“What’s A Word That Someone Horribly Mispronounced That You Still Remember?” (30 Answers)
Interview With Expert
Language can be weird sometimes. You usually find that out when learning a foreign language. Suddenly there are different sounds and a different-looking alphabet. You have to bend your tongue in ways you didn't even think was possible. Not to mention that words aren't spelled the way they're written.
So it's no wonder people make mistakes in pronunciation. One Redditor had an idea to ask people what's the most memorable incorrect pronunciation they've heard. And the people delivered – from "penglings" to "Cog Nack" and "poll-em" instead of "poem."
To know more about why we mispronounce words and why some words are harder to pronounce than others, Bored Panda reached out to accent coach Luke Nicholson. He's the mind behind Improve Your Accent and a member of the International Phonetic Association. You can read our conversation with him below!
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My wife still says "Rhino-saurus" every time she tries to pronounce "Rhinoceros."
To be fair, her way is better.
Mispronouncing words is a natural part of learning a new language. It's a common occurrence even for native speakers. This time we'll discuss the English language and its phonetic aspects in more depth. But keep in mind, we can apply similar logic to the other languages of the world.
Our expert on English phonetics is Luke Nicholson. He has been teaching English learners how to communicate more clearly for over 10 years. Nicholson teaches a summer course in English Phonetics at the University College London and is also the creator of Funetics, a website that focuses on languages other than English
Worcestershire sauce. He said 'wash your sister ' sauce and I about died laughing
Isn't it pronounced woo-ster-shir sauce? Idk it's really hard to pronounce
In 2017, Luke became the UK Freelancer of the Year. He has also spoken for a variety of media, from BBC Radio London to the Rosetta Stone podcast. His goal is to provide high-quality teaching materials for British English pronunciation.
Nicholson says that people mispronounce words for different reasons. "If someone hasn't been exposed to a word in its spoken form, they may guess the pronunciation based on the spelling," he explains.
It’s Christmas time, which means lots of chocolate ads. Friend of mine informed us that his favorite chocolates where the “feral ranchers.”
Someone who thought the word "vicariously" was bi-curiously. "You're going on vacation with your friends? Wow! I'm gonna live bi-curiously through you!"
We had a training at work, taught by an outside organization. The lady was talking about the Irish potato famine. Except she kept calling it the potato phantom. She did this at least five times
Sadly, spelling sometimes can be your worst enemy, especially in the English language. "Unfortunately for English learners, English spelling doesn't clearly reflect how we pronounce words today," the accent coach says. He gives one example: "We spell 'lamb' with a 'b' because we used to pronounce it, but we don't anymore."
An old colleague once claimed she was ‘unindated’ with work. Now i have to say ‘inundated’ ten times in my head before out loud because that has ruined me for life.
Facade.
Worked for a guy that was an "intellectually overconfident" type, to put it in the most civil way I know how lol.
He kept using the word and had obviously never heard of it until he read it somewhere. Kept pronouncing it "fake-aid". He would go on rants about "fake" people and use this to describe their personalities. It was really cringe inducing.
Eventually the stars aligned and we were together on a business trip, I saw a building under construction. "That place is going to have a really beautiful facade", I said (it genuinely did) and there was no response but about a month later I overheard him using the word and saying it correctly. So whatever.
When I worked at Subway, I asked a customer what kind of dressing he wanted, and he said, "do you know, uh, chipotle?"
Which he butchered so badly I heard it as "do you know a cheap hotel?" So I told him, "yeah, down on 39th Street" and we were both thoroughly confused.
In their defense, as a non-American I didn’t know the pronunciation until I saw a John Oliver segment about the restaurant chain, which he referred to as “America’s preferred over-the-counter laxative”.
People who are learning English are not the only ones struggling with having to pronounce words differently from how they're spelled. Native speakers can fall victim to this too. "Who could deduce that 'wind' (the movement of air) and 'wind' (as in winding up a clock) are pronounced differently?" Nicholson observes.
Had a friend that pronounced the b in "subtle." Was annoying as f**k.
My old boss.
Escaped goat : scapegoat
Interpretate : interpret
Pacifically : specifically
Every. F*****g. Time. In front of some clever people before he would introduce me to carry on with the presentation...
How is it these morons are always the ones who end up in charge?? Sigh...
Extracurricular as "Extra Kickler". The bad part about it is that it was one of my high school teachers. We even starting calling him The Midnight Kickler what kickles at midnight.
In high school, we were supposed to read segments of a story in turn, and my segment included the word redolent. When I got to that part, the teacher stopped me to explain "It's pronounced re-DOH-lent, not red-UH-lint". I knew better, but I said it her way. The next day, she announced that she has asked three other people, and that I had in fact been right
"Guessing pronunciation from the spelling is even challenging for those who speak English as their first language," the accent coach reiterates. "Place names are particularly troublesome." He gives one interesting example: did you know that "Cholmondeley" is actually pronounced "CHUM-lee"?
My high school girlfriend travelled with me to visit my family in SoCal after graduation.
We were playing Trivial Pursuit and it was her turn to read the question.
The question was something like "which south american king ruled with a chihuahua?"
Only she pronounced it as "cha-whoo-a-whoo-a".
It took a good 30 seconds to understand what she word she was trying to pronounce. And a good 30 minutes for my entire family to stop laughing. We still joke about it to this day.
I just did the thing where you say a word so many times it stops feeling like a real word... chi wa wa... chi whoo a whoo a..
20 years ago my wife and I were behind a woman at Target at the register. She began arguing with the cashier over the price for an item, and after a few rounds back and forth loudly proclaimed, *"I ain't no mathematic, but I ain't no stupid neither!"*
We still use that whenever the "math don't math" on something.
I was, for reference, a mathematics major.
Are non-English speakers doomed then? "For those who don't speak English as their first language, there may be sounds they find tricky to pronounce," Nicholson explains. "For instance, the Spanish language doesn't have a distinction between a 's' and a 'sh' sound. This means English words like 'sash' may be mispronounced by Spanish speakers."
When reading an award at a US Army ceremony, the Personell clerk was reading "He is a fine outstanding soldier all his peers should seek to emulate", he pronounced it "eliminate"
I work in the legislative/policy field, and my boss pronounces statutes "statue-ettes." It's wild.
Those to whom English is a second language most often struggle with how to pronounce the 'th' sound. Surprisingly, we can find the sound in other languages spoken in Europe as well. "The 'th' sounds in English (like in 'this' and 'thing') are found in a few other languages," Nicholson says. Among them are Icelandic, Albanian, Welsh, and Greek.
Girl in college:
Word -- "Annihilate"
Her pronunciation --- Annie - Hilly -Ate
I was in a miss teen type of pageant & during the panel I was asked, “if you were handed a red crown what would you draw?”
I had to ask the moderator to repeat the question & with a chuckle, I asked for clarification on if she meant a red “crown” or did she actually mean a red crayon. None of the judges were happy with me smugly correcting the moderator.
"With a red crown I would draw the red queen, for obvious reason, for that pronunciation. With a Crayon, I would draw a heart to show how the school have failed you"
Unfortunately, the 'th' sound is not that common in other languages. "This suggests they could be trickier to articulate," the accent coach tells Bored Panda. "For those speakers who don't have the 'th' sounds in their native language, the English 'th' sounds might be tricky to master."
It was a brunch time first date at a restaurant fancier than I’m usually comfortable with. Was looking to get a little buzz to take the edge off. I pointed to the mimosa carafe that was on the menu and asked if she would like to share one. We were in agreement that it looked wonderful so when the server came over, I confidently declared that we would like the mimosa care-a-fay. The server laughed. My date laughed. I was mega embarrassed.
We dated for about a year and a half after this incident and she would occasionally ask if I’d like a care a fay of whatever liquid was in close proximity.
TLDR: Carafe is pronounced more like giraffe. Definitely don’t say care a fay on a first date or ever.
This is a situation where the words “You can if it’s true love” are appropriate. (As in, if a date doesn’t work out, there are other reasons besides a small goof like that.)
Working in web development, there was *one* person on my team who consistently mispronounced the word "cache". Drove me nuts.
It's one syllable, folks, not two! "Cash", not "cash-ay"!
I'm in IT and don't mind this. Honestly, it just makes me think about how weird English is as a language.
Coworker was saying stigmata instead of stigma. Multiple times. Also claimed to have a photographic memory. Irony.
What's interesting is that Nicholson advises not to stress too much over this. "This isn't actually that important," he says. "Many English speakers in the UK actually pronounce the 'th' sounds as 'f' and 'v' instead. So 'first' and 'thirst', and 'sliver' and 'slither' sound the same."
My Mom back in the 70s used to pronounce a "resume" for work a resume(re-zoom) as in resuming work. It made sense to her.
Co-worker got charged with DUI. He was writing down the facts to show his lawyer and he asked me "How do you spell so-vi-it-e?"
He was saying sobriety but with a V instead of a B. I told him I thought it was S-O-B-R-I-E-T-Y. He told me that was wrong "cuz there is no v in it."
I told him there wasn't a V in sobriety and he said, "Then why is it pronounced so-vi-it-tree? See there is a v in it." I gave up and told him he was right and I had no idea how to spell the word.
At a Chinese Restaurant and my coworker asked for General Toes. I still laugh about it to this day.
Off topic but the food in the picture looks soooo good now I'm starving again
Some people use pronunciation to assume people's level of sophistication. If a person pronounces a word or words incorrectly, that somehow reflects on their intelligence. Luke Nicholson says that such stereotypes are simply not true. "As I mentioned, sometimes it's impossible to guess the pronunciation of a word based on spelling alone," he explains.
Friend pronounced "meme" as "memmay"
I pronounced it as memmee for like 4 years before my brother told me it was meem. I read more that I talked to people back then.
Lingerie. She pronounced it lin-jeer-ee and argued with me over the pronunciation until Google stepped in with the correct answer lol
Sometimes I pronounce it like Jamie Foxx, when he played Ugly Wanda, on "In Living Color": "Linger-ee", lol.
A former neighbour was talking about a movie she saw and it was called Malice - pronounced 'mah lice'.
I really miss her though.
Note: this post originally had 44 images. It’s been shortened to the top 30 images based on user votes.
Nicholson also has a solid argument against prejudices about incorrect pronunciation. "If someone is mispronouncing a word because their first language isn't English, we should remember that they are clever enough to speak more than one language!"
I was told when I was a child to be gentle when other people mispronounce words as it meant that they had read them somewhere rather than heard them and "reading is a very special thing to do". :) x
Me too. I mispronounce lots of words as I have only read them, especially if it is in a language that I don't speak often.
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As someone who works in the language services industry, I think a lot of people expect me to constantly be a grammar Nazi. It actually really rubs me the wrong way when people correct grammar or mispronunciations in a way that hurts or humiliates the person who made the mistake. If you feel so obliged to correct someone please do it in a kind way and acknowledge that you also make mistakes. Heck, I’m supposed to be an expert in the art of translation and I still make idiotic grammar and spelling mistakes. Also, please remember that not everyone may be a native speaker of English or your native language as well.
Plus, please remember that it's estimated that 1 in 10 people are dyslexic. Dyslexia is a learning difficulty that primarily affects the skills involved in accurate and fluent word reading and spelling. Characteristic features of dyslexia are difficulties in phonological awareness, verbal memory and verbal processing speed. These things can very much impact someone's pronunciation - my husband will add an extra syllable in some words as he doesn't 'see' them the same way we do.
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Everybody who is (native) English should read: The Chaos Dearest creature in Creation, Studying English pronunciation, I will teach you in my verse Sounds like corpse, corps, horse and worse. It will keep you, Susy, busy, Make your head with heat grow dizzy; Tear in eye your dress you'll tear. So shall I! Oh, hear my prayer, Pray, console your loving poet, Make my coat look new, dear, sew it? Just compare heart, beard and heard, Dies and diet, lord and word, Sword and sward, retain and Britain, (Mind the latter, how it's written!) ... Google it!
I have read somewhere that this poem is written by a Dutch man. Being Dutch myself and having had (and sometimes still have) my own struggles with the discrepancy between spelling and pronunciation in English, I really feel this!
Load More Replies... I was told when I was a child to be gentle when other people mispronounce words as it meant that they had read them somewhere rather than heard them and "reading is a very special thing to do". :) x
Me too. I mispronounce lots of words as I have only read them, especially if it is in a language that I don't speak often.
Load More Replies... As someone who works in the language services industry, I think a lot of people expect me to constantly be a grammar Nazi. It actually really rubs me the wrong way when people correct grammar or mispronunciations in a way that hurts or humiliates the person who made the mistake. If you feel so obliged to correct someone please do it in a kind way and acknowledge that you also make mistakes. Heck, I’m supposed to be an expert in the art of translation and I still make idiotic grammar and spelling mistakes. Also, please remember that not everyone may be a native speaker of English or your native language as well.
Plus, please remember that it's estimated that 1 in 10 people are dyslexic. Dyslexia is a learning difficulty that primarily affects the skills involved in accurate and fluent word reading and spelling. Characteristic features of dyslexia are difficulties in phonological awareness, verbal memory and verbal processing speed. These things can very much impact someone's pronunciation - my husband will add an extra syllable in some words as he doesn't 'see' them the same way we do.
Load More Replies... Everybody who is (native) English should read: The Chaos Dearest creature in Creation, Studying English pronunciation, I will teach you in my verse Sounds like corpse, corps, horse and worse. It will keep you, Susy, busy, Make your head with heat grow dizzy; Tear in eye your dress you'll tear. So shall I! Oh, hear my prayer, Pray, console your loving poet, Make my coat look new, dear, sew it? Just compare heart, beard and heard, Dies and diet, lord and word, Sword and sward, retain and Britain, (Mind the latter, how it's written!) ... Google it!
I have read somewhere that this poem is written by a Dutch man. Being Dutch myself and having had (and sometimes still have) my own struggles with the discrepancy between spelling and pronunciation in English, I really feel this!
Load More Replies...