ever pronounce a word wrong for a long time

"Segue" is not "sayg" but I refuse to pronounce it correctly.

I used to think paradigm was pronounced pair-ah-dig-em.

WHAT

Edited by ZuggaluggalocoroG on May 26th 2023 at 9:00:08 AM

TIL that "tarot" doesn't rhyme with "carrot" because it has a silent T at the end.

I used to pronounce "Wednesday" with 3 syllables until I was 14 years old. I'd been saying it like "wetnessday" all that time.

My Spanish teacher in freshman year spoke English as a second language, and she said that "Wednesday" was a hard word for her to learn for basically that reason. (She told us this while teaching us the Spanish words for days of the week - "miercoles", which is "Wednesday" in Spanish, is also a little hard to remember how to spell/pronounce.)

Anyway, today I learned that "kunekune"^note A breed of pig - its name means "fat and round" in Maori is pronounced "kooney-kooney". For a while, I just assumed you didn't pronounce the e's.

I can't pronounce the "Pythagorean" in Pythagorean Theorem.

I used to think Giygas's name was pronounced "guy-gus", and to this day, I refuse to say it like "gee-gus" because I think the latter pronunciation is kinda stupid. "Guy-gus" sounds more badass.

Not sure if it counts since this is a spelling error, but it's kinda related. The whole time, I thought "estranged" had an extra N between E and S.

A similar thing for me, but inverted, was when I used to think that Gigan (pronounced GUY-gan), one of Godzilla's foes, was pronounced "GEE-gan", with a hard G. To this day I still use the latter pronunciation sometimes as I think it's hilarious.

Edited by TheOther36 on Feb 7th 2024 at 8:05:09 PM

It took me until I read the trope page to realise that Dénouement is pronounced day-noo-mon and not den-nyoo-way-mon.

I remember thinking "echidna" was pronounced "enchilada" for an embarrassingly long amount of time when I was a kid.

Dude, same!

I bet that that this infamous fancomic by Tyson Hesse is to blame.

It's a name (of a Greek philosopher, to be exact), not a word, but I always pronounced Xenophanes as xee-no-fains rather than xee-noh-fuh-nees. I still stand by the belief that the latter sounds stupid, though.

Edited by jtard on Mar 22nd 2024 at 9:18:31 AM

Apparently, “melee” is pronounced “may-lay,” and not “mee-lee.” I still pronounce it the wrong way because I’m so used to it, but my friends like to tease me about it. Who uses melee in a regular context anyway?

Being a midwesterner, I have trouble pronouncing any word that has a hard "or" sound. It often comes out as "er" or "ir." For example, "for" becomes "fir." "Or" becomes "er" and I sound like I'm just a dummy.

I always thought "Gerudo" was pronounced with a soft "G", but according to "Breath of the Wild", it's actually a hard "G" instead.

I used to pronounce "hussar" as "hoosar".

For reasons unknown to me, when I was 6 years old, I pronounced the word wagon as 'wargon'. How in god's name did I slip an 'r' inside a word is anybody's guess.

I also pronounced the word mosque as 'moss-q', as if it had two syllables in the words. By logic, I'll be pronouncing Basque as 'bas-q' and Fortesque as 'Fortes-q'. Yeah, kindergarten me was still grasping at the English language.

I just learned today I've actually been pronouncing Depeche Mode wrong the whole time — it's pronounced "de-pesh mode", but I've been saying "de-peach-y mode" since I first heard of the band.

Apparently, I'm not the only one who thought this, according to a quick search for "depeche mode pronunciation". (Also, it's a French term meaning "hurried fashion".)

I'll fully admit that there are a lot of words I tend to pronounce incorrectly because I've only seen them written down. Accent Upon The Wrong Syllable is a rather common mistake for me.

I said de-petch-ay mode. So we’re both wrong!

I pronounced Oprah Winfrey's first name identically to "Opera" for longer than I'd like to admit.

for the longest time i used to pronounce "placebo" as "placebo" and only just now someone corrected me on it. man

Here are some of my sillier misconceptions about pronunciation. At least I have the "English as a second language" excuse...

• I assumed "conscience" was pronounced like "con" + "science". Was surprised when I listened to "Give a Little Whistle" and heard Jiminy Cricket pronounce it "conshens".
• I can never remember if "niche" is pronounced "neesh" or "nitch".
• I realized way too late that the "l" in "salmon" and the "r" in "macabre" are silent.
• This thread taught me that "monk" rhymes with "punk" and not "honk".
• I thought "Sonichu" was pronounced "Sonic-who" instead of "Soni-chu". I guess I somehow missed that the "chu" is pronounced like in "Pikachu".
• Not quite an example because I knew it was wrong and caught it immediately, but still deserves a mention: while trying to read "The Chaos" (a poem about how messy English pronunciation is), I somehow managed to pronounce "police" as "poll-ice". (Fittingly, I used to mispronounce "chaos". I definitely started with a "tsh" sound, but don't remember what I did with the "a".)

Speaking of niche, I thought it was pronounced "nee-shay".

I thought the "pin" in Lupin was pronounced like in "pinball" instead of "pawn".

Despite the fact that I'm Irish-American, there are several Irish words (including Irish names) that I've had the tendency to mispronounce.

One that comes to mind is the word "gaofar", meaning "windy". It's pronounced "gwee-fer", but I thought it was pronounced something like "gow-fer" at first.