ever pronounce a word wrong for a long time

Also, what's the deal with "pronunciation"? The verb form is "pronounce", but then the noun form loses the "o" and becomes "pronunciation". I mean, why not just "pronounciation"? Or make the verb form "pronunce" and lose the "o" altogether?

God, English is confusing.

edited 7th Apr '17 7:12:52 AM by anza_sb

Depending on the accent, I think some people do.

Yay double post

So apparently paradigm is pronounced "pear a dime". Who came up with that? I've been pronouncing it "prad-a-gim" my whole life, which would be wrong anyway. But why isn't it "par-a-dig-m"?

Oh I also always said "par-a-dig-m" because it is closer to how the word Paradigma is pronounced in German. Curse you English spelling !

apothegm, diaphragm, paradigm, and phlegm are the only words in english with a silent g before an m. As far as etymology, all of them originate in greek before being borrowed into latin as phlegma, paradeigma, diaphragma, and apothegma. g came at the end of a syllable so it was still pronounced. Then they came into english and lost the final a, which means that the final syllable gained a letter and g got stuck with another consonant, so we let it fall silent.

At least diaphragm isn't "die-a-frame".

edited 3rd May '17 8:36:43 AM by Incognitoburrito

For years I pronounced 'verbatim' as 'VER-bah-tim' rather than 'ver-BAY-tum'. I was corrected by a friend for whom English wasn't even their first language...

That sounds like something that would depend on accent, but I'm not sure.

I've been pronouncing "Woolseyism" like "wooleyism" this whole time. There must've been so many conversations where my friends thought I was talking about something to do with sheep.

wait what

i also pronounce it "VER-ba-tim"

god dammit

...anyway, this is not a pronounciation mistake per se, but I think the way "pronounce" becomes "pronunciation" (as opposed to "pronounciation") is really, really, REALLY stupid.

EDIT: whoops, sorry I just realized I already said this at the top of the page. Probably just accentuates how stupid the whole "pronounciation" thing is.

edited 16th Jun '17 7:24:18 AM by anza_sb

i always pronounced jamie as j-me rather than hi-mai. see this was a name belonging to a hispanic character and i didn't know that until watching a episode of batman the brave and the bold.

edited 16th Jun '17 7:25:09 AM by ewolf2015

"Fruition" rhymes with "tuition". All this time I kept pronouncing the first half of the word like the edible plant part.

For a while, I thought the word was "fruitition".

Froot-eon? Or froo-shun?

edited 25th Jun '18 6:27:04 AM by Ulysses21

FROO-shun.

Easily done. And you weren't really that far off.

Is a fruitition what you use to mark off different areas of an orchard?

As someone who's used to pronouncing C as S when an E or I is after it, all this time I kept pronouncing the first syllable of Cirno like the first syllable of circle.^note But I know that the C in Celtics is hard.

Edited by TroperNo9001 on Jul 20th 2018 at 6:12:57 PM

When I was younger, I always pronounced oscillate (you know, the setting on fans to make the cold air go back and forth) as ososcillate.

I would always pronounce "Tiny" as "teeny" and "Pyre" as "fire"

For years I pronounced "hyperbole" as "hyper bowl", which sounds like a sport for robot athletes in the year 290X.

Reply. I did read it as rep-lee.

I used to read "epitome" like "eh-pit-ohm" rather than "uh-pit-uh-mee"

Yesterday, I found out the word "Quay" is pronounced "Key", not "Kway". I also found out that "Sentinel" is "cenn-te-nel", not "centennial".

I spent about a decade pronouncing "Grand Prix" (grand-pree) as "Grand Pricks".

Edited by ArgonianLorekeeper on Aug 20th 2018 at 9:25:44 AM

I pronounced it that way till I learned French.

For a long time, I thought lapel rhymed with label and had the same enunciation. I didn't know the right pronunciation until hearing it said in The Castle of Cagliostro.