History Main / AccentUponTheWrongSyllable

* From the Music/PussycatDolls' "When I Grow Up":\\
"We all want to be fay-MUSS!"

* Music/{{XTC}}’s Andy Partridge has been known to include this in some of his songs (“’Bout the baby and its um-bi-LA-cal”).

Walking to [=BolTO-O-ON=],

* ''{{WesternAnimation/Ninjago}}''::[="NINja, GO!"=] is a battle cry used by ninja. [="NinJAgo"=] is the name of the land where most of the action takes place.

* In ''Film/ThreeAmigos'', the Amigos get a telegram from the Mexican village of Santa Poco asking them to stop the bandit El Guapo. [[TelegraphGagSTOP They confuse a "Stop" in the message for a STOP and think that "the infamous El Guapo" sent the message]], assuming "infamous" is "in-FAME-us", meaning "extremely famous" instead of "famous for doing bad things."

* YouTubePoop videos have a ''lot'' of strange emphasis and pronunciation going on, and even make it part of the fun - since Poops are produced using a lot of ManipulativeEditing, the emphasis and pronunciation are taken from the original words and can't really be altered that much to make it flow more naturally without a ''lot'' of work, leading to a general wonkiness that is part of the medium's charm. To take just one example, in the WebAnimation/DaThings video [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZLnjOJjycjU "Big Talking Volcano"]], the word "tyrant" at 5:27 puts emphasis on the second syllable, rather than the first, because it was assembled using the first two syllables of "tyrannosaurus".

** On the flip side, it can be said that the Malay/Indonesian language [[DefiedTrope can't do this trope]] (or at least won't notice what's hapening), as it can be analyzed to have ''no stress system whatsoever''[[note]]There's still a sentence-wide "tone" that is often followed, so there's still some cadence to the language, but you won't find them raising brows if you say '[=AKsen=]' instead of '[=akSEN=]'[[/note]]. This can make a primary-Malay/Indonesian English speaker seem either completely "monotone" or egregiously applying this trope.

* Jim Gaffigan has a bit where, before a show in Ireland, someone references a famous performer named "Billy [=JorrEL=]" who also recently played the venue, and is astonished Jim has never heard of him, since he's American. (Jim quips about him being "{{Franchise/Superman}}'s dad"). As it turns out, he's referring to Music/BillyJoel, but the combination of a strong Irish accent and pronouncing "Joel" as two syllables rendered the last name incomprehensible to Jim. When more than one other person around him start agreeing with this pronunciation, Jim wonders if ''he's'' the one who's been mispronouncing "Billy Joel" all his life - then remembers that he's heard Billy Joel say his own name before. "Billy Jo-El" subsequently gets a few callbacks in the same special.

* Jim Gaffigan has a bit where, before a show in Ireland, someone references a famous performer named "Billy [=JorrEL=]" who also recently played the venue, and is astonished Jim has never heard of him, since he's American. (Jim quips about him being "{{Franchise/Superman}}'s dad"). As it turns out, he's referring to Music/BillyJoel, but the combination of a strong Irish accent and pronouncing "Joel" as two syllables rendered the last name incomprehensible to Jim. When more than one other people around him start agreeing with this pronunciation, Jim wonders if ''he's'' the one who's been pronouncing "Billy Joel" all his life - then remembers that he's heard Billy Joel say his own name before. Billy Jo-El subsequently gets a few callbacks in the same special.

* In ''WesternAnimation/AGoofyMovie'', WesternAnimation/{{Goofy}} does it as part of a LyricalShoehorn while singing, "Nobody Else But You":

* ''Film/BillAndTed'': The eponymous heroes mispronounce the names of the foreign historical figures they've gathered, such as "Sigmund Frood", "So-Crates" and "Beeth-oven." They get it all right in their presentation, though.

* ''WesternAnimation/LooneyTunes'': Daffy Duck's "You're despicable!" with accent on the second syllable of the latter word was originally a case of this -- at the time the cartoons aired, the generally agreed-upon pronunciation put the accent on the first syllable, and it's meant to show (depending on the cartoon) that Daffy either [[CloudCuckooLander has a few screws loose]] or is [[SmallNameBigEgo not as great as he likes to imagine himself]]. The popularity of the cartoons, combined with the word's relative lack of use in other contexts, resulted in the pronunciation shifting, this trope fading, and the phrase in general falling into SeinfeldIsUnfunny.

* Mocked in the ''Series/MysteryScienceTheater3000'' episode featuring the ''Series/TheGeminiMan'' CompilationMovie ''Riding with Death''. In the first half of the movie, the hero hops out of the truck to the surprise of the villain and his mook. The villain declares “[[ThisCannotBe This can’t beeeeEEEEE!]] You’re deaaaAAD!” This prompts Mike to reply in a whiny voice “No, I’m nooOOOOT!”

* ''VideoGame/DiscworldNoir'': Lewton consistently pronounces "troll" as "trahl". Carlotta does too, but in her case it suits her accent.