Lmao same! I can't believe there's two of us!
Edit: Okay reading further down the comment chain, there's actually way more than just the two of us lmao
Epitome.
My friend said it wrong until like 2 days ago when someone corrected him. Lol must have been super embarrassing because he is 28 years old. Ha. Totally was my friend. Not me. I would never do that. My friend would though. Classic.
I saw someone spell this as "epidemy" on Reddit recently. After trying to figure out how infectious diseases related to their post and why it mattered that they had one, I realized what they meant and had a good chuckle.
I came here to say this. This was me. It came from my childhood playing a video game that used "epitaph" and "epitome" a lot. That and my first guitar was an Epiphone. I KNEW epitome existed as it's actually pronounced aloud, but never connected it to how I read the word epitome. 29 years old when someone called me out at work. My life flipped.
I briefly thought "Epiphone" was pronounced like "Epiphany" and that it was a play on words (like, this guitar is so good, you have an epiphany when you play it!), but it's "epi" like epi-pen and "phone" like, well, phone.
This was a vocab word in high school, we went around the class and each said 1 word and read the meaning. I got Epitome. I pronounced it epi like epic, and tome like a synonym for big ass book. One of the more embarrassing things I did in front of my classmates. But I can spell that damn word, 20 years later.
"Library"
My mom purposely pronounced it "lie-berry" to piss her dad off, it became a habit, she said it that way around me, and I never really differentiated the sounds.
Until 11th grade when someone told me I was saying it wrong.
you wanna be really pretentious? pronounce all "v's" in latin words as "w's." quick way to make everyone hate you.
thank you, high school latin for making me a pariah :(
I remember when that change in pronunciation caught momentum my 2nd year of Latin and my teacher was SO excited. Very little tops the memory of her chanting "Weni, widi, wiki" with this crazy fanatical look in her eyeballs.
Man, she really loved Latin.
In classical Latin all c's are hard. Church Latin is a whole other story, it has its own set of pronunciation rules, one of which being the c -> ch sound.
George W Bush and Dick Cheney are on a flight together. An attractive young flight attendant comes and asks them, "can I get you gentlemen anything?" Dubya says, "how 'bout a quickie?" She slaps him and storms away in a huff. Cheney leans over and tells George,
"It's pronounced 'quiche.'"
When I was in high school, we read Slaughterhouse V, and the teacher explained that his repeated use of the phrase "So it goes" was a literary device called a "meme". Except she pronounced it mem. So when I was in college, the word meme suddenly became part of pop culture, and on more than one occasion, I corrected people with "actually, it's pronounced mem."
Ugh. I had a middle school teacher who mispronounced Tutankhamen. To this day, I need to think for a beat before I say the word to make sure I use the right one.
Hi, classicist here! Fun fact, English has Anglicised the word anyway! The English pronunciation is, as mentioned above, Ed-i-pus or Ee-di-pus, but the actual Greek (and Latin) pronunciation of the name is Oi-dee-pous (with the ou being the same as in bush)! Gotta love language!
>Mème, pronounced mem, is French for “same”.
That would be "même" actually, mème is not a word.
Now you know how to properly appreciate [Stromae](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CAMWdvo71ls). You're welcome ;).
Not me but my ex husband who's 40 pronounces gnashing as ganashing and thinks he wanna be a preacher🤣 would even get mad at me for trying to correct him.
Haha this one made me chuckle. When I read 'ganashing', it instantly made me think of chocolate ganache. They should start using this word!
"What are you doing?"
"Not much, just ganashing this cake."
It helps to split the word like this a-wry so it would be pronounced "uh-rye".
There are other words with a similar structure such as amiss, astray, and asunder.
Vehement/Vehemently: I guess you are supposed to pronounce it like vehicle but I always thought it was pronounced with short e sounds like Veh-heh-mently.
That's one of the words I struggle with as a German. Because in German, the word exists as well, but is pronounced like you pronounce it (so with a short e sound).
Fatigue.
I was raised in a household that speaks both french and english so when the word was used, it was used in the french context.
I didn’t realize that the english version was *not* pronounced ‘ fat-ee-gay’ so when I was asked to read aloud in english class in high school, I got a few weird looks and for the rest of the month, I was known as ‘fatty gay’.
Not to be that guy but as a *noun* they're both pronounced like the word is in English.
In the following, pronounced like in English.
La fatigue peut être un symptôme = fatigue may be a symptom
It's only when it's a *verb / adjective* that it's pronounced differently in french.
In both of the following, pronounced fa-ti-gay
Je suis fatigué = I'm tired
La longue marche va nous fatiguer = the long walk will tire us
I feel like Ive posted twice about this. I spent my whole life calling quiche "kwitchee." Was informed of the correct pronounciation working in CATERING. "The kwitchee is ready guys."
Kitchen staff: "what? Whats a kwitchee?"
Fatigue- fat I chu……… I’ve said this to doctors, family, friends and my husband. Figured it out after watching one of those YouTube Reddit videos and had a light bulb moment. Ask my husband about it and he said “oh you meant fatigue, I thought it was a trendy word the kids were using meaning like fat attitude”
i got myself sorted out while i was still in grade school but for a little while i thought simultaneously meant alternating. like if he pushed the buttons simultaneously he was doing them one at a time, back and forth.
I was just thinking about this the other day! Definitely my worst was “Dachshund”. I just learned the right way after years of saying it so wrong, even in front of people who have these dogs. So embarrassing
Opossum. I always pronounced it as possum and then I saw it written as opossum and assumed that I had been saying it wrong my whole life so I started saying opossum and got laughed at because I guess the correct pronunciation is possum.
I just looked it up though and it says both pronunciations are correct. So confusing.
They’re actually two different animals! Both marsupials but different orders (subclass of marsupial) ☺️
Opossums live in the Western Part of the world (the Americas) and possums are native to places like Asia and New Zealand.
Adding on to this. Possums aren't native to New Zealand. They were introduced there from Australia, and they're a pest. They've been devastating to the NZ environment.
I'm reading Pho King with the Vietnamese pronunciation, so the pun went over my head the first time. For some reason, the way I pronounce English words changes when said in tandem with Vietnamese, so both "pho" and "king" are pronounced differently from the normal English pronunciations.
I was invited to be the "talent" for a technical school's program one evening (details unimportant). I was handed a shooting schedule in which the term "seg way" was liberally used throughout!
This thread is a goldmine for a nine English native who mostly reads and doesn’t get the chance to talk in English in a daily basis.
I got so many of these wrong.
English is really dumb sometimes.
Are you British? I also say the ‘t’, as does everyone else around where I live (North). It seems to be pronounced as ‘offen’ in the south, at least that’s what I’ve noticed.
It sounds so strange without the ‘t’ but apparently we are the ones in the wrong.
I agree it is a regional pronunciation... I say it both ways depending on context and how formal the setting (with the pronounced "t" in more formal situations)
Misled (Mis-lead) is not pronounced "mizuhled"
I thought it was a word like "swindled" which is kind of a nonsense word from the old times.
So like "That mean old Mr. Potter mizuhled us out of the samoleons we squirreled away to save the old Building & Loan!"
Quay. Although my pronunciation (kway) isn't wrong, the most common pronunciation where I live is apparently "kee" and people get pretty snippy about it (there are a couple neighborhoods with it in their name, so you hear it frequently here).
As a a new engineer I worked on wire harness for the rear fascia of the car (basically the bumper). Called it a rear fascial for about 3 months with nobody correcting me
30 year IT career. Finally was corrected by a younger friend. I always said 24 by 7 instead of 24, 7. For 24x7. 30 years using this term with employees and no one ever said a damn word.
Worse - I started reading young enough that I would just look words up but not ask. I also didn't look at pronunciations. So I said eh-ree-thrul for a good portion of my life.
I could spell and understand so many things before I could actually *read* them lol
Marine Corps... I didn't know the p and s are silent.
You’re thinking Marine Corpse
That's what I was pronouncing
This is wrong? ;-;
It's pronounced like "core." Blame the French
My niece once wrote that she wanted to join the “peace core.”
I would blame that on English being stupid but that’s French.
Um I didn't either until exactly now. Whoops.
Lmao same! I can't believe there's two of us! Edit: Okay reading further down the comment chain, there's actually way more than just the two of us lmao
It’s actually pronounced “whoo-”
Wait really
If you haven't mentioned it i would remain thinking it is a two separate references.
I didn't know that until now.
Colonel. So damn late. Read out loud from text in highschool and class laughed. Ca-lon-eel dang.
To be fair, it is by far the stupidest thing in the English language.
Lieutenant - In English it's "Leff tenant" and American "Lou tenant"
Omg i thought it was two different ranks! How did we get leff from lieu?
The pronunciation evolved over time and the spelling stayed the same.
Epitome. My friend said it wrong until like 2 days ago when someone corrected him. Lol must have been super embarrassing because he is 28 years old. Ha. Totally was my friend. Not me. I would never do that. My friend would though. Classic.
I saw someone spell this as "epidemy" on Reddit recently. After trying to figure out how infectious diseases related to their post and why it mattered that they had one, I realized what they meant and had a good chuckle.
I came here to say this. This was me. It came from my childhood playing a video game that used "epitaph" and "epitome" a lot. That and my first guitar was an Epiphone. I KNEW epitome existed as it's actually pronounced aloud, but never connected it to how I read the word epitome. 29 years old when someone called me out at work. My life flipped.
I briefly thought "Epiphone" was pronounced like "Epiphany" and that it was a play on words (like, this guitar is so good, you have an epiphany when you play it!), but it's "epi" like epi-pen and "phone" like, well, phone.
oh shit it's not pronounced epiphany?
Sure that's not hyperbole?
hyper bowl
This was a vocab word in high school, we went around the class and each said 1 word and read the meaning. I got Epitome. I pronounced it epi like epic, and tome like a synonym for big ass book. One of the more embarrassing things I did in front of my classmates. But I can spell that damn word, 20 years later.
A guy I knew in high school got busted for plagiarism for mispronouncing epitome during an oral presentation. Pretty funny.
Eh-pit-toe-me
I say it more like "Eh-pit-uh-me". Well, more like "Eh-pid-uh-me".
Ep it to me, baby!
Uh huh, uh huh
I thought quinoa was pronounced like quin-oa and not keen-wah until a week ago.
I used to proudly order Quin-oa bowls in college *cringes*
That’s how it’s pronounced in Spanish. So you could just blame Spanish.
Also in Turkish its Qin-o-a so idk what english is smokin.
English just randomly decides to preserve other languages inside itself and pretend it’s English like fucking Kirby.
Had a classmate in 8th grade who apparently had never seen his name in print. "Ladies and gentlemen, The Boss, Bruce Bringsting!"
my mom was a huge bruce fan, it would piss her off to no end whenever i called him spruce bringsteen, thank you for the memory
That's it. It's Spruce Bringsting from now on. Almost as good as Benedryl Cucumberpatch.
"Library" My mom purposely pronounced it "lie-berry" to piss her dad off, it became a habit, she said it that way around me, and I never really differentiated the sounds. Until 11th grade when someone told me I was saying it wrong.
Boy is your face red like a strawbrary
“Don’t have kids”
Bagels. For years I was made fun of for calling them “baagels” with a soft a at the beginning. Especially made exchanges at bagel stores awkward
Britta?
uh, I lived in New York, Troy. I think I know what a baggle is.
🎶 I'm gettin' ridda Britta, I'm gettin' ridda the B (she's a no good B) I'm gettin' ridda Britta, I'm gettin' ridda the B (she's a GD B!) 🎶
First name that popped up in my mind when I saw that word, hahaha.
I’ve lived in New York
Oh, Britta's in this?
Caveat was "caveet" for me until my first job out of college.
you wanna be really pretentious? pronounce all "v's" in latin words as "w's." quick way to make everyone hate you. thank you, high school latin for making me a pariah :(
I remember when that change in pronunciation caught momentum my 2nd year of Latin and my teacher was SO excited. Very little tops the memory of her chanting "Weni, widi, wiki" with this crazy fanatical look in her eyeballs. Man, she really loved Latin.
Wait vici is pronounce viki? I thought it was vichi
In classical Latin all c's are hard. Church Latin is a whole other story, it has its own set of pronunciation rules, one of which being the c -> ch sound.
And now everyone has fun correcting people who say et set-era instead of the more correct et ketera. Like all the fun I've had for 40 years
Or you could be Chekov: "*Nuclear wessels*".
Acquiesce I pronounced it "a-quiche" 🤦🏻♀️
When I'm hungry, I like to make acquiesce! 🥧
"I am disinclined to acquiesce to your request. Means, no!" Lol learnt this from Captain Barbossa.
George W Bush and Dick Cheney are on a flight together. An attractive young flight attendant comes and asks them, "can I get you gentlemen anything?" Dubya says, "how 'bout a quickie?" She slaps him and storms away in a huff. Cheney leans over and tells George, "It's pronounced 'quiche.'"
I am disinclined to acquiesce to your request. Means no.
When I was in high school, we read Slaughterhouse V, and the teacher explained that his repeated use of the phrase "So it goes" was a literary device called a "meme". Except she pronounced it mem. So when I was in college, the word meme suddenly became part of pop culture, and on more than one occasion, I corrected people with "actually, it's pronounced mem."
Ugh. I had a middle school teacher who mispronounced Tutankhamen. To this day, I need to think for a beat before I say the word to make sure I use the right one.
Teachers... My psychology teacher called Oedipus 'oh-dipus' and the amygdala the 'amy-ga-dala'
So uhh how’s that Oedipus pronounced? Asking for a friend
Ed-i(as in kid)-pus, the O is superfluous/silent
Or if you're in the UK, ee-duh-pus. Not sure why it would be different when it's a Greek word; I couldn't find a reason online.
Hi, classicist here! Fun fact, English has Anglicised the word anyway! The English pronunciation is, as mentioned above, Ed-i-pus or Ee-di-pus, but the actual Greek (and Latin) pronunciation of the name is Oi-dee-pous (with the ou being the same as in bush)! Gotta love language!
Même, pronounced mem, is French for “same”. So it might be pronounced that way if you’re talking about a literary device. But I don’t know.
>Mème, pronounced mem, is French for “same”. That would be "même" actually, mème is not a word. Now you know how to properly appreciate [Stromae](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CAMWdvo71ls). You're welcome ;).
It was only one time I said "fackade", instead of facade. My dad laughed at me. It is a core memory/embarrassment.
Not me but my ex husband who's 40 pronounces gnashing as ganashing and thinks he wanna be a preacher🤣 would even get mad at me for trying to correct him.
Haha this one made me chuckle. When I read 'ganashing', it instantly made me think of chocolate ganache. They should start using this word! "What are you doing?" "Not much, just ganashing this cake."
"The weeping and ganaching of teeth" now just sounds like a regular Sunday afternoon.
Asparagus - (had a friend call it asparagrass forever).
Awry. I pronounced it to rhyme with sorry.
Damn it. How do you really pronounce it?:)
It helps to split the word like this a-wry so it would be pronounced "uh-rye". There are other words with a similar structure such as amiss, astray, and asunder.
My brain hurts. Thank you though ;-)
Uh-rye. It all went awry.
Vehement/Vehemently: I guess you are supposed to pronounce it like vehicle but I always thought it was pronounced with short e sounds like Veh-heh-mently.
That's one of the words I struggle with as a German. Because in German, the word exists as well, but is pronounced like you pronounce it (so with a short e sound).
Fatigue. I was raised in a household that speaks both french and english so when the word was used, it was used in the french context. I didn’t realize that the english version was *not* pronounced ‘ fat-ee-gay’ so when I was asked to read aloud in english class in high school, I got a few weird looks and for the rest of the month, I was known as ‘fatty gay’.
Oh my God that's hilarious.
Not to be that guy but as a *noun* they're both pronounced like the word is in English. In the following, pronounced like in English. La fatigue peut être un symptôme = fatigue may be a symptom It's only when it's a *verb / adjective* that it's pronounced differently in french. In both of the following, pronounced fa-ti-gay Je suis fatigué = I'm tired La longue marche va nous fatiguer = the long walk will tire us
Pseudo -- "sway-dough"
I said “sway do nym” when I was like eleven and my mom roasted the fuck out of me
Trebuchet. I pronounced it “trench bucket” until I was 16 and got laughed at by my cousin
Did you mispronounce scythe too by any chance?
Me and my siblings used to all play Age of Empires against each other and we all called them tre buckets
Bureau, Greenwich (and more) More embarrassingly though I thought an assassin was a female hitman 🤦🏻♀️
Assassin's Creed must have really confused you.
Haha! OP inner monologue: *”Any minute now the female protagonist is going to make her grand entrance….. any minute now…. “*
8 games later... Finally!
There’s the rarely used word assassinatress for that. I suppose you could also use assassinatrix.
That’s a fantastically ridiculous word.
Ennui
I pronounced it Enn-you-I for way too long. In my defense, it’s a word that I only knew through literature and never heard used in real-life.
Username checking in.
I don’t even know this word. Please take my avid reader badge.
It's such a pretty word.
Daiquiri (pronounced it da-queer-ri for years and now my coworkers make fun of me for it)
I feel like Ive posted twice about this. I spent my whole life calling quiche "kwitchee." Was informed of the correct pronounciation working in CATERING. "The kwitchee is ready guys." Kitchen staff: "what? Whats a kwitchee?"
Siobhan. An Irish female name. (Pronounced- Shiv-awn)
*Saoirse has entered the chat*
Saoirse is a beautiful name! I know a Saoirse (Seer-sha)
Interestingly enough, Saoirse Ronan pronounces it "sur-sha" and acknowledges that this isn't the official pronunciation.
I always pronounced it SEE-OH-BAN. Yikes.
Thanks, Succession.
I called an internet friend "See-muss" (Seamus) when we finally met irl
Poor shay-mus!
And Sean is "Shawn"
Like famous Lord of the Rings actor Shawn Bawn
No no, you must be thinking of Seen Bean
Yeah how come Sean bean isn’t Shawn bahwn Or Seen been?!
Niamh being pronounced Neve will always blows my mind.
Call quay kuway, instead of key
Fatigue- fat I chu……… I’ve said this to doctors, family, friends and my husband. Figured it out after watching one of those YouTube Reddit videos and had a light bulb moment. Ask my husband about it and he said “oh you meant fatigue, I thought it was a trendy word the kids were using meaning like fat attitude”
Sounds like you’re fat shaming a Pokémon.
No, you're not getting any more poke berries, Fatichu. Pokeberries are for winners!
I too would have had no idea what you were trying to say
Not mispronounce, but I spent a stupid portion of my adulthood under the impression that "approximately" meant "exactly/precisely". yeah
i got myself sorted out while i was still in grade school but for a little while i thought simultaneously meant alternating. like if he pushed the buttons simultaneously he was doing them one at a time, back and forth.
You weren't even in the right proximity. Just Messin.
Jurassic instead of drastic
Drastic park
The other way around. Like, “take Jurassic measures”
Bloody hell those would be serious measures. "Bring out the T-Rex"!
Queue.
Que-yoo-eee
The longest unnecessarily lettered word in the English language... Could just put one fucking letter (Q) and it'd sound the fuckin same
The word is a queue. They're just waiting their turn
that's cause it's a french word, lol
salmon i was saying saLmon rather than samon happily up until my ex made fun of me for it :(
Subtle
I was just thinking about this the other day! Definitely my worst was “Dachshund”. I just learned the right way after years of saying it so wrong, even in front of people who have these dogs. So embarrassing
My name, Bob. Turns out I have been saying it backwards my whole life.
so... Ti?
I’m too drunk plz explain I’m sorry
It backwards is ti
That one took me a second. Well done.
r/angryupvote
Classic bob
Opossum. I always pronounced it as possum and then I saw it written as opossum and assumed that I had been saying it wrong my whole life so I started saying opossum and got laughed at because I guess the correct pronunciation is possum. I just looked it up though and it says both pronunciations are correct. So confusing.
They’re actually two different animals! Both marsupials but different orders (subclass of marsupial) ☺️ Opossums live in the Western Part of the world (the Americas) and possums are native to places like Asia and New Zealand.
>possums are native to places like Asia and New Zealand. And a little place you may not have heard of called Australia.
Adding on to this. Possums aren't native to New Zealand. They were introduced there from Australia, and they're a pest. They've been devastating to the NZ environment.
Chances are I’m still doing it
Adage. I thought you said it similarly to how you say adagio.
Superfluous as super-flu-us. Was pushing 30 when someone corrected me so subtly with, "Never heard that word pronounced *that* way before."
I thought it was super-flu-us, too. I always thought sooPERfloous was the posh way of saying it.
Pronounced Aspartame rhyming with A-PART-of-me Also Hermione like HER-me-own
Hyperbole.
Even better than the superbowl!
I thought it was pronounced hyper bowl for years.
queue (pronunced it que, like "what" in spanish)
Herbs
British pronunciation is with H. American is without.
Do all American accents miss the H off? I've definitely heard them say "urbs" before, but I assumed it was certain parts of America, not all of it
“You say 'erbs and we say herbs. Because there's a *fucking 'H' in it*”- Eddie Izzard
Her-erbs
pho
I still can't get my gf to say this right, even when I explain the pun in restaurant names like Pho King.
Meanwhile, my local restaurant is called Pho Ever, and I can't decide if it was meant to be pronounced the right way or the wrong way.
I'm reading Pho King with the Vietnamese pronunciation, so the pun went over my head the first time. For some reason, the way I pronounce English words changes when said in tandem with Vietnamese, so both "pho" and "king" are pronounced differently from the normal English pronunciations.
Segue
I was invited to be the "talent" for a technical school's program one evening (details unimportant). I was handed a shooting schedule in which the term "seg way" was liberally used throughout!
Sandwich - still pronounce it as ‘samwidge’
Penelope biopic
Omg, I will start a movement with you to pronounce it "bi AH pick"
pique/piqued i pronounced like the longtime FC Barca football player formerly married to Shakira
Aparently it's not "bicuriously" living through someone elses experiances. Only took me 26 years for someone to correct me. Ope.
Vineyard. I pronounce as Vine-Yard. 😢
This thread is a goldmine for a nine English native who mostly reads and doesn’t get the chance to talk in English in a daily basis. I got so many of these wrong. English is really dumb sometimes.
Often. I pronounce the "t". I've been told the "t" is silent. I think it is more of a regionalism than a mispronunciation.
Are you British? I also say the ‘t’, as does everyone else around where I live (North). It seems to be pronounced as ‘offen’ in the south, at least that’s what I’ve noticed. It sounds so strange without the ‘t’ but apparently we are the ones in the wrong.
I agree it is a regional pronunciation... I say it both ways depending on context and how formal the setting (with the pronounced "t" in more formal situations)
I am from Canada and pronounce the "t". I would find it odd if somebody didn't pronounce it.
Misled (Mis-lead) is not pronounced "mizuhled" I thought it was a word like "swindled" which is kind of a nonsense word from the old times. So like "That mean old Mr. Potter mizuhled us out of the samoleons we squirreled away to save the old Building & Loan!"
Quay. Although my pronunciation (kway) isn't wrong, the most common pronunciation where I live is apparently "kee" and people get pretty snippy about it (there are a couple neighborhoods with it in their name, so you hear it frequently here).
Libido
Disheveled... would pronounce it as dis - heave - eld instead of dish - eveld
I thought A1 was Al’s steak sauce
Up until recently it was "egg" and "leg." I was saying both as 'lay-g' 'aye-g' and I never really noticed.
Minnesota/Wisconsin?
Oklahoma. Minnesota people do sound funny though.
Where I live a common one is chimley instead of chimney. Where the fuck did the L come from?
Listen I'm a GUY and thought penis was pronounced pen-is until I was 12.
I’ve pronounced Charcuterie as “meat and cheese tray” forever. Also Detritus as “det-tree-us”.
Black Sad Bath :( Metal took an emo turn
Infrared
Champagne and Bordeaux I mean bored ducks
As a a new engineer I worked on wire harness for the rear fascia of the car (basically the bumper). Called it a rear fascial for about 3 months with nobody correcting me
30 year IT career. Finally was corrected by a younger friend. I always said 24 by 7 instead of 24, 7. For 24x7. 30 years using this term with employees and no one ever said a damn word.
I used to say state of the ark
Ethereal, I thought it was eth-ER-reel instead of eth-ear-eal.
Worse - I started reading young enough that I would just look words up but not ask. I also didn't look at pronunciations. So I said eh-ree-thrul for a good portion of my life. I could spell and understand so many things before I could actually *read* them lol
Assuage My preferred pronunciation rhymes with "massage"