English words you have mispronounced for a long time

[Out-to-Lunch]

I'm another one that read a lot and didn't know the pronunciation of some words. I was careful to not use words I wasn't sure of pronouncing but one day decades ago at work I mangled "voluminous". I suppose this instance doesn't fit the OP's request as I hadn't mispronounced it a long time, only once, but I sure remember doing it.

"Excoriate," for me.

"Imprimatur" comes under this heading, too.

 

[omni550]

How do you pronounce golf and gulf? The same or different?


omni

 

[friar1610]

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".

In that same vein, if a sloppy, disheveled person is unkempt, is a neat person kempt? (Or maybe sheveled)?

(Both of these sound Yiddish to me).

 

[scrabbler1]

In that same vein, if a sloppy, disheveled person is unkempt, is a neat person kempt? (Or maybe sheveled)?

(Both of these sound Yiddish to me).

Kempt is acceptable in Scrabble play. Shevel(ed) and hevel(ed) are not.

 

[Out-to-Lunch]

How do you pronounce golf and gulf? The same or different?


omni

Different. Just like they are spelled!

 

[CRLLS]

Some of the question words (where, when, what, why) are not pronounced how they are spelled, at least that is how I was taught to say them. I was taught to pronounce them with a "h" sound, then the "w" sound. Hwere, Hwen, et. Spoken language has become lazy and most of us have dropped the "h" sound altogether.

 

[braumeister]

Some of the question words (where, when, what, why) are not pronounced how they are spelled, at least that is how I was taught to say them. I was taught to pronounce them with a "h" sound, then the "w" sound. Hwere, Hwen, et. Spoken language has become lazy and most of us have dropped the "h" sound altogether.

May I ask where you were taught that?
I'm a native English speaker who has lived just about everywhere, and I don't think I've ever heard anyone pronounce those words in that way.

 

[CRLLS]

I believe it was in elementary school, Long Island, NY. Maybe it was in later classes in the upper Midwest. The beginning h sound is not prominent, just a slight exhale before the w sound. When (not intended, sorry) I intentionally try to say those words starting with just the W and not having the slightest h sound, it just sounds a bit off to me.

Try saying outloud the famous words "When what to my wondering eyes should appear," making sure there isn't any slight hhhhh added in, it sounds like Elmer Fudd reading "Twas The Night Before Christmas," At least it does to me.

I just looked one up:

what
/(h)wət,(h)wät/

 

[braumeister]

Very interesting. Putting the H sound in first is almost certainly the original pronunciation, as it was used in Old English.

 

[Gumby]

May I ask where you were taught that?
I'm a native English speaker who has lived just about everywhere, and I don't think I've ever heard anyone pronounce those words in that way.

I have. It is particularly common in choral music, when you need to enunciate the initial consonant of the phrase.

 

[Aerides]

May I ask where you were taught that?
I'm a native English speaker who has lived just about everywhere, and I don't think I've ever heard anyone pronounce those words in that way.

Yeah I was taught that way in primary school growing up in england, but no one outside of the classroom ever spoke that way. Except maybe Angela Rippon and Maggie Smith.

 

[braumeister]

The first thing I thought of is that the first word in Beowulf (10th century Old English) is Hwæt, used as an interjection. Impossible to read the original today of course.

 

[Major Tom]

A few -

gaol - I pronounced it as goal when young, and had no idea what it meant. Little did I know that it is an older spelling of jail, though I don't believe it is known how people in earlier centuries pronounced it. It is now pronounced the same as jail. I understand that the spelling of gaol refers to the verb, as in "to gaol (jail) someone".

epitome - this has been mentioned elsewhere in this thread. I also pronounced it "epi-tome" and had no idea what it meant, until I realized it was the word I heard pronounced as "epitumee".

hyperbole - same as above, I didn't know what it meant, until the realization that it was the word I heard spoken as "hypurrbolee". I pronounced it "hyper-boal".

Regarding the pronunciation of words like why and where, with an h sound at the beginning, my father used to do that. He was a rather pedantic feller though, and I thought of it as an affectation on his part, without realizing there was a historical precedent.

 

[braumeister]

I thought of it as an affectation on his part, without realizing there was a historical precedent.

Once you start looking at the historical etymology of words you can find all sorts of surprises.

One of my favorites is the apron you wear when cooking. It started out as "napron" (from the Old French "naperon", a small tablecloth) but people slurred "a napron" so often that it wound up as "an apron". Same thing for "uncle" and a few other words like that.

 

[W2R]

Some of the question words (where, when, what, why) are not pronounced how they are spelled, at least that is how I was taught to say them. I was taught to pronounce them with a "h" sound, then the "w" sound. Hwere, Hwen, et. Spoken language has become lazy and most of us have dropped the "h" sound altogether.

That is how I was taught to say those words, too. In fact, I still pronounce them like that. TBH I thought everybody did.

 

[Zona]

I'm a native English speaker, but I and my son both were early and voracious readers, so we both picked up a lot of new vocabulary words visually. This can lead to both the "misled" and "recipe" form of mistakes.

Yes, exactly this. I am a native English speaker but read a lot as a kid. So when people said words like “subtle” aloud (“suttle”), I didn’t necessarily equate it with the word I read (and pronounced in my head) as sub-tul. I was in my teens when a friend kindly (and thankfully) corrected my pronunciation!

 

[Major Tom]

One of my favorites is the apron you wear when cooking. It started out as "napron" (from the Old French "naperon", a small tablecloth) but people slurred "a napron" so often that it wound up as "an apron". Same thing for "uncle" and a few other words like that.

I didn't know that, about the word apron. Of course, language develops continuously. Those of us who are too quick to defend what we think of as "correct usage" are ignoring the fact that the usage we think of as "benchmark" is itself most likely a corruption of an earlier form.

Eggcorns often bug me. Examples are "for all intensive purposes", or "I could of". The second example particularly gets under my skin. However, usages that start out life as eggcorns, often end up becoming widely accepted versions of the language. I can't come up with any examples right now (just woke up from a long nap!) so you'll have to take my word for it. In short - we are all talking a corrupted form of the language. Our ancestors would be horrified if they could hear us speak.

 

[KCGeezer]

Eggcorns, never heard of them. I guess I now have a ‘new word for the date’

 

[garyt]

I really don't know what to post here. If I *knew* I was mispronouncing a word, then I probably wouldn't continue mispronouncing it, would I?

Assuming, of course, that I wasn't on a crusade to change the pronunciation.

If somebody tells me I am pronouncing a word incorrectly, I refuse to believe that until I have verified that my pronunciation is absolutely incorrect. Then I'd change it.

I still say "Kee-EV" for Kiev, although apparently "Keev" is more acceptable lately. But I checked online and both pronunciations are still used. I have pronounced it "Kee-EV" for over half a century so it's going to be hard to get me to change.

Suppodely Ki-Ev is the Russian pronunciation and Keev is the Ukranian pronunciation so everybody is using Keev as respect to the Ukranians

 

[Montecfo]

Most annoying eggcorn I hear constantly is, "well if he thinks [fill in blank for undesired behavior] if acceptable to me, then he's got another thing coming..."


Instead of another "think" coming i.e, he better think again.

 

[Gumby]

Oh, I could care less about that.

 

[Montecfo]

Oh, I could care less about that.

Well in that case eks-specially I hope you continue to care more and more.

 

[CaptTom]

I agree the saying is supposed to go "another think," but I'm actually OK with "another thing" on technical grounds.


If I expect A, and instead B happens, I had another thing coming, didn't I?


I really struggle (not always successfully) to avoid being pedantic about language. The logical part of my brain says if someone can understand you, you've communicated successfully. But that part which was drubbed into me by years of schooling still bristles at "incorrect" sayings, words, punctuation, etc.

 

[Major Tom]

Eggcorns, never heard of them. I guess I now have a ‘new word for the date’

In this video, dialect coach Erik Singer discusses a number of language pet peeves. Eggcorns are the first ones he deals with -

Most annoying eggcorn I hear constantly is, "well if he thinks [fill in blank for undesired behavior] if acceptable to me, then he's got another thing coming..."


Instead of another "think" coming i.e, he better think again.

I didn't know the original version was "another think coming". As others have said, the version "another thing coming" also makes sense. Unless I'm mistaken, I think that "another thing coming" is now the most widely used version. If so, that qualifies it as a folk etymology - an eggcorn that has passed into common usage, and is now accepted as "correct". An example of a folk etymology given in the above video, is "shamefaced". The original version was "shamefast", meaning that shame had caused a person to freeze "fast". Not sure if you'd find anyone saying that today though, as most everyone uses shamefaced.

 

[Montecfo]

I agree the saying is supposed to go "another think," but I'm actually OK with "another thing" on technical grounds.


If I expect A, and instead B happens, I had another thing coming, didn't I?

You have simply defined an eggcorn. It's incorrect but still "makes sense".

And just to go further, doesn't every living person always have another "thing" coming? So what is the purpose of the opening conditional phrase?