How Much Of Your Reading Interrupted Your Speech?

It happens, not everyone is born William F. Buckley. I mispronounced “tinnitus” at the doctor today.

"Interrupted?"

Someone told me once you shouldn't judge someone for mispronouncing a word if they clearly know the meaning because that means they learned it through reading, which should be encouraged and celebrated.

You’re in good company. Harry Truman, as a child, famously read every book in the Independence, Missouri public library.

He said he mispronounced a lot of words he’d read but had never heard anyone speak.

There’s this other book to use when it happens….I think it’s called a dykeshunery.

I dont understand the original post title and I refuse to respond to it.

I used to pronounce “misled” as “mizled.”

I still think “mizled” sounds much more ominous (therefore oreferred!)

epitome

I pronounced "awry" as Arry, rhymes with quarry

When I was a kid I thought the name Penelope was pronounced "Pen-uh-lope"

I pronounced "vacation" as "daycation" well into my teens.

I used to pronounce “girl” as “guuuuuuurl”. That was interrupted.

façade

I once as a child pronounced the name of the overwhelming German composer Wagner as though he was married to Natalie Wood. My much more cultivated neighbour nicely corrected me, without fuss.

I dated and married a double-Ivy writer and smartypants. Love him but the corrections were a lot to take in, those first several years. “Potable water” was the first of so many.

I used to say “Wagner” is in wag the dog as a joke with a buddy. Also: choppin for Chopin. Batch. Etc.

Jack is worried. He cannot find the boat. There is water all around the is-land.

R16 = Bugs Bunny

Was that a Looney Tunes gag first?

I had a German postdoctoral Fellow at Harvard’s Dental School named Cosima Wagner (no relation) who told me I must have been the only Bostonian who spoke German because I was the only person at Harvard who pronounced her name correctly. Even the staff called her Dr “Wagner.”

Yes.

Yes yo R19.

Yes to R19.

I remember as a kid reading a book and had never seen the word tongue spelled out so I kept pronouncing it in my head as ton-goo

And now, R24, you’ve experienced tongue good many times over. You slut.

7th grade "health" (sex education) class, for whatever reason the teacher had us taking turns in class reading paragraphs from the text book (lazy ass teaching but it was 1982). I'll never forget the kid who kept pronouncing the male sex organ as "pen-es." "Pen" like the writing instrument and "es" like the letter. He turned beet red when the teacher corrected him.

I once pronounced misanthrope as "mis-AN-throw-pee" in junior high school.

Boys have a pen-eese, girls have a vaj-inna.

Vay - Jean - A

Which, R26, brings back the memory of a story about pronunciation (along with translation) that might have been disastrous but wasn’t.

At a state dinner not unlike the one held for the Macrons this week, Queen Elizabeth hosted President and Mme. de Gaulle at Buckingham Palace. During dinner, Mme. de Gaulle was asked in conversation if there were only one thing in life she wanted, what would it be? She promptly replied what sounded just like, “a penis”

Ever gracious and thankfully fluent in French, the Queen addressed the shocked silence at table, saying, “Yes, happiness. Something we all want.” And dinner went on smoothly.

My stupid co-worker used to mispronounce “often” often not realizing there’s a silent T.

R3 is me in a nutshell.

R31 = William Safire

Yep, R32, me too. If you had the privilege of a good education you shouldn't look down on those of us who had to teach ourselves everything to get ahead.

Liberry.

I thought it was pronounced gaze-bo. Fortunately, it wasn't a word that ever came up in conversation for my childhood self, and I must have heard someone on TV pronounce it correctly, saving me a modicum of shame.

I was in a production of The Winter's Tale in college and the director, a theater professor, did not pronounce Hermione correctly (he said, HER-me-own). This was ages before the Harry Potter books, of course.

I used to read "chaos" and pronounce it as "chah-ose."

Socraytes for Socrates.

Yose-might

Are there people here who say “datta” lounge?

I never got a handle on shushpishush.

R9: I'm an ancient geezer. On an episode of That Girl 50 years ago there was a discussion of the word 'awry'. Having very rarely encountered it since, I'd otherwise not be sure of how to pronounce it.

R1: I'd say tin-EYE-tuss automatically. TIN-eh-tuss sounds pompous from an American.

R3: You bring to mind Ken Jennings as a Jeopardy contestant, not host, answering an artist's name as TIT-ee-ann.

Titty-an, nice.

Epitome

I say Ear- Pee - tome

I say date- her-long

I love you, R40.

R39 = Kelly Bundy

Shitty Little Annie

Hyperbole is a doozy.

I pronounced it HYPER-bole.

In my 1L Contracts section someone was called on to discuss Hadley v Baxendale (a famous early case). He pronounced Greenwich as Green-witch.

I pronounced quinoa as quinn-oh-uh and was ashamed when I was corrected to keen-wah. How dumb is that? I also pronounced pho as foe, not fuh, and was shamed by a chorus of queens in a sauna one time.

A relative worked with a woman whose name was Penelope who pronounced her name as Penna-Lope. This was in Kentucky at the Old Grandad Distillery, so it kind of makes sense.

R52 I remember Bob Barker calling a contestant Penna-lope on The Price is Right once.

Ching ching chow chow, honey.

[quote]When I was a kid I thought the name Penelope was pronounced "Pen-uh-lope"

Me too, r10!

Mack-a-bree for macabre.

Try pronouncing Daphne without ever having heard it. Back in the 60s my parents forced me into a pen-pal relationship with a boy my age in New Zealand. His poor sister Daphne was going through a prolonged decline from an inoperable brain tumor and much of our correspondence was about his impressions of her condition and how he could be a good brother.

She died in 1971 and he called to let me know. The first time we'd ever spoken. It took me a few seconds to figure out what he meant when he told me Daphne had died. Thankfully the delay covered my mental scrambling to figure it out so I didn't say "who?"

No. I hadn't watched Scooby Doo until years later on video with my nephews.

How do you pronounce Siobhan?

I just don't r58. there's another one I don't even try, some actress.

Shivonne

Pronounced Saoirse.

that's the one r61

While we were in college, a friend was excitedly telling me about a character in a play she’d been reading who’d had a lobotomy. She said, “…And then, they gave her a LOO-BEE-TOO-MEE!

In-DUSS-try

Bona fide.

When I first saw it I thought Saoirse was an pronounced Swowreese.

Interrupted?

r3 is correct. There's nothing wrong with not knowing how to pronounce words that you know from reading.

R67 = R2

As a kid having classmates named Sean and thinking it was pronounced Seen or SEE-an

While playing Trivial Pursuit in the 80s my little brother pronounced Don Quixote Don Quicks-Oat. I still pronounce it that way when I come across it

omg, Trivial Pursuit. I thought enigma was pronounced enima. as in, wrapped in a riddle.

Since when are English speakers expected to innately know the pronunciation of Gaelic names? I don't think foreign language names are applicable to this discussion.

I'm talking specifically about Gaelic names like Siobhan and Saoirse, which are relatively rare among English speakers outside of Ireland. Sean is common across the English speaking world so most should understand how to pronounce it.

interrupted?

R74 see R67 and R2.

OP, when I was young, whenever I would read the word [italic]façade[/italic] in a book or magazine, my brain said, "FAY-kaid."

Separately, I knew there was a word that people said (aloud) that was probably spelled, "phasad?," and it meant a fake front.

Not until I was 17 and staring at the lyrics to "In Your Eyes" by Peter Gabriel did it all click. lol

This thread has me checking Google for pronunciations anxiously. Foyer?? Argh!!

Buck would never have let his reading interrupt his speech.

Re tinnitus:

At my first ENT visit, I asked which pronunciation of tinnitus was correct. Dr said either was fine, which I took as doctor-speak for 'whatever, I’m too busy.'

Later, I asked the nurse, and she confirmed: either one really is correct.

It's SIR-Shuh (for Saoirse).

I remember reading vocabulary answers out loud to my 10th-grader Honors English class and repeating "omni-PO-tent" over and over until one guy blurted out, "It's omNIP-tent!" and I have never been the same.

^^ om-NIP-o-tent, I meant

Happy I have a one syllable name. But some really stupid people still try to pronounce the H. No, not people of other languages. It's probably the first name they learn in English.

Important

Button

I was reading a poem aloud and mispronounced "victuals."

[quote]How Much Of Your Reading Interrupted Your Speech?

What, and oh, dear.

R84 is from Lonk Guy-Land.

I remember in high school English lit class, we took turns reading aloud passages from some book, and when it was my turn, I came across the word "segue," and pronounced it with a silent "ue" (like league, tongue, catalogue, dialogue, etc.). Nobody corrected me so I went through life not realizing segue and /segway/ were one and the same.

R88 - "segue" is one of those words I figured out I was pronouncing wrong in my head before I ever had to fuck up and say it wrong aloud publicly. It's always been a secret flex (esp after "omnipotent"!).

[quote]It's SIR-Shuh (for Saoirse)

A simple song everyone can learn!

I once heard a hapless DJ needing to read out current arts news - including an exhibition by Edgar Degas. This surname he pronounced as Dee-gass. As though the great post-impressionist was best known for the release of stubborn flatulence.

R27 just blame it on the Greek word that has its accent on the "human" part, μισάνθρωπος.

DIOGENES a Greek restaurant pronounced on radio as DIE OH JEANS

Hughes pronounced as Hugg Hez

The connections between words I'd heard people use but (I thought) I never saw in print and words I'd seen in print but had never heard anyone use.

I'd heard the word 'HyPER-BUH-lee' and read the word hyperbole as 'Hyper-bowl'. Was in my 30s before I realized they were the same word.

Same with 'Ah-RYE' and 'AW-ree' (awry).

[quote]While playing Trivial Pursuit in the 80s my little brother pronounced Don Quixote Don Quicks-Oat. I still pronounce it that way when I come across it

I once heard an educated man pronounce Don Quixote as 'Don Quickshot', confidently, as though the routine Spanish inflection was pretentious for a non-Spaniard.

Similarly when Majorca became a populist holiday destination, the same sort of speaker would defiantly pronounce a hard J, perhaps keen to distance himself from populist tourism.

I thought "chic" written was pronounced "chick" and "chic" spoken was written "sheik" until I was around 24.

Faux pas = fox paws

[bold]Slough[/bold]

My friend was complaining about annoying clients and I chirped, “Well, sometimes you just hope it will sloww“ (rhymed with exclamation “Ow!”) “off!” / (pause) “What?” / “You have to sloww the feeling off. Like dead skin.” / (pause) “Do you mean SLUFF?” / “No. Sloww. S-L-O-U-G-H.” / “That is sluff.” / “But…. it’s spelled like plough. Plow.” / “So is rough.”

I said, “That’s one of those words I’ve only read!”

Primer = long I for paint prep. Short I otherwise.

R96 popular, not populist!

R60 brings up memories of watching [italic]Ryan's Hope[/italic] decades ago.

Well, R70, the adjectival form is pronounced quick-zotic.

I still don’t know EDipus v. EEdipus.

It’s not pronounced with a z sound—it’s an s sound.

I should be grateful I'd heard the word pizza before I learned to read.

I knew someone who worked at a movie theater in the 90s when the Les Miserables movie came out (the one with Liam Neeson and Uma Thurman). He said people would come in asking for a ticket to "Less Miserable"

Bry cheese

[Quote] You’re in good company. Harry Truman, as a child, famously read every book in the Independence, Missouri public library.

Books in the Indelendence, MO public library, circa 1905:

The Bible

The Farmer’s Almanac

^^^ Independence

An English woman endearingly confessed to me that, until corrected, she pronounced Arkansas as 'Are Kansas.'

R104, Panza - ['pan θa], pan-tha (Castilian)

Pseudo as sway-do

I was mortified when the office moron corrected me.

Now I have a pronunciation app on my phone.

I can't think of any off the top of my head (other than what I wrote at r97), but there are A LOT of words I run into when reading that I realize I have no idea how to pronounce. *grabs book* -- a single paragraph in, and I found one: "voluminous"

Palatable - my brain keeps wanting to put the stress on the 2nd syllable instead of the first.

(I looked it up and realized I already know how to pronounce "voluminous." But I couldn't have called it up without prompting.)

kwuhk · so · tuhk

R99, Merriam-Webster provides multiple pronunciations of "slough" depending on the meaning - slau, slew, sluff. This requires too much thought to even bother uttering.

After over 50 years of English language fluency, those -ough words still give me pause when I come across them in print, especially the ones I rarely use, like plough, bough, trough.

How do you pronounce Hojicha?

Come friendly bombs and fall on Slough! It isn’t fit for humans now.

R118 those three are ridiculously easy to remember.

[quote]Hojicha

I pronounce it Ho-Yee-Cha, but I also heard it pronounced Hoo-Jee-Cha

Ho-hee-ha

"Fellate" instead of "fillet" hahahaha. Freudian slip, I guess?

My B best friend and the word "determined".

Correct pronunciation: de-term-end

Friend's pronunciation: deter-mined (as in ore is mined)

Once heard a girl say, 'He's a pretty swayve guy.' Her version of 'suave.'

I thought segue was pronounced like seeg (rhymes with league).

[quote]Bona fide

R64 I'm still challenged. Is it BONA FYDEE or BONA FIDE?

Definately, SUAVE. No idea how that was pronounced.

Also, NAIVE. The first time I heard the word spoken, it took me a minute to make the connection to the word I'd read.

Worcestershire Sauce

Is it 'wooster' sauce? I still don't know.

Stoneham, Dedham, Framingham, Needham.

One of these hams is pronounced differently from the others.

Woostersheer

The British pronounce filet as "FILLet"; Americans say "fillAY"

Worse Stir Sheer

When I was in a large archdiocesan seminary we had a first year guy in my Early Christian Theology class continually pronounce Didache as, di-dah-chi not did-a-kay as it is pronounced… The rector finally asked him to what he was referring, after much back and forth and tired of the time wasting, I finally chimed in and said, “I think he means did-a-kay Father.” It shut everyone up… I probably used a tone that wasn’t necessary.

I have a barely tolerable acquaintance who jumps at the chance to correct people's pronunciation of Hermés and Porsche.

I actually don't see what the big deal is - English is such a fucked up language in terms of pronounciation and it has borrowed so many words from other languages.

Other languages have standardized their spelling and pronunciation so mistakes like this are far less likely.

Arguably, English has the most words of any language. Mistakes are going to happen.

R51, the township in New Jersey is pronounced GREEN-witch.

Congregants in my church laughed when the Pastor said E-mouse for Emmaus.

R139 and that’s New Jersey for you…

[quote]Definately

Definitely not.