English words you have mispronounced for a long time

[Bryan Barnfellow]

Bouncing off the recent thread on learning another language, I am reminded of certain words in English--my native language--that I was embarrassed to learn I had been (hilariously) mispronouncing. I caught these when I was in my mid-twenties. Or, rather, someone caught them for me!

* misled
For years as a teenager and undergrad I used to read this word and pronounce it in my head as "myzold." As in "I thought the coat was new; but I was myzold." I understood the meaning, but when I pronounced it out loud a Jewish friend asked me what Yiddish verb I was trying to say! Facepalm for sure; but he actually liked my attempt at creating a new vocabulary word: "Misle" - Yiddish, verb infinitive. To mislead someone.

* whodunit
When I was working for a small consulting company in the US after graduate school, I daily passed the Whodunit Bookstore. I mentioned it once to a colleague and he nearly passed out laughing at me. It was devoted to murder mysteries. I said "wad-unit" as one noun and wondered about its origin. He said it was a take on the phrase, "Who Done It" -- the "Who Done It" bookstore. I let myself out.

-BB

 

[skyking1]

LOL Bryan my sister was a 'mizold' speaker as well, you are in good company.
Words I mispronunciate on porpoise:
My favorite is coworker. That is most definitely cow-orker.
The other favorite phrase I coined myself. When you are troubleshooting a problem that comes and goes, we call that intermittent.
I am always relieved when the problem does not go away. At that point it is full mittent, or just "mittent".
Those are much easier to solve.

 

[Bryan Barnfellow]

Very funny. Carving "mittent" from "intermittent" seems very logical. And, I cannot tell you how happy I am to know I am not alone on misled! Thank you.

-BB

 

[VanWinkle]

After 50 years, just found out "Hang on Snoopy" is really "Hang on Sloopy" based on a female entertainer nicknamed "Sloopy". I've been mispronouncing while singing that song for all of those years........ Not sure if this is relevant to this thread, but it came to mind when reading this post.

VW

 

[Music Lover]

When you are troubleshooting a problem that comes and goes, we call that intermittent.
I am always relieved when the problem does not go away. At that point it is full mittent, or just "mittent".
Those are much easier to solve.

One of my friends used to say he was "gruntled", the opposite of disgruntled...

I'm Canadian and when I was a kid thought that Arkansas was pronounced "Are Kansas".

 

[SecondCor521]

My very bright son once asked about "misled", although his pronunciation was MY-suhld. He was a young teenager at the time.

This was shortly after I related the story to him from my youth where I asked my parents what the difference was between REH-suh-pee and RUH-sype. One was how I had heard my parents pronounce the word when talking about food preparation, and the other was how I had seen the word in a written context. Both words were, of course, recipe.

 

[Lewis Clark]

Here is an audio snippet of Kevin Hart telling a story of when he was trying to pronounce "facade".
https://soundcloud.com/david-hunter-57/kevin-hart-on-mike-and-mike

 

[Bryan Barnfellow]

After 50 years, just found out "Hang on Snoopy" is really "Hang on Sloopy" based on a female entertainer nicknamed "Sloopy". I've been mispronouncing while singing that song for all of those years........ Not sure if this is relevant to this thread, but it came to mind when reading this post.

VW

IT IS?!! Now, I know too. The Snoopy part always puzzled me.

-BB

 

[latexman]

Long time ago I heard DW singing "Jack Donkey" ("Jive Talking") by the BG's!

Now, she blushes every time we hear that song.

Shhh, don't tell her I told.

 

[Bryan Barnfellow]

Following on VanWinkle's Hang on Snoopy post, I give you this.

-BB

 

[ProspectiveBum]

The one I vividly remember in my early 20s was the word “facade”, which I pronounced with a hard c as in “arcade”. Embarrassing!

There’s a current one that comes to mind that I’m honestly still not sure of. Could be that there isn’t one right way to say it:

Affluent: I pronounce it with the accent on the first syllable, but have heard others pronounce it a-FLU-ent. No idea at this point which is “correct”.

 

[FLSUnFIRE]

One of my favorite movie quotes relevant to this thread.

 

[Gumby]

After emigrating to the US as a young boy, I was often confused by pronunciation. There was the way most English people pronounced things, the different way that my Cockney mother pronounced them, the other different way American people who claimed to be speaking English pronounced the same things, and the way they were written on the page (which also might be different depending on whether an English person or American wrote it). Adding to the confusion was the fact that we moved all around the country, and the Americans in Massachusetts and South Carolina, for example, certainly pronounced the same words differently.


I think I would be much happier if we all spoke Italian -- if you can spell it, you can pronounce it, and vice versa.

 

[braumeister]

* misled
For years as a teenager and undergrad I used to read this word and pronounce it in my head as "myzold." As in "I thought the coat was new; but I was myzold." I understood the meaning, but when I pronounced it out loud a Jewish friend asked me what Yiddish verb I was trying to say! Facepalm for sure; but he actually liked my attempt at creating a new vocabulary word: "Misle" - Yiddish, verb infinitive. To mislead someone.

I've used that one all my life. I read a lot as a kid, and saw the word written many times, so I just started saying it that way. My father said it that way too, and in conversation at home it was normal to say someone had been mEYEzeld.

I was in my teens when I discovered I had been saying it wrong all those years. The funny thing is that I still sometimes pronounce it that way!

 

[Which Roger]

As a kid, I heard "on purpose" as "unpurpose" and thought it was the opposite of "purposely".


Into adulthood, I read "epitome" as ep-i-tome instead of ep-it-o-me. (Similar to someone I know who once visited Yoes-uh-mite national park.)


Also have caught myself a couple times saying "lab" when I see lb and should say "pound".

 

[Bryan Barnfellow]

I've used that one all my life. I read a lot as a kid, and saw the word written many times, so I just started saying it that way. My father said it that way too, and in conversation at home it was normal to say someone had been mEYEzeld.

I was in my teens when I discovered I had been saying it wrong all those years. The funny thing is that I still sometimes pronounce it that way!

I think that our way has more flavor!

-BB

 

[SecondCor521]

The one I vividly remember in my early 20s was the word “facade”, which I pronounced with a hard c as in “arcade”. Embarrassing!

There’s a current one that comes to mind that I’m honestly still not sure of. Could be that there isn’t one right way to say it:

Affluent: I pronounce it with the accent on the first syllable, but have heard others pronounce it a-FLU-ent. No idea at this point which is “correct”.

With facade, it'd be helpful if we retained the cedilla in honor of the word's French etymology: façade. We won't, though, just like we don't retain the accents aigu on résumé.

Until now, I had also pronounced affluent with the emphasis on the first syllable, but Google says the second syllable. I suspect the reason is that effluent - different word but with nearly identical spelling - is pronounced with the emphasis on the first syllable.

 

[Bryan Barnfellow]

I think I would be much happier if we all spoke Italian -- if you can spell it, you can pronounce it, and vice versa.

Often true. But try these:

cubetti di ghiaccio che si sciolgono (Cubes of melting ice)

cinquecentocinquantacinque (555)

or "gli" -- gli Stati Uniti (the United States)



-BB

 

[Qs Laptop]

This thread brings back a lot of memories...

For a long time I thought the Neil Diamond song "Forever in Blue Jeans" was "Reverend Blue Jeans."

I had a friend that would pronounce facade, "fah-kaid."

I had another friend that thought the 1974 song by Nazareth "Love Hurts" was an ode to a girl, "Laverne".

My wife pronounces "towels" as "talls". No amount of correction by our children would get her to change.

 

[Marita40]

That reminds me of the infamous misheard line from Credence Clearwater: "there's a bathroom on the right."


A word I often have to pause at and think about before I pronounce is 'indict.'

 

[Music Lover]

That reminds me of the infamous misheard line from Credence Clearwater: "there's a bathroom on the right."

That misheard line is so well known that John Fogerty said that he sometimes will sing that line when playing the song.

 

[braumeister]

I think I would be much happier if we all spoke Italian -- if you can spell it, you can pronounce it, and vice versa.

Ah, but there are different dialects all over Italy, so it's not quite so simple.

The ones that utterly defeat me are Irish and Welsh.

 

[MichaelB]

What is the difference between mispronunciation and accent?

 

[GalaxyBoy]

Speaking of accents, there's "pecan." I grew up pronouncing it puh-CAHN. When I worked in south Georgia they laughed at me and told me I was being highfalutin and it should be PEE-can. I informed them that was what you keep in the truck for a long trip.

 

[skyking1]

I see Spanish the same way. The premise is the same as far as written-spoken.
Let's face it English sucks that special way.