Words you didn't know how to say or spell

[webny99]

This was a good topic until it got derailed last time. So I'm going to start a new one in hopes that we can continue sensibly.
Please keep strictly to the topic this time!

[Brandon]

How a word sounds and how one thinks it should be spelled seems to vary by dialect and accent.  For example, if I were to say to you "caht", some folks would believe it is "cat", while here, by the Great Lakes, it's actually "cot".

[CNGL-Leudimin]

Please keep strictly to the topic this time!

I do. It's just roadgeekteen who keeps derailing all these. I think he should have been banned by now. I was thinking of bumping the town name pronounciation thread to replace this, as I have some material: For example, the Austrian village is pronounced 'foo-king', not 'fuh-king', and Zaragoza (Spain) is stressed on all syllabes .

[hotdogPi]

Please keep strictly to the topic this time!

I do. It's just roadgeekteen who keeps derailing all these. I think he should have been banned by now. I was thinking of bumping the town name pronounciation thread to replace this, as I have some material: For example, the Austrian village is pronounced 'foo-king', not 'fuh-king', and Zaragoza (Spain) is stressed on all syllabes .

Roadgeekteen is not the only one to derail threads. Any discussion about forbidden place name was not started by Roadgeekteen, and the buffalo/bison discussion wasn't him, either.

[GaryV]

I don't know how old I was when I finally realized Penelope had 4 syllables, not 3.  (Pen - e - lope)

[jp the roadgeek]

Since these kind of got lost in the fiasco that ended the last thread, I'll repost these here:

Comfortable.  It is not pronounced comfter-ble.  It's comfort-a-ble
Escape. You don't ex-scape from prison
Berlin in New England:  It's BER-lin, not ber-LIN
New Haven.  It's not NEWhaven. It's new HA-ven (even Jim Morrison got it right in Peace Frog)
Jewelry.  It's not jewel-ah-ree. Only two syllables (my great aunt always corrected people till her dying day)
Meriden:  It's not the same as the city in Mississippi or the 0 degree longitude prime line.
Cheshire:  It's not Chee-shire.  It's Chesh-err
Hampden:  In MA, the "p" is silent.  Sounds just like the town in CT
Avon:  It's like the cosmetic company; not like the first four letters of "avenue".  Speaking of that word, is it "aven-oo" or "aven-yoo"
Quarter:  My mom always rhymes it with water.  New England thing I guess
Saturday:  My grandmother always made it sound like it was a day named after a soon to be defunct retailer (Sear-dee)
Agawam:  I almost cringed when a news reporter not familiar with the area called it Ah-GAH-wam.
Schaghticoke:  It's pronounced SCAT-i-coke.
Tortilla:  For some reason, in Waterbury, CT, it's pronounced tor-TEE-la.

[7/8]

Comfortable.  It is not pronounced comfter-ble.  It's comfort-a-ble

I have to disagree with the bolded sentence.

From Wiktionary: https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/comfortable

Pronunciation

(General American, Canada)
enPR: kŭmf'təbl, kŭmf'tərbl, kŭm'fətəbl, kŭm'fərtəbl
IPA: /ˈkʌmft.əb.əl/, /ˈkʌmft.ɚb.əl/, /ˈkʌmf.əɾ.əb.əl/, /ˈkʌmf.ɚɾ.əb.əl/

(Received Pronunciation)
enPR: kŭmf'təbl, kŭm'fətəbl
IPA: /ˈkʌmft.əb.əl/, /ˈkʌmf.ət.əb.əl/

Basically, it lists the 3-syllable versions first, meaning they are either just as common or even more common than the 4-syllable version. So "comfort-a-ble" isn't wrong, but neither is "comf-ter-ble". I know in my area, the 3-syllable pronunciation is more common.

[kphoger]

I've only heard foreigners say "comfort-a-bull".

My second-born son was arguing with us in the car yesterday afternoon about the word Wednesday.  They were pronouncing days of the week backwards for fun in the car (life with boys), and he came up with Yad-new.  I told him it would actually be Yad-sen-dew, and he got a little upset that I was putting in an extra syllable that didn't belong there.  He said in a frustrated voice, "Wednesday:  W-E-N-S-D-A-Y:  Wednesday."

[webny99]

So apparently, Bergen, NY is pronounced.... Burgeon?

I can't believe I've never heard it in spoken conversation until this weekend, but it really blows me away that it's not Berg-en, like it sounds. Seriously, the possibility of an alternative pronunciation never even occurred to me, and likely never would have had it not come into spoken conversation by pure happen-chance yesterday.

[CNGL-Leudimin]

Until not long ago, I thought the word "available" was spelt "avalaible" instead. IDK why I thought the correct spelling was wrong.

[TheHighwayMan3561]

Who here pronounces "maintenance"  with the first N silent?

[webny99]

Who here pronounces "maintenance"  with the first N silent?

I guess I sort of do, but it's actually pretty hard to distinguish whether then N is silent or not.

[Scott5114]

So apparently, Bergen, NY is pronounced.... Burgeon?

I can't believe I've never heard it in spoken conversation until this weekend, but it really blows me away that it's not Berg-en, like it sounds. Seriously, the possibility of an alternative pronunciation never even occurred to me, and likely never would have had it not come into spoken conversation by pure happen-chance yesterday.

Presumably named after Bergen, Norway, which I believe is pronounced "bear-gen" like you're trying to make a stupid pun about getting a bear for a bargain.

I have this problem with too many words to try to think of them. I enjoy having a wide vocabulary to draw from, since that makes more likely I'll be able to say exactly what I want to say. So when I run across new words I always look them up and commit them to memory for later usage. Problem is, the vast majority of time I run into them in print (since I don't consume much video media, and most people I talk to don't share my love of unfamiliar words). So I have this word in mind, never heard it said aloud...and then I end up in a conversation where that word is the exact word I need. So I have to make a guess at it, and everyone goes "huh?" and I have to admit I have no idea if I'm pronouncing it right. I'll offer a spelling and sometimes someone else will know how to say it.

[lepidopteran]

The month of February is often pronounced "Feb-yu-airy" as opposed to "Feb-bru-airy".  My 2nd-Grade spelling teacher caught us on that one.

Similarly, many people say they are going to the "Li-berry" instead of the "Li-brary".  I actually remember a TV commercial from the early 70's that called that one out!

[1995hoo]

The month of February is often pronounced "Feb-yu-airy" as opposed to "Feb-bru-airy".  My 2nd-Grade spelling teacher caught us on that one.

Similarly, many people say they are going to the "Li-berry" instead of the "Li-brary".  I actually remember a TV commercial from the early 70's that called that one out!

The latter was in part popularized by the Fonz pronouncing it that way on an episode of Happy Days in which he was talking about having gotten his li-berry card.

[I-55]

I used to always (and still sometimes do) misspell Kosciusko as Kosciosko. Never had an issue with Tishomingo, Yalobusha, Itawamba, Pelahatchie, Oktibbeha, and Tallahatchie. Thing is I live thirty minutes from Kosciusko County in Indiana.

[1995hoo]

"Kosciosko" reflects a common mispronunciation, not just a misspelling.

[Rothman]

"Kosciosko" reflects a common mispronunciation, not just a misspelling.

It's quite annoying, but hearing people say "koseeoosko" is very common, even in the Saratoga/Albany area, despite the fact that  Kosciusko did some of his most notable work for the Saratoga battle.

[webny99]

I have this problem with too many words to try to think of them. I enjoy having a wide vocabulary to draw from, since that makes more likely I'll be able to say exactly what I want to say. So when I run across new words I always look them up and commit them to memory for later usage. Problem is, the vast majority of time I run into them in print (since I don't consume much video media, and most people I talk to don't share my love of unfamiliar words). So I have this word in mind, never heard it said aloud...and then I end up in a conversation where that word is the exact word I need. So I have to make a guess at it, and everyone goes "huh?" and I have to admit I have no idea if I'm pronouncing it right. I'll offer a spelling and sometimes someone else will know how to say it.

Wow, that's scary accurate. My vocabulary is more expansive than average because I do a lot of reading, and that exact thing happens to me quite frequently.

[1995hoo]

I have this problem with too many words to try to think of them. I enjoy having a wide vocabulary to draw from, since that makes more likely I'll be able to say exactly what I want to say. So when I run across new words I always look them up and commit them to memory for later usage. Problem is, the vast majority of time I run into them in print (since I don't consume much video media, and most people I talk to don't share my love of unfamiliar words). So I have this word in mind, never heard it said aloud...and then I end up in a conversation where that word is the exact word I need. So I have to make a guess at it, and everyone goes "huh?" and I have to admit I have no idea if I'm pronouncing it right. I'll offer a spelling and sometimes someone else will know how to say it.

Wow, that's scary accurate. My vocabulary is more expansive than average because I do a lot of reading, and that exact thing happens to me quite frequently.

Heh, you're reminding me of a time when I was growing up, I think in junior high school, and one of the other guys in my English class used the word "epitome," which he pronounced with a long "o" and a silent "e" on the end (as in, think of the word "tome" in referring to a large book, and then add "epi-" to the start of it). The teacher corrected him. I was so glad he was the one to say it, and get corrected, because I would have sounded it out the same way at that age!

[formulanone]

There's a few words I constantly misspell on keyboards but always know how to spell if I write or speak out the letters. For some reason, I'll almost constantly type I-before-O in words like "foil" or "point". Then there's things like "from" and "form"; there's a 50/50 chance of me typing the wrong one, even though that's a tough one to misuse.

I think it took me about 30 years to read aloud the word "reconnaissance", when it's spelled out; even though I'd heard the word since I was about 12. There's still a few words I'll trip over if asked to say or spell..."reservoir" stands out as another. I know there's at least twenty more which I don't use often enough to recall right now.

Then there's that weird handful of words that I've never heard anyone use, though they seem to appear often enough in print or text. I've never heard anyone say "tome", "brobdingnagian", or "hubby" for example.

[I-55]

"Kosciosko" reflects a common mispronunciation, not just a misspelling.

I heard it daily at work over the summer. Honestly its probably the correct way to say it in NE Indiana since I've never heard the proper pronunciation.

It's the opposite of Rio Grande, OH, where most out of towners say the traditional (and correct everywhere else) Ree-o Gron-day instead of Rye-Oh Grand. It confused me when I was little because we stopped there frequently for food, and it was around the time we were learning rivers in school. My brain was backwards the week after that trip.

[webny99]

There's a few words I constantly misspell on keyboards but always know how to spell if I write or speak out the letters. For some reason, I'll almost constantly type I-before-O in words like "foil" or "point".

Yes, I have a few of these too. "Shield" and "foreign" seem to get me every time no matter how often I've used them.

[GaryV]

When I was growing up, there was a girl who lived a few blocks away named Penelope.  I'd never seen her name spelled out.  When I read it in a book, I thought it was pronounced Penny-lope.  It took a while to find that the neighbor girl's name and the book character's name were the same thing.

Re: typing - I often write SQL queries with "GROUP BY" in them - about 50/50 my fingers will put the p before the u.

[webny99]

When I was growing up, there was a girl who lived a few blocks away named Penelope.  I'd never seen her name spelled out.  When I read it in a book, I thought it was pronounced Penny-lope.  It took a while to find that the neighbor girl's name and the book character's name were the same thing.

Similar situation here, except the person I knew named Penelope was always called Penny, so I was embarrassingly old when I discovered it's not penny-lope (or pen-eh-lope, as I would have pronounced it).