mispronunciations of the written word

[Dreamstalker]

Apparently, my mispronouncing "terpsichorean" (emphasis on the wrong syllable) all these years means that I have a processing disorder Although according to my mom, who did use the term often in school, I'm correct.

It's like the two pronunciations of "Caribbean"...technically I think both are correct.

[tollbaby]

That's almost the correct pronunciation for French... which would be Fatty-gway, if I remember correctly, and, if I don't, I took German in high school...

No, actually fat-ee-gay is closer. We don't pronounce the "u".

Mine are all oddballs. French is my first language, but my English is .... beyond fluent. I have a very extensive vocabulary and tend to like to use the proper word. One of the words I learned as a small child from reading, but never heard pronounced out loud until the movie of the same name came out was "Serendipity".... first off, French, secondly, little kid. How do you think I pronouced it? :P

Another one I still have to remind myself about is "Subsequent" or "subsequently". I always emphasized the 2nd syllable with an "ee" sound rather than an "uh" sound. *blush*

"misled" is another one I have a lot of difficulty with, because in my mind, when I read it, it comes out as "mizzled" instead of "miss-led".

[Ironclad Alibi]

Se-ren-di-pi-ty?

[Shalom]

My mother confessed to me that she once pronounced the U in the word "tongue", the first time she saw it in print when she was a child. Likewise, my sister saw the word "awry" and pronounced it "aw-ry", rather than "a-wry".

Some company names, and even more Internet domain names, consist of several words all rammed together; it makes an interesting parlor game to try and figure out alternate pronunciations for the resulting compound "word". E.g., there's a bus company near here called CoachUSA; if you see it spelled out all in lower case, by English pronunciation rules it ought to be "co-ah-choo-sa", which is how I generally refer to it.

(Of course we can't forget the urban legend of the person whose name was pronounced "shy-theed", but spelled a little differently than that...)

[tollbaby]

Se-ren-di-pi-ty?

Let's just say that as a four-year-old, I recognized the four-letter "pity" at the end... and constructed the rest of the world around that.

"suh-REN-di-PIT-ee"

[seigus]

Best. Thread. Ever.