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.