to right pronunciation by saying, "what does part of the word say?" Me: "Rough?" Dad: "Right, but when you add the T and H it becomes...?" Me: "Thruff?"
TheCatasaurusMeowMom 4 years ago
Penelope---had pronounced it Pen-a-lope, until after about 100 times of my mom correcting me that it was Pen-el-o-pe. To be fair, I blame elementary school where they tell you to SOUND IT OUT. American schools are s**t.
Irina Rachow 4 years ago
When i passed by sn antiques shop as a child i heard in my head 'anti-kwees'. When i heard the correct pronunciation my little brain exploded.
Yettichild 4 years ago
Here in the Pacific NW we have a clam called a geoduck. Pronounced Goo-ee-duck. Whenever someone mispronounces it in front of my coworker he tells them the Geo-duck is the Washington State bird. I have pity on them and tell them the truth.
Kevin Beard 4 years ago
So, I read the book Back to the Future before seeing the movie, and I was pronouncing the car brand DeLorean, "Dee-low-reen" around my friends that saw the movie. They had no clue what I was talking about.
your_lesbian_friend 4 years ago
When my sister was learning how to read, she called "Canada Dry" ginger ale "Chandy Day" and we still all call it that now! Lol!!
Bob Belcher 4 years ago
Queue. Frequently pronounce it as Queee and I keep having to remind myself it's pronounced Q. Have no idea why it has some many dang letters when it's pronounced Q.
Lauren Caswell 4 years ago
I still love on everybody loves Raymond, my fave moment, when Ray called a stomachache a "stomah-cha cha"
Goldie Novle 4 years ago
Oh gosh, one time I was reading aloud in English and the whole time I pronounced Arkansas as “Are - Kansas” ... and the word appeared about thirty times 😳🤦🏼♀️ - AND NO ONE CORRECTED ME.
Sioux White 4 years ago
I used to love doing the uni visit days with foreign (mainly American) students looking for Loughborough university. Pronouncing it as Lou gah -boo roo gah. Instead of Luff Burrah
Nuffy 4 years ago
I thought aisle was spoken as 'azle' and couldn't figure out what it meant when reading The Famous Five and Nancy Drew and as a teen embarrassingly discovered that the word sycophantic does not start like 'psycho'. Got to be sure how to pronounce snarky comments before you go there.
Sandra Kennedy-Heausler 4 years ago
My Mom has a friend in the 1940s whose name was Penelope. They always called her Penny-lope. I later found out the girls parents thought that was how it was pronounced.
Cami 4 years ago
I always had a problem with sedative, I thought it was se-day-tives instead of sed-ah-tives. I found out like two months ago
Fiona Messenger 4 years ago
There were a few here that I tripped up on over the years, and I probably have some still, but the one I remember having for years (well into my thirties) was grimace. I pronounced it grim-ace (emphasis on ace), not knowing until one person finally corrected me (grimass) with more emphasis on grim.
NamiKoa 4 years ago
Different matter, but I just learned this year that the word helicopter is separated into helico-pter ... When I thought about the pterodactyls it suddenly made sense.
Danieletc 4 years ago
I'd say that the EPI-tome (epitome) of my errors would be WHORES-deVORS for hors d'oeuvres. A little different, but this one is a gem, too: "Londonderry Air" is the original tune to "Oh Danny Boy", but for years, I thought the song title was "London Derrière". This Danny is an ass man through and through.
Colin Mochrie At Its Finest 4 years ago
I read words like they are spelled or I will spell it out in my head- but never say it out loud that way. I think "b-e-a-utiful" and "wed-nes-day" (for example). Probably for spelling reasons- but I am a very good speller,, and maybe that is why. Who knows.
Katy McMouse 4 years ago
My best friend all through grade school was Russian Orthodox. The first time I was invited to a Christmas mass, I described, in awe, to my mum, the procession of priests with their cossaks. I thought she was having a seizure, she was laughing so hard. I guess I meant cassocks and even now, I'm not sure of the spelling and I still have to mentally check myself before using either one in a sentence.
Verena Heisenberg 4 years ago
I always stumble over "dough" and "enough".. HOW in the world can these two words sound SO dramatic different (the ending of course!). freaks me out! :-P
Laura Smith 4 years ago
My father used to pronounce crustacean as krust-ah-kee-an. He was well in his 30s before someone corrected him.
Jenn C 4 years ago
Armageddon. Read it out loud in. Bible study as ar-mega-don. My brother thought Netflix queue was said kwi-wi.
Little Wonder 4 years ago
When I was about 7 my family was camping and I asked my father for a dollar to get an ice cream at the koysk. Kiosk...
Tiger Pearl 4 years ago
Antimalware - I know it, but if I’m not prepared for it, I will read it and pronounce it like animal but with a t. It should be Anti-malware.
Charlotte A. 4 years ago
I'm sure I have mispronounced many words in my day. My favourite from when I was little would be something like "il-skeleton". Mom would correct me "It's just skeleton" and I'd go "but I AM saying il-skeleton!"
*sigh*, The Yellow Teletubby 4 years ago
ah, yes. Calligraphy, but "Call-ih/eh-grah-fee", with 4 syllables.
Ryan Smith 4 years ago
The name Penelope... smh. I read it as Penny-Lope as a kid. Heard the name But never associated the two until someone read it the same way I did at school assembly, and people laughed...
Avery S Alberico 4 years ago
I could not tell the difference between buffeted (wind) and buffet (food)
Colin Mochrie At Its Finest 4 years ago
I was today years old...literally....finding out La Croix. Put it off so long I finally looked it up just now.
Shelby P 4 years ago (edited)
I am kind of a pronunciation junkie and I can usually pronounce a word I haven't seen before correctly. I derive the pronunciation from context and having heard the word before. But what I don't understand is how some words' pronunciations are changing. Like biopic --- I always heard this pronounced bi ah pic, but now people are saying bio-pic. And that bugs me for some reason.
DDmaybeandor 4 years ago
I still don't know how to say the chapter at the beginning of a book. Pree-face? Preh-fus? Idk, I rarely need to say the word and always forget the proper pronunciation immediately upon having to utter it.
Aragorn II Elessar 4 years ago
Well the thing with me is I read a huge amount, so I get most of my immense vocabulary from books. I thereby have no idea how it is pronounced, only how it is spelled and the context in which it is used, so I butcher words a great deal of the time.
Aragorn II Elessar 4 years ago
Ain’t nobody asking the real questions though: carmel or car-a-mel?
WilvanderHeijden 4 years ago
In the Netherlands it's fashionable to give shops English names, which are immediately butchered by us. A shop called "Action" becomes A,C,-tion and "Cool cat" becomes Coal cat. I guess someone could make an entire topic about this.
Kahlo Smith 4 years ago
For years, I thought daquiri was pronounced "duh-queer-ee". My only experience with the word was that there was a sorbet at Baskin-Robbins named after it.
Louloubelle 4 years ago
Okay, so worst mother in the world. My stepdaughter moved in with us when she was 16, so I never heard her say this word, until a few years later. We were talking about a documentary that had "dolphins" in it. But she was saying "dol-a-fins". And I just said, What? What are you saying? She repeated it, and I laughed.
Geth 4 years ago
Many of these appear to be confusion related to French words borrowed into English, like "fatigue," "debut," and "chic."
Evil Little Thing 4 years ago
My kid's paternal grandmother says "flustrated" instead of frustrated. Made me want to choke her. I had other reasons to want to choke her, too.
Your Local Lizard 4 years ago
I used to pronounce social studies as "sokial stooodeez" when i was in first grade and nobody but the teacher noticed when i gave a speech ;-;
Jess-a-men 4 years ago
Coincidence. Took me a long time to realize that it's not pronounced coin-cidence.
Agfox 4 years ago
Archangel - I pronounced it as it reads rather than arkangel for years when I was young Reminds me of a comeback by the then Australian Prime Minister, Bob Menzies at a public meeting he was addressing. A woman in the audience yelled out "I wouldn't vote for you if you were the archangel Gabriel", to which the PM responded "If I were the archangel Gabriel, Madam, I'm afraid you wouldn't be in my Constituency"
Mandra 4 years ago
I used to pronounce 'heir' like 'hire'... I worked as a tour guide and used this word quite a lot with English-speaking tourists. One day, after one of my tours, a visitor kindly told me how to say it properly and I cringed, knowing how many times I said it incorrectly... Same for 'level', which I pronouced 'lee-vel' (for my defense: English is not my native language)
Bowtechie 4 years ago
When I was little my dad and I would read together, alternating passages. I got stuck on the word "through" and he tried to logic me to right pronunciation by saying, "what does part of the word say?" Me: "Rough?" Dad: "Right, but when you add the T and H it becomes...?" Me: "Thruff?"
TheCatasaurusMeowMom 4 years ago
Penelope---had pronounced it Pen-a-lope, until after about 100 times of my mom correcting me that it was Pen-el-o-pe. To be fair, I blame elementary school where they tell you to SOUND IT OUT. American schools are s**t.
Irina Rachow 4 years ago
When i passed by sn antiques shop as a child i heard in my head 'anti-kwees'. When i heard the correct pronunciation my little brain exploded.
Yettichild 4 years ago
Here in the Pacific NW we have a clam called a geoduck. Pronounced Goo-ee-duck. Whenever someone mispronounces it in front of my coworker he tells them the Geo-duck is the Washington State bird. I have pity on them and tell them the truth.
Kevin Beard 4 years ago
So, I read the book Back to the Future before seeing the movie, and I was pronouncing the car brand DeLorean, "Dee-low-reen" around my friends that saw the movie. They had no clue what I was talking about.
your_lesbian_friend 4 years ago
When my sister was learning how to read, she called "Canada Dry" ginger ale "Chandy Day" and we still all call it that now! Lol!!
Bob Belcher 4 years ago
Queue. Frequently pronounce it as Queee and I keep having to remind myself it's pronounced Q. Have no idea why it has some many dang letters when it's pronounced Q.
Lauren Caswell 4 years ago
I still love on everybody loves Raymond, my fave moment, when Ray called a stomachache a "stomah-cha cha"
Goldie Novle 4 years ago
Oh gosh, one time I was reading aloud in English and the whole time I pronounced Arkansas as “Are - Kansas” ... and the word appeared about thirty times 😳🤦🏼♀️ - AND NO ONE CORRECTED ME.
Sioux White 4 years ago
I used to love doing the uni visit days with foreign (mainly American) students looking for Loughborough university. Pronouncing it as Lou gah -boo roo gah. Instead of Luff Burrah
Nuffy 4 years ago
I thought aisle was spoken as 'azle' and couldn't figure out what it meant when reading The Famous Five and Nancy Drew and as a teen embarrassingly discovered that the word sycophantic does not start like 'psycho'. Got to be sure how to pronounce snarky comments before you go there.
Sandra Kennedy-Heausler 4 years ago
My Mom has a friend in the 1940s whose name was Penelope. They always called her Penny-lope. I later found out the girls parents thought that was how it was pronounced.
Cami 4 years ago
I always had a problem with sedative, I thought it was se-day-tives instead of sed-ah-tives. I found out like two months ago
Fiona Messenger 4 years ago
There were a few here that I tripped up on over the years, and I probably have some still, but the one I remember having for years (well into my thirties) was grimace. I pronounced it grim-ace (emphasis on ace), not knowing until one person finally corrected me (grimass) with more emphasis on grim.
NamiKoa 4 years ago
Different matter, but I just learned this year that the word helicopter is separated into helico-pter ... When I thought about the pterodactyls it suddenly made sense.
Danieletc 4 years ago
I'd say that the EPI-tome (epitome) of my errors would be WHORES-deVORS for hors d'oeuvres. A little different, but this one is a gem, too: "Londonderry Air" is the original tune to "Oh Danny Boy", but for years, I thought the song title was "London Derrière". This Danny is an ass man through and through.
Colin Mochrie At Its Finest 4 years ago
I read words like they are spelled or I will spell it out in my head- but never say it out loud that way. I think "b-e-a-utiful" and "wed-nes-day" (for example). Probably for spelling reasons- but I am a very good speller,, and maybe that is why. Who knows.
Katy McMouse 4 years ago
My best friend all through grade school was Russian Orthodox. The first time I was invited to a Christmas mass, I described, in awe, to my mum, the procession of priests with their cossaks. I thought she was having a seizure, she was laughing so hard. I guess I meant cassocks and even now, I'm not sure of the spelling and I still have to mentally check myself before using either one in a sentence.
Verena Heisenberg 4 years ago
I always stumble over "dough" and "enough".. HOW in the world can these two words sound SO dramatic different (the ending of course!). freaks me out! :-P
Laura Smith 4 years ago
My father used to pronounce crustacean as krust-ah-kee-an. He was well in his 30s before someone corrected him.
Jenn C 4 years ago
Armageddon. Read it out loud in. Bible study as ar-mega-don. My brother thought Netflix queue was said kwi-wi.
Little Wonder 4 years ago
When I was about 7 my family was camping and I asked my father for a dollar to get an ice cream at the koysk. Kiosk...
Tiger Pearl 4 years ago
Antimalware - I know it, but if I’m not prepared for it, I will read it and pronounce it like animal but with a t. It should be Anti-malware.
Charlotte A. 4 years ago
I'm sure I have mispronounced many words in my day. My favourite from when I was little would be something like "il-skeleton". Mom would correct me "It's just skeleton" and I'd go "but I AM saying il-skeleton!"
*sigh*, The Yellow Teletubby 4 years ago
ah, yes. Calligraphy, but "Call-ih/eh-grah-fee", with 4 syllables.
Ryan Smith 4 years ago
The name Penelope... smh. I read it as Penny-Lope as a kid. Heard the name But never associated the two until someone read it the same way I did at school assembly, and people laughed...
Avery S Alberico 4 years ago
I could not tell the difference between buffeted (wind) and buffet (food)
Colin Mochrie At Its Finest 4 years ago
I was today years old...literally....finding out La Croix. Put it off so long I finally looked it up just now.
Shelby P 4 years ago (edited)
I am kind of a pronunciation junkie and I can usually pronounce a word I haven't seen before correctly. I derive the pronunciation from context and having heard the word before. But what I don't understand is how some words' pronunciations are changing. Like biopic --- I always heard this pronounced bi ah pic, but now people are saying bio-pic. And that bugs me for some reason.
DDmaybeandor 4 years ago
I still don't know how to say the chapter at the beginning of a book. Pree-face? Preh-fus? Idk, I rarely need to say the word and always forget the proper pronunciation immediately upon having to utter it.
Aragorn II Elessar 4 years ago
Well the thing with me is I read a huge amount, so I get most of my immense vocabulary from books. I thereby have no idea how it is pronounced, only how it is spelled and the context in which it is used, so I butcher words a great deal of the time.
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