Counterintuitive pronunciations

For years I’ve known the word “grandiloquent”, but only until I came across the spoken word did I realize that I would have embarrassed myself if I had used it in public. Could you please add some more examples, even if it seems basic to you? Thanks.

I was probably in my late teens before I realized that quay was actually the spelling of the word “key” that I’d been hearing all these years, rather than a different word pronounced “kway.” (Hell, we’ve already got dock, jetty, pier, harbor, why not another couple?) I do not recall what I believed the Florida Keys to be at that time.

I discovered earlier, but still embarrassingly late, that yacht was the same word as “yot.”

I will avoid saying the word indict because I refuse to believe it’s pronounced “indite”. And there’s another word similar to indict that I can’t quite remember, something about a “c” that’s in the word but is silent … I found out about that one while, somewhat embarrassingly, tutoring a high school student.

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I’m not an American, but I’ve watched many cop and detective TV series. Do Americans pronounce the word “precinct” as “pre-saint”, or have my ears been deceiving me?

I think they have, though I could imagine it sounding that way in a Southern accent.

I always unthinkingly read paradigm as “para-dij-m” until I was thankfully corrected by a Forumosan in conversation

To me, this is pronounced the way it looks like it should be pronounced.

It’s “precinct,” but the nc sounds more like ng. The weird one to me is “tongue.”

There’s always ghoti, but it’s not in most dictionaries. :idunno:

It’s in dictionaries…just under a different spelling. What I don’t get is why the British pronounce lieutenant as lef tenant. I imagine it’s some kind of jab at the French…like “Wipers.”

My momma always says Plankton instead of Plantains…Everyone knows someone that says something like this which means we are also doing this. How about song lyrics?

Awry. To me it looks like AW-ree.

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When I was a kid, I thought the Christmas corol “Feliz Navidad” was an English song. I used to sing “The least must be done.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cqpi-e_iLcQ

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I always thought “Yosemite” was pronounced the way it’s written (Yo-Se-might) as in “Stalagmite” until I found out it was not so …:roll_eyes:

This is another one that I had wrong: desultory. I pronounced the -sult- part as you would in “result.”

Don’t feel bad. Some Californians mispronounce it that way on purpose.

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The first time I noticed the word “disheveled” was when Saddam was taken out of the spider hole he hid in. Before that, I assumed it was “dis-heaveled.”

For years, when I saw the word “archipelago,” my mind had the wrong syllable stressed, as ar-ki-pe-LA-go. Even though I now know the correct pronunciation, I still have to pause and say it out loud–often more than once–to get it correct. Luckily, I rarely have a need to say that word.

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Two that weren’t exactly wrong, but surprised me when I realized the differences:

Don Quixote. When I was a child, one friend deliberately mispronounced it “Don Kwix-oat”. Oh, how amusing. Then years later I discovered that’s a common pronunciation in Britain?

Cephalopod. I always thought it was a soft c. And it is. But I listened to a BBC show about cephalopods and the host kept using a hard c sound. And I thought I’d been wrong all these years, until one of the American guests started using the pronunciation I’ve always known (I imagine the American scientist briefly thought “Wait, have I been mispronouncing my life’s work all these years?!”). So I guess they’re both right.

I’ve had same issue with the Celts

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“Omnipotent” is another one that’s easy to get wrong. The emphasis and the “o” sound aren’t what you’d expect.

i’ve always wondered why kansas and arkansas are pronounced differently, any explanation?

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They are?