Hooray for this MeFi thread. I’ve been thinking that I was maybe secretly retarded all this time.
For instance: Until my mid 20′s I pronounced the word pamphlet pamp-let. Pretty embarrassing when you’re producing them for a living.
I still cannot seem to say ancient properly. My stupid mouth wants to say AINGK-shunt. I think it must be a southern verbal tic. Now I have a total complex about it so of course I say it wrong every time – except now I get nervous and say it wrong veeery slooowly. Ugh.
For most of my life I thought gospel was pronounced gos-full. But it’s okay, I probably only sounded stupid to the christian kids and they didn’t like me anyway.
Oh, and it wasn’t until Harry Potter came out that I learned that what I had thought was the most beautiful girl’s name ever, wasn’t pronounced HERM-ee-own, but rather Her-miny and rhymed with “her hiney”.
My most recent embarrassment was when Sunday was here visiting and kept giggling at me every time I said the word strength. When I asked what was so funny she was like “No! It’s totally cute!” (yes. like a gimpy cat is cute). I had no idea I was leaving out the g. No idea. When I heard someone saying “strenth” the other day I had this horrible little time travel moment where I flashed back to all the times I must have sounded like a walleyed hill person.
The irony of all this is that I think this mainly afflicts people who read a lot. Dammit, it’s not like I read a book with a dictionary in the other hand.
To make matters worse when I look things up now I have a tendency to automatically use Wikipedia, which uses that goddamn international phonetic guide. How the hell is the Ω symbol supposed to help me pronounce a word?? Yotz.
But I feel better.
(There is a ton of other great stuff in this thread that I had no idea about. I mean, Arby’s = RBs = Roast Beef. Right. Jesus, of course.)
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Posted in: Jibber Jabber
Jul 9 10
3
Jul.15.10 - 10:56pm
To be perfectly fair I volunteered things I know I always say wrong. Like “comfortable.” I pronounce it “comfort-ubble.” I can’t help myself. Everyone else says “comf-ter-buhl”. And they sound normal. I sound like I’m mocking everyone else.
Jul.20.10 - 9:16am
Sunday, i totally do the same thing: I enunciate each syllable of the word “comfortable” – “come-fort-a-bull”. I also just thought that the word “enunciate” was spelled “annunciate” until spell check caught me.
But my real Achilles heel is having a TERRIBLE memory. Like, my memory is so bad that i can’t remember what it is that i’ve always done wrong. But i have the sneaking suspicion that there is something. This is why i have a Leesa.
Jul.28.10 - 4:24pm
I just realized that I’ve been using the word “disparate” wrong! For years!