*Pismronunciation?

[Claire G]

*from The Two Ronnies

Something I heard on the radio a few years ago stuck with me: "You should never laugh when someone mispronounces a word because it means they've read it somewhere."

It reminded me of my school days. I was a big reader but shy when it came to talking. In our English lesson one day, we had to write a story. I got stuck-in and wrote something I was very proud of, but when I read it out loud, people laughed. I'd mispronounced 'enveloped' because I'd never heard the word spoken; I'd only read it in a book.

Are there any words that you didn't know you were mispronouncing? Any stories of realisation?

 

[TimRees]

Okay, when I was young - probably into my twenties - I used to pronounce organism as orgasm. I used it a lot! Every time I was on a beach and saw a jelly fish I felt this need to tell everyone it was a single celled orgasm... I used to turn beetroot red every time I said it....

 

[Claire G]

When I taught 10-11 year olds, they had a reading test that was based on a text about an octopus. Around 50% of them answered 'testicles' to one of the questions instead of 'tentacles'!

 

[Bloo]

Paradigm I pronounced "paradim" (like paladin).

CMOS I pronounced "see-most" without the final "t". Should be "see-moss".

Anime I pronounces "eh-niym". Should be "eh-nee-may".

La Jolla I pronounced like "Lah Dgollah". Should be "lah hoiyah".

I'm so clueless.

 

[Claire G]

Paradigm I pronounced "paradim" (like paladin).

CMOS I pronounced "see-most" without the final "t". Should be "see-moss".

Anime I pronounces "eh-niym". Should be "eh-nee-may".

La Jolla I pronounced like "Lah Dgollah". Should be "lah hoiyah".

I'm so clueless.

Nice to know we're all human!

 

[Pamela Jo]

Small towns in Kansas wisely never venture into High School French. Latin, with togas and slave auctions. Spanish with maracas and sombreros. So when I hit university in the only creative writing class I ever had, I was going on about Fox Paws. The prof finally twigged I meant Faux Pas. The laughter still rings in my ears.

 

[Rich.]

I was at preschool, four years old, the youngest kid in the class, and the teacher gets me up to read aloud from a Peter and Jane book. The first line is something like: The woman pushed the wheelbarrow up the hill.

So I see the word "woman", and my inner voice says, "WHOA-man", so that's what comes out of my mouth. And I go on, slogging my way through these two pages as the whoaman heaves her wheelbarrow up the hill. Only I'm not thinking of her as "her" at all. I'm thinking, What on earth is a whoaman? Some kind of gardner, I guess. Maybe he's selling something.

Later on, I realise my mistake. And forty-four years later I'm still cross with the teacher for allowing me to make such an arse of myself in front of the class.

 

[AgentPete]

*from The Two Ronnies

Something I heard on the radio a few years ago stuck with me: "You should never laugh when someone mispronounces a word because it means they've read it somewhere."

What a great insight! Like that a lot.
One of my boys came out of the blue with “the chip-n-darl-eeze”. Rhymes with Salvador Dali. He was referring to the male strippers, I really don’t know what he’d been reading…

 

[Claire G]

What a great insight! Like that a lot.
One of my boys came out of the blue with “the chip-n-darl-eeze”. Rhymes with Salvador Dali. He was referring to the male strippers, I really don’t know what he’d been reading…

I think I heard it on Kermode and Mayo's Film Review, which I'm not sure is still going (it was on Radio Five). They used to chat about all sorts of topics around the movie talk.

 

[E G Logan]

Are there any words that you didn't know you were mispronouncing? Any stories of realisation?

Bayreuth.
As a non-German speaker, I took a flying stab, took it as if French... and it came out as Beirut. Conversation from that point was confused, to say the least.

 

[Barbara]

I used to think for the longest time that the song was called Knights In White Satin.

But I have an excuse: I'm foreign.

(For you youngsters, Night In White Satin is a song by the Moody Blues. Mind, you prob don't know them either. )

 

[mickleinapickle]

Back in the Motown days, 4 dudes in sharp suits used to sing, "Soul City Walking". I thought for a long time they were singing, "So Silly Walking".

 

[Peyton Stafford]

Too many to recall, but my favorite was from a sister-in-law. She loved eating pisghetti.

 

[Jake E]

My wife still makes fun of me for the way I pronounced Antigone when I saw it on a billboard.
Anti Gone was apparently not correct.

 

[Nikky Lee]

Whenever I encounter these words, I still have to mentally correct myself – especially if I'm reading aloud:

• "hyper bowl" (hyperbole)
• Sean (as in the name – I want to say "seen" instead of "shawn")
• melee (my brain insists it is suposed to be "me-lee" instead of "meh-lay").

 

[Jake E]

Hegemony is another I used to get wrong.
Hedge money, i was informed by a uni professor, was not correct

Oh, and grandiose. Grand-oise. Another one my wife won't let me forget.

 

[Nikky Lee]

Too many to recall, but my favorite was from a sister-in-law. She loved eating pisghetti.

Reminds me of when I played I-spy as a kid on a road trip. I chose something starting with L and W. Took the rest of the car AGES to figure out it was 'lectric wires'.

 

[Vagabond Heart]

I used to think for the longest time that the song was called Knights In White Satin.

I did too! (You mean it’s not?)

Fox Paws

And this is now burned into my brain - love it!

I’ll add alias (apparently not pronounced er-lie-us)

And ask (because I still don’t know, and think it may depend on where you were brought up) but is it con-trow-versy or con-trov-ersy?

 

[mickleinapickle]

I did too! (You mean it’s not?)


And this is now burned into my brain - love it!

I’ll add alias (apparently not pronounced er-lie-us)

And ask (because I still don’t know, and think it may depend on where you were brought up) but is it con-trow-versy or con-trov-ersy?

Contro-versy?

 

[Pamela Jo]

It IS Knights.
Knights in white satin
Always are sleepy heads
They are so tranquil
They slay dragons in bed

Armor is better for
Chopping off dragons' heads
Knights in Pajamas
Gonna say nighty-night

'Cause they're sleepy
They're so tired
Ohhhhh, yaaaaaaaaaawwwwwwnnn

(The) Author of Sherlock Holmes
(Was) Dubbed as a knight
So was Mick Jagger, fool
And folks you should know

Alistair Cooke's a knight
But he is now dead
So was Sir Lancelot, but that's obvious

Paul McCartney
And Ben Kingsley
Elton John, Roger Moore

(Interlude)

(The) Author of Sherlock Holmes
(Was) Dubbed as a knight
So was Mick Jagger, fool
And folks you should know

Armor is better for
Chopping off dragons' heads
Knights in Pajamas
Gonna say nighty-night

Paul McCartney
And Ben Kingsley
Elton John, Roger Moore

Paul McCartney
And Ben Kingsley
Elton John, Roger Moore

(Really, really, really long interlude)

(Spoken)
Sleep deep
in Satin Pajamas
Slay dragons coming in your way
Loud-snoring people can wake up the dead
Another knight's useless, staying in bed
This story's about a man named Jed
Poor mountaineer barely kept his family fed
You snore so loud that you wake up the dead
And senior citizens with the first name Fred
The knights and hobbits head off to dreamland
Gandalf's a wizard, and Legolas and elf
If this parody makes no sense,
You will figure out what's real
And what is an illusion
(Whatever that means....?)

 

[Bloo]

It IS Knights.
Knights in white satin
Always are sleepy heads
They are so tranquil
They slay dragons in bed

Armor is better for
Chopping off dragons' heads
Knights in Pajamas
Gonna say nighty-night

'Cause they're sleepy
They're so tired
Ohhhhh, yaaaaaaaaaawwwwwwnnn

(The) Author of Sherlock Holmes
(Was) Dubbed as a knight
So was Mick Jagger, fool
And folks you should know

Alistair Cooke's a knight
But he is now dead
So was Sir Lancelot, but that's obvious

Paul McCartney
And Ben Kingsley
Elton John, Roger Moore

(Interlude)

(The) Author of Sherlock Holmes
(Was) Dubbed as a knight
So was Mick Jagger, fool
And folks you should know

Armor is better for
Chopping off dragons' heads
Knights in Pajamas
Gonna say nighty-night

Paul McCartney
And Ben Kingsley
Elton John, Roger Moore

Paul McCartney
And Ben Kingsley
Elton John, Roger Moore

(Really, really, really long interlude)

(Spoken)
Sleep deep
in Satin Pajamas
Slay dragons coming in your way
Loud-snoring people can wake up the dead
Another knight's useless, staying in bed
This story's about a man named Jed
Poor mountaineer barely kept his family fed
You snore so loud that you wake up the dead
And senior citizens with the first name Fred
The knights and hobbits head off to dreamland
Gandalf's a wizard, and Legolas and elf
If this parody makes no sense,
You will figure out what's real
And what is an illusion
(Whatever that means....?)

Wow...I even got the words wrong

 

[Vagabond Heart]

It IS Knights.
Knights in white satin
Always are sleepy heads
They are so tranquil
They slay dragons in bed

This isn't the version I know, lol.

 

[Hannah F]

This isn't the version I know, lol.

And defo not the Moody Blues version (which I used to play on the clarinet).

 

[Hannah F]

I also used to say aneem for anime.
Hermeeony for Hermione.
Catapillar for caterpillar
Arthuritis for Arthritis

Because of my Irish accent (what's left of it), when I taught Biology in School, my youngest pupils used to call the little blood vessels in our bodies "Tin capillaries).

Latin Mass: When my uncle was a wee boy, he apparently used to say "me a cowboy, me a cowboy, me a Mexican cowboy" (mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa) and my brother when he was wee used to say "rice crispies" (corpus christi).

 

[Claire G]

I also used to say aneem for anime.
Hermeeony for Hermione.
Catapillar for caterpillar
Arthuritis for Arthritis

Because of my Irish accent (what's left of it), when I taught Biology in School, my youngest pupils used to call the little blood vessels in our bodies "Tin capillaries).

Latin Mass: When my uncle was a wee boy, he apparently used to say "me a cowboy, me a cowboy, me a Mexican cowboy" (mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa) and my brother when he was wee used to say "rice crispies" (corpus christi).

I used to say Hermione wrong too. I say catapilla because of my accent. Have you read Skellig by David Almond? Your 'Arthuritis' example made me think of it xx

 

[Hannah F]

I used to say Hermione wrong too. I say catapilla because of my accent. Have you read Skellig by David Almond? Your 'Arthuritis' example made me think of it xx

Haven't read that. Must give it a go.

 

[Brooke]

Hermeeony for Hermione.

oh, no, don't remind me . . . when i was reading harry potter in the third or fourth grade, i pronounced 'hermione' as 'her-mwoin.'
100% believed that was how you it was supposed to be pronounced (didn't watch the movies until much later) until my sister heard me read it aloud . . . she still doesn't let me forget it!!!

 

[Hannah F]

I remember another:

When I read Don Quixote, I read Quick-sot