I pronounced “Facade” as fay’said.
I have fucked up so many useful words it surprises me.
Do you have an embarrassment we can share with the group?
Hello and thank you for being a DL contributor. We are changing the login scheme for contributors for simpler login and to better support using multiple devices. Please click here to update your account with a username and password.
Hello. Some features on this site require registration. Please click here to register for free.
Hello and thank you for registering. Please complete the process by verifying your email address. If you can't find the email you can resend it here.
Hello. Some features on this site require a subscription. Please click here to get full access and no ads for $1.99 or less per month.
I pronounced “Facade” as fay’said.
I have fucked up so many useful words it surprises me.
Do you have an embarrassment we can share with the group?
by Anonymous | reply 65 | July 11, 2025 12:49 AM |
It happens, not everyone is born William F. Buckley. I mispronounced “tinnitus” at the doctor today.
by Anonymous | reply 1 | July 10, 2025 5:14 PM |
"Interrupted?"
by Anonymous | reply 2 | July 10, 2025 5:15 PM |
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.
by Anonymous | reply 3 | July 10, 2025 5:16 PM |
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.
by Anonymous | reply 4 | July 10, 2025 5:17 PM |
There’s this other book to use when it happens….I think it’s called a dykeshunery.
by Anonymous | reply 5 | July 10, 2025 5:20 PM |
I dont understand the original post title and I refuse to respond to it.
by Anonymous | reply 6 | July 10, 2025 5:25 PM |
I used to pronounce “misled” as “mizled.”
I still think “mizled” sounds much more ominous (therefore oreferred!)
by Anonymous | reply 7 | July 10, 2025 5:32 PM |
epitome
by Anonymous | reply 8 | July 10, 2025 5:35 PM |
I pronounced "awry" as Arry, rhymes with quarry
by Anonymous | reply 9 | July 10, 2025 5:40 PM |
When I was a kid I thought the name Penelope was pronounced "Pen-uh-lope"
by Anonymous | reply 10 | July 10, 2025 5:43 PM |
I pronounced "vacation" as "daycation" well into my teens.
by Anonymous | reply 11 | July 10, 2025 5:43 PM |
I used to pronounce “girl” as “guuuuuuurl”. That was interrupted.
by Anonymous | reply 12 | July 10, 2025 5:50 PM |
façade
by Anonymous | reply 13 | July 10, 2025 5:52 PM |
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.
by Anonymous | reply 14 | July 10, 2025 5:53 PM |
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.
by Anonymous | reply 15 | July 10, 2025 5:54 PM |
I used to say “Wagner” is in wag the dog as a joke with a buddy. Also: choppin for Chopin. Batch. Etc.
by Anonymous | reply 16 | July 10, 2025 5:56 PM |
Jack is worried. He cannot find the boat. There is water all around the is-land.
by Anonymous | reply 17 | July 10, 2025 6:03 PM |
R16 = Bugs Bunny
by Anonymous | reply 18 | July 10, 2025 6:07 PM |
Was that a Looney Tunes gag first?
by Anonymous | reply 19 | July 10, 2025 6:09 PM |
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.”
by Anonymous | reply 20 | July 10, 2025 6:09 PM |
Yes.
by Anonymous | reply 21 | July 10, 2025 6:10 PM |
Yes yo R19.
by Anonymous | reply 22 | July 10, 2025 6:11 PM |
Yes to R19.
by Anonymous | reply 23 | July 10, 2025 6:11 PM |
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
by Anonymous | reply 24 | July 10, 2025 6:12 PM |
And now, R24, you’ve experienced tongue good many times over. You slut.
by Anonymous | reply 25 | July 10, 2025 6:16 PM |
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.
by Anonymous | reply 26 | July 10, 2025 6:29 PM |
I once pronounced misanthrope as "mis-AN-throw-pee" in junior high school.
by Anonymous | reply 27 | July 10, 2025 6:46 PM |
Boys have a pen-eese, girls have a vaj-inna.
by Anonymous | reply 28 | July 10, 2025 6:47 PM |
Vay - Jean - A
by Anonymous | reply 29 | July 10, 2025 6:48 PM |
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.
by Anonymous | reply 30 | July 10, 2025 6:58 PM |
My stupid co-worker used to mispronounce “often” often not realizing there’s a silent T.
by Anonymous | reply 31 | July 10, 2025 7:21 PM |
R3 is me in a nutshell.
by Anonymous | reply 32 | July 10, 2025 7:41 PM |
R31 = William Safire
by Anonymous | reply 33 | July 10, 2025 7:42 PM |
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.
by Anonymous | reply 34 | July 10, 2025 7:44 PM |
Liberry.
by Anonymous | reply 35 | July 10, 2025 8:26 PM |
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.
by Anonymous | reply 36 | July 10, 2025 8:35 PM |
I used to read "chaos" and pronounce it as "chah-ose."
by Anonymous | reply 37 | July 10, 2025 8:44 PM |
Socraytes for Socrates.
by Anonymous | reply 38 | July 10, 2025 8:45 PM |
Yose-might
by Anonymous | reply 39 | July 10, 2025 8:47 PM |
I never got a handle on shushpishush.
by Anonymous | reply 41 | July 10, 2025 8:56 PM |
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.
by Anonymous | reply 42 | July 10, 2025 9:03 PM |
Titty-an, nice.
by Anonymous | reply 43 | July 10, 2025 9:08 PM |
Epitome
I say Ear- Pee - tome
by Anonymous | reply 44 | July 10, 2025 9:23 PM |
I say date- her-long
by Anonymous | reply 45 | July 10, 2025 9:25 PM |
I love you, R40.
by Anonymous | reply 46 | July 10, 2025 9:36 PM |
Shitty Little Annie
by Anonymous | reply 48 | July 10, 2025 10:05 PM |
Hyperbole is a doozy.
by Anonymous | reply 49 | July 10, 2025 10:18 PM |
I pronounced it HYPER-bole.
by Anonymous | reply 50 | July 10, 2025 10:22 PM |
In my 1L Contracts section someone was called on to discuss Hadley v Baxendale (a famous early case). He pronounced Greenwich as Green-witch.
by Anonymous | reply 51 | July 10, 2025 10:33 PM |
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.
by Anonymous | reply 52 | July 10, 2025 10:39 PM |
R52 I remember Bob Barker calling a contestant Penna-lope on The Price is Right once.
by Anonymous | reply 53 | July 10, 2025 10:41 PM |
Ching ching chow chow, honey.
by Anonymous | reply 54 | July 10, 2025 10:43 PM |
[quote]When I was a kid I thought the name Penelope was pronounced "Pen-uh-lope"
Me too, r10!
by Anonymous | reply 55 | July 10, 2025 10:45 PM |
Mack-a-bree for macabre.
by Anonymous | reply 56 | July 10, 2025 10:52 PM |
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.
by Anonymous | reply 57 | July 10, 2025 10:58 PM |
How do you pronounce Siobhan?
by Anonymous | reply 58 | July 10, 2025 11:22 PM |
I just don't r58. there's another one I don't even try, some actress.
by Anonymous | reply 59 | July 10, 2025 11:26 PM |
Shivonne
by Anonymous | reply 60 | July 10, 2025 11:30 PM |
Pronounced Saoirse.
by Anonymous | reply 61 | July 10, 2025 11:32 PM |
that's the one r61
by Anonymous | reply 62 | July 10, 2025 11:48 PM |
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!
by Anonymous | reply 63 | July 11, 2025 12:29 AM |
In-DUSS-try
by Anonymous | reply 64 | July 11, 2025 12:30 AM |
Bona fide.
by Anonymous | reply 65 | July 11, 2025 12:49 AM |
Yes indeed, we too use "cookies." Take a look at our privacy/terms or if you just want to see the damn site without all this bureaucratic nonsense, click ACCEPT. Otherwise, you'll just have to find some other site for your pointless bitchery needs.
Become a contributor - post when you want with no ads!