I think I'm sort of getting the same thing with sentences learning a second language. I know a word is supposed to be in there, but I can't remember exactly where, so it goes somewhere in the middle at a guess.
One of the oddities in English is the tendency to insert extra "n"s into words. Ravager turns into Ravanger (or more commonly Ravenger), turret turns into turrent.
I love the word trebuchet because...
- It's a siege engine and even though it was horrible in real life - I love it in movies.
- My favorite font is Trebuchet MS. It's easier to read for dyslexics.
- It's a symmetrical chess situation where the player who must move loses. Oh, man - it's too hard to explain so it's Wikipedia to the rescue. It's a kind of zugzwang.
Trench-a-butt sounds like carving a hole in someone's ass. Maybe it would work for obtaining military secrets from enemy captives, but it probably wouldn't be effective as a siege weapon.
More like a horrible World War I-era disease commonly caught by infantry troops.
So many, but the funniest has been "meme" (English is not my first language). My online friends who are English speakers were eternally amused by it, sadly my audhd brain has forgotten how I pronounced it.
my audhd brain has forgotten how I pronounced it.
Maybe "mehmeh" or "meemee"?
My first encounter with it was from the Selfish Gene, where Dawkins describes it as a "mind version of a gene", so he thought meme sounded fine. Hearing Maymay was bonkers to me.
I had a similar thing where I learned the pronunciation of meme and then proceeded to say the name of Pepe the Frog in the same way, like "peep". I still do this, but I've been informed it's wrong.
While we're on the subject who the fuck decided lingerie should be pronounced
lawn-jer-ay? Petition to stop letting the French decide how words are spelled because if I have to try to correctly spell burgiouisey one more time I'm going to flip.if the english were managing their language so well why did they lose the battle of Hastings?
I gave up and have started to just opt for calling them bourge. Can't pronounce it either.
Not trying to troll or creep. I didn’t realize what instance I was on at first. But I read your spelling and my head immediately jumped to the Borgs from Star Trek. Got a solid cackle from me. It’s been a long disappointing day so genuinely, thank you for my laughter. I’ve seen too much RISA maybe. Have a great one
Come for the misinterpretation, stay for the cozy love of our comrades and desire to improve the world
Howdy hoe partner
is a theme in the etymology of the words in this thread.
To me that makes it sound like an insect - It's kinda like a no see em but bigger with a worse bite.
No see em is another name for biting midges
I like that one. It was one of mine. Two others were macabre and segue.
There were a LOT more. I read a lot so I saw a lot more words in print than I heard growing up.
Segue, how the fuck are you supposed to guess the pronounciation of that when there's hardly any other english words like it? I pretty much didn't learn the actual way to say it until university. I always said it "SEGG" and just assumed the rest was silent because it's ridiculous.
I remember mispronouncing Montague (from shakespeare) for the same reason.
Everyone in my elementary school pronounced zealot as zeal-lot.
What is one word you realized you were pronouncing wrong until you heard someone else say it?
Mine: affidavit
Pronounced it a-fit-a-vit (not unlike "a Fitbit") for about 3 months in college trying to get out of a dorm contract I wasn't happy with.
I'm dyslexic so my relationship to words like "affidavit" is a strange one. My first exposure to the word must have been via a tv series. I watched an insane amout of tv as a kid. So I heard the word many years before I ever saw the written form. With such words - there's confusion in my mind when I see the written form. If I were to look at the word and try to pronounce it - I'd likely mispronounce it like then I was a kid coping with pretty easy words that still gave me grief.
don’t have a good answer to OP’s question but i just want to give a shoutout to my fellow IPA literate sickos in this thread fighting the good fight
Death to America
Hexbear won't understand this coded message:
/'dəþ 'tu 'ði æm'εrɪkən 'længwədʒ/æ
I have to remind myself not to pronounce /æ/ like Latin “ae”.
Laughing at IPA /æ/ in “American” though, would be hilarious to make this the actual pronunciation
IPA
My brain interprets that as a horrible foreign language so if I want to share a pronunciation for simplicity's sake I use dictionary.com. An example...
SEG-wey
It's not perfect but it's the best site I know.
if it's not on my computer keyboard it's a made up sound!
You just resurfaced a horrible memory of being an awkward lit nerd who wanted to fit in but also did a lot of reading alone. I was dunked on so relentlessly first year of college when trying to discuss “Go-eth”.
Fuck you other lit undergrads from my class. Wherever you are. Hope you all stub a toe.
Parable of the Sower... I thought it was a book about pigs (sows). I still mispronounce it in my head.😅
There's a significant population of 20- and 30-somethings who know the proper pronunciation of
meleeentirely because of Smash Bros.but the announcer in the game says it wrong! the emphasis is on the second syllable and the first e has a circumflex, so it rhymes with get.
"Calliope". I thought it was "Kal-ee-ope". I found out like last week it's "Kal-I-Oh-Pee".
Kal-ee-ope
My favorite online dictionary is usually spot on. It has two pronunciations. The only way I've heard it pronounced is the first pronunciation - kuh-LAHY-uh-pee. The second is KAL-ee-ohp which I don't think I ever heard until a minute ago in that digital voice.
tecnically, both are correct depending on context. If you're talking about the instrument, it's a Cal-i-Ope-EE. When discussing the muse of epic poetry, it's cal-EE-ope-Ay
I only know this one because of that boomer rock song
the calliope crashed to the ground and she was BLINDED BY THE LIGHT
As a child I though epitome was said as epuh-e-tome because I had only seen it in books. When I said it everyone laughed at me
