Words you didn't know how to say or spell

[hbelkins]

The one that will forever stick out to me is "dissuade," which is the opposite of "persuade." I'd never heard the word before when I got it in a regional eighth grade spelling bee. I got it wrong when I was one of the last three or four in the contest and missed out on a chance to participate in the state contest. I don't remember how I spelled it, probably "dissuede" as in "blue suede shoes."

[frankenroad]

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.

Unfortunately, Don McLean pronounced it Feb-yoo-ary when he recorded "American Pie".  I always pronounce it correctly when I sing along!

[US 89]

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.

Unfortunately, Don McLean pronounced it Feb-yoo-ary when he recorded "American Pie".  I always pronounce it correctly when I sing along!

For what it's worth, I have never heard anyone actually pronounce the R. Or if they have, it's been so subtle that I didn't notice.

[briantroutman]

For what it's worth, I have never heard anyone actually pronounce the R. Or if they have, it's been so subtle that I didn't notice.

Some of my elementary school teachers made a point of emphasizing the "roo"  when the class read off the names of the months in unison, and I always pronounce the R.

[kphoger]

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

I pronounce it as MAINT'NANCE.  So it's the e I don't pronounce, not the n.

[webny99]

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

I pronounce it as MAINT'NANCE.  So it's the e I don't pronounce, not the n.

Which goes back to the point I made above: "Maint'nance", as you described, is very difficult to tell apart from "mate'n'ance", especially based on sound alone.

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

[STLmapboy]

I cannot for the life of me pronounce "conscientiously," and can barely spell the damn thing. The two "sh" sounds trip me up.

[CtrlAltDel]

I cannot for the life of me pronounce "conscientiously," and can barely spell the damn thing. The two "sh" sounds trip me up.

I suppose it's not correct, but I pronounce those both as "ch" sounds.

ETA: It's not incorrect, at least according to the OED: /ˌkɑn(t)ʃiˈɛn(t)ʃəs/.

[1995hoo]

^^^^

I have never been able to decipher those modern phonetic symbols, although in that example obviously I can tell what it is because the actual word is shown. When I was a little kid, our textbooks used a different system that looked closer to normal English, but I have no idea what it was called. (The spelling books were the series that referred to certain words with nonstandard spellings as "snurk words," if anyone else remembers those.)

[kphoger]

I used to know a guy who made bar bets that the other guys at the bar couldn't correctly spell the word camaraderie.  That's a good bet, because it sounds like it should be decently easy to spell, then halfway through you realize you don't actually know.

[1995hoo]

I used to know a guy who made bar bets that the other guys at the bar couldn't correctly spell the word camaraderie.  That's a good bet, because it sounds like it should be decently easy to spell, then halfway through you realize you don't actually know.

I would win that bet, but then, I won the school spelling bee in sixth grade. I recall someone in high school insisting that word is spelled "comradery."

[kphoger]

I would win that bet, but then, I won the school spelling bee in sixth grade. I recall someone in high school insisting that word is spelled "comradery."

I narrowly got second place in the school spelling bee around that time.  The reason I didn't win is that the judges misunderstood how I spelled the word, then the other remaining competitor got her chance, she spelled it exactly the same way I did, and she won.  I also participated in spelling bees as an adult while living in the Chicago area, representing the company I worked for at the time.  (By the way, the folks from the Chicago Tribune could kick some serious butt at spelling.)  But even I have to look up 'camaraderie' every time.  At least, I did before this post.  Now I think I can remember it, just from typing so many times today.

[Scott5114]

I have never been able to decipher those modern phonetic symbols, although in that example obviously I can tell what it is because the actual word is shown. When I was a little kid, our textbooks used a different system that looked closer to normal English, but I have no idea what it was called. (The spelling books were the series that referred to certain words with nonstandard spellings as "snurk words," if anyone else remembers those.)

Those "modern" phonetic symbols are the International Phonetic Alphabet. They were cooked up by linguists to create a single unified way of representing pronunciations in any language, which can be important because, say, the sound IPA represents as "t͡ʃ" is spelled "ch" in English and "x" in Basque.

It's less than ideal for English speakers, since the IPA characters sometimes correspond to familiar English pronunciations, sometimes don't, and sometimes use odd glyphs like ɚ that you just have to have had someone who knows pronounce for you at some point, or remember seeing in the IPA representation of a word you already know, to be able to interpret.

I think IPA was meant to mainly be a linguist's tool, but Wikipedia started using it for all of their pronunciations (which makes sense, as Wikipedia covers lots of topics from countries where English is not spoken), and so IPA proliferated.

I never really found the traditional English pronunciation guides to be too terribly useful either–I can never remember what ə means–and prefer the ad-hoc practice of spelling out words as syllables, like con-she-ent-chus-ly.

[CtrlAltDel]

I used to know a guy who made bar bets that the other guys at the bar couldn't correctly spell the word camaraderie.  That's a good bet, because it sounds like it should be decently easy to spell, then halfway through you realize you don't actually know.

Things like camaraderie don't really get me, spellingwise. What does get me is things like:

abdomen vs. abdominal
strategy vs. stratagem
four vs. forty

[1995hoo]

....

I never really found the traditional English pronunciation guides to be too terribly useful either–I can never remember what ə means–and prefer the ad-hoc practice of spelling out words as syllables, like con-she-ent-chus-ly.

That symbol I remember–it's the schwa sound, denoting certain unstressed vowels pronounced similarly to the first and last letters in the word "America." Growing up, I had a friend who liked the way the word "schwa" sounded, so that's why I recall that one in particular.

Regarding spelling out syllables, this isn't quite the same thing, but I tend to use the NATO "alphabet" if I'm spelling a word over the phone. I don't have a military background (my father served but was discharged when I was 1 or 2 years old), but I made an effort to learn that. It's surprising how many people get confused if you use that instead of saying "a 'b' as in 'boy' " or "a 't' as in 'Tom.' " (I sometimes spell out the digits for numbers, too–when I set a timer on my Apple Watch, usually to tell myself when the laundry will be done, I say "five-zero" because indeed Siri will misconstrue "fifty" as "fifteen.")

[webny99]

Some words frustrate me to no end because I've written/typed them thousands of times and still get them wrong.
Receive(d) is the absolute worst and receipt is a close runner up.

[TheHighwayMan3561]

Exercise has been a word I have never been able to spell properly. I keep wanting to spell it "excersise"  or something.

[Scott5114]

Receive(d) is the absolute worst and receipt is a close runner up.

Probably because those are stupidly spelled to begin with. Instead of having to have an awkward rule like "I before E except after C!" we should really be questioning why we're having two consecutive vowels to begin with. "Reseeve" and "reseet" would make more sense. (Why the hell is there a silent P in "receipt", anyway?)

[SEWIGuy]

Receive(d) is the absolute worst and receipt is a close runner up.

Probably because those are stupidly spelled to begin with. Instead of having to have an awkward rule like "I before E except after C!" we should really be questioning why we're having two consecutive vowels to begin with. "Reseeve" and "reseet" would make more sense. (Why the hell is there a silent P in "receipt", anyway?)

Middle English Creole Hypothesis.

[Scott5114]

Hysterical raisins, got it. Why are we too stubborn to get rid of it?

[SEWIGuy]

Hysterical raisins, got it. Why are we too stubborn to get rid of it?

You're talking about a country that still thinks the metric system is radical.

[Scott5114]

True, but Noah Webster was able to enact a spelling reform by just...not including Us in words in his dictionary. Maybe capitalism is the answer here, and we just need some big corporation to start handing out reseets instead of receipts and we'll finally get it fixed.

[SEWIGuy]

True, but Noah Webster was able to enact a spelling reform by just...not including Us in words in his dictionary. Maybe capitalism is the answer here, and we just need some big corporation to start handing out reseets instead of receipts and we'll finally get it fixed.

Did I click on the "Minor things that bother you" topic by mistake?

[Scott5114]

True, but Noah Webster was able to enact a spelling reform by just...not including Us in words in his dictionary. Maybe capitalism is the answer here, and we just need some big corporation to start handing out reseets instead of receipts and we'll finally get it fixed.

Did I click on the "Minor things that bother you" topic by mistake?

Is people talking about things that bother them in threads that aren't "Minor things that bother you" a minor thing that bothers you?

[CtrlAltDel]

we should really be questioning why we're having two consecutive vowels to begin with. "Reseeve" and "reseet" would make more sense.

Don't "reseeve" and "reseet" also have two consecutive vowels?

True, but Noah Webster was able to enact a spelling reform by just...not including Us in words in his dictionary.

Kind of yes, but kind of no. The removal of u's in words like colour and favour and so on was a process well underway in English (both American and British) when Webster made his dictionary. Not even the British, for example, use the spellings governour and inferiour any more.

As for why spelling reform hasn't been pushed more, there are several reasons.

1. Things will get harder before they get easier since the new spellings will not be intuitive for people who already know how to read.

2. The "hysterical raisins" as you call them are useful, if not necessarily infallible, for determining the meaning of a word.

3. Knowing how to spell serves as a marker of education and social class.


Now, none of this, of course, relates to the wisdom, or lack thereof, of spelling reform, but only to the relative permanence of the existing system.