What words do you find people consistently mispronounce?
Asked by
jca (
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May 2nd, 2016
Two I can think of are “lackadaisical.” Many people pronounce it “lax-a-daisical.” There’s lax, and there’s lackadaisical, but there’s not “laxadaisical.”
Another is “mischievous.” I find many people say “mis-chee-vee-ous.”
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103 Answers
Disclaimer: from a non-native English speaker.
- Cupboard. I can hear some people pronounce “cup” and “board” separately. Get the picture?
– INsight, not inSIGHT.
– Goes. Just decause “does” is pronounced “der-s” doesn’t mean that “goes” can follow the same rule.
– Finale. It’s “fer-na-li”. It’s not another “final” with an “e”.
it is ‘herbs’, not ‘erbs’
aluminium, not aluminum
None. There is no word I know that is consistently mispronounced. I do happen to know some people who can pronounce their own language properly.
That is, unless you want to take the position that all Americans are mispronouncing English.
But among the words I hear frequently mispronounced is “anonymity.” People who have an opportunity to practice it all the time nevertheless tend to fall over it.
I think I actually hear more wrong words spoken—he means “averse,” he says “adverse”; she means “gratify,” she says “gratisfy”—than mispronunciations. I’m not counting the variations in accent among nonnative speakers of English.
“Ders,” @Mimishu1995? “Does” rhymes with “buzz” and “was.” “Goes” rhymes with “nose” and “blows.”
Forte, meaning something that is one’s strong point.
When I was very young my mom taught me to pronounce it FORT, but after hearing for decades others say FOR-tay, I started doing the same—even though I felt I was being disloyal to Mom, who was a writer.
Now I learn that she was right. Every website I check says you pronounce it FORT and reserve FOR-tay pronunciation for the musical term.
forte – it’s not for TAY (or FOR tay, as @Pachy has also noted)
espresso – not EX presso
mischief and mischievous – it’s not miss CHIEF, and it’s not miss CHEEV ious (oh, how I hate this one)
To buttress what @Jeruba also notes, I see the errors in writing more often than in pronounced English. The misuse of homonyms is staggering:
– their / there / they’re all mixed up and misused
– affect / effect
– reign / rein (not so often confused with rain, but even so, even so…)
– obtuse / abstruse
– whose / who’s
The list is too long and depressing for me to recount.
Suite of furniture or bedroom suite—is sweet not suit
Library often said as “Liberry”.
I mispronounce both of those and I didn’t realize prior to this post. Thanks.
Cessation – mispronounced as sensation. Nebulizer – a nurse, of all people, consistently said nebbalizer.
Nuclear – mispronounced as nookyouler or nuke a ler.
I’ve mentioned the Spanish sausage chorizo before. Lots of British people pronounce the z like the z in pizza – cho Ritz o
Mostly I think it is regional variations. For example I don’t rhyme “does” with “was” but say duz and woz. My only other pet peeve is my national ‘pastry’ – the scone. Scone looks like it should rhyme with cone (and lots of people do pronounce it that way) but it rhymes with gone
Whoops, I say mischeevious! Well, I’ll say it either way depending on my mood. Glad I’m not the only one @ANef_is_Enuf—guess we’re a mischievous pair!
I say negotiate as “neh-go-she-ate.” When heard people say “neh-go-see-ate” I thought it was wrong… but I’ve heard enough people say it both ways that I’ve made my peace. (Still, I’m sticking to “she,” because otherwise negotiation has two “ti“s that both make different sounds!)
Niche is another one I have a hard time with. I’ve grown up saying “neesh,” but have heard all sorts of variations (“nitch” “neetch” “nish”). “Neesh” sounds nicer to me, so I prefer it.
I’ve heard W.E.B. Du Bois’s name mispronounced—people saying “du bwah” instead of “du boyz”—though I get why.
I’m guilty of mispronouncing words because I’d only seen them in written form and never heard them spoken.
I referred to Hades’ wife as “Purse-a-fone” instead of “Per-SEF-oh-nee” until about my senior year of high school because I just didn’t know anyone else who cared about Greek mythology.
I’m still not totally certain how to pronounce carafe.
@Seek carafe (in English) rhymes with giraffe.
I would say Purse A fone, too. My reading life is more high brow than my in-person listening life.
The example is neat because the correct pronunciation is so beautiful. It’s like Calliope.
“Kally Ope” sounds like a Beverly Hillbillies error. Calliope is lovely.
Alzheimer’s. It used to drive me nuts when I’d hear a fellow nurse say All-timer’s.
I agree, @Espiritus_Corvus, and I’ll add, it’s a word I loathe hearing with any pronunciation.
Well, that’s the first I’ve heard that I’ve been saying “mischievous” wrong all this time! I stand corrected. However, generally speaking, people who even use words like “mischievous” over all have a pretty good vocabulary.
@Espiritus_Corvus I’m going to get smacked, but the only people I’ve ever heard pronounce it as “all-timers” have been black. That has just been my experience.
OH! “Mature”! We used that word often while growing up, pronouncing it MATT CHURE. That’s how we were taught to say it.
Then one day, when I was in my late teens, my Mom started correcting it to “MA TURE.” It never stuck with me though… I just checked it, and MA TURE is correct.
Wow. Two things in one day.
@Dutchess_III That’s OK. I hold nurses to a higher standard. Each nurse, especially with the aged population we have in Florida, should have cracked at least one book the subject during their careers. It is clearly spelled A-L-Z-H-E-I-M-E-R-S. I don’t expect people from other disciplines to know medical terminology or pronounce each term correctly, but I do expect it from medical people.
Hmmm, I say “mature’ wrong.
Well, I did until now.
Nuclear gets me! I find it hard to pronounce (even though I know the right pronounciation).
Another one is colloquium. Someone has that word in one of our course names, and my tongue gets tied up on it. I don’t know why.
Alzheimers is an odd one too @Espiritus_Corvus. Is it ALTZ heimers.. or ALS heimers. People seem to say either one. Even doctors.
Another is Asbergers. Is it ASS BURGERS or Ass BerGers. I don’t know how to show the different G sounds and I don’t have time to look it up. Which is right?
I can’t think of any others right now.
ah-SPER-jer’s, I believe.
That’s what I say too, but I’ve heard the other pronunciation and it’s apparently quite common for people to use it. I have a friend whose sister has Aspergers and she said it’s a source of much merriment for her sister and her friends (who also have Aspergers), when people say Assburgers.
I’ve seen in the online dictionaries that “forte” can be pronounced “fortay” and “fort.”
I never knew “scone” should rhyme with “gone.” Interesting. I’ll have to look into that.
I also say “matt-chure” for “mature.” I’ve never heard anybody pronounce it “matt-ure.”
I would have thought W.E.B. DuBois’ name was pronounced “du bwah” just like Blance DuBois (I think it’s spelled the same) in Streetcar Named Desire.
I’ve also heard “Alzheimer’s” pronounced “Old Timer’s” but I think that may be people being funny.
I’ve heard people (usually older people) pronounced “advertisements” as “Add VER tiss ments.”
Also “Coupon” I’ve heard as “cyoo pon.”
I’ve been known to say na-kin and pun-kin, rather than napkin and pumpkin. I say it correctly when not at home though. I assume other people say it incorrectly too. I also say scissor rather than scissors. I know what is correct though.
Someone above mentioned when writing using their, there, and they’re, or you’re and your incorrectly. I write them incorrectly sometimes, especially writing your when it should be you’re. I usually catch it, but not always. It’s not confusing to me at all, it’s just sloppy writing and writing too fast without editing.
I know people who say jute box instead of juke box. People who say aks instead of ask. Then there are words like crank and prank, which I guess maybe are actually synonymous?
In Michigan many people said ruff when wanting to say roof. Crick instead of Creek. Bar-rette (well, it is spelled that way) but I think most Americans say ber-ette. The r after the hyphen is on purpose for the first pronunciation.
“ex cetera”
“aks”
“a mute point”
“off-ten” instead of a silent t.
“re-spite”
“nitch”
“eppy-tome”
“hyper-bowl”
“Aks” instead of “ask” is common and to me, sounds so shitty.
Merriam Webster has audio pronunciation.
FYI
Worshington.
Worsh the clothes.
I say nitch.
A mute point reminds me of people who say marry, Mary, and merry all the same. The northeast tends to pronounce all three differently, while many other parts of the country will look at you like you have 6 heads if you suggest they are all pronounced in their own unique way. But, the northeast, especially New York, tend to exaggerate their a’s anyway.
I pronounce “niche” as “neesh.”
Huh, I wonder if “ask” has regional variations… I hear “ast” a lot instead, where the k becomes a t sound. “I ast’d him….” and I’ll fall into that, too, unless I’m really annunciating. Never heard “aks” before!
How do we all say our? I say it the same as “hour” (I think because of the way it’s spelled) but most people around me say the same as “are.”
I pronounce the t in often.
I also say “matt-chure” and “coo-pon” and my “scone” rhymes with “cone.”
I say your and you’re slightly differently; I think I started as a little kid when I learned the different spellings. Helped to keep them separate for me—the first is “yore” and the second is more like a “you-er.” Same with there their and they’re—the first is “there,” the third is “they-er” and the middle one is something in between. Probably (hopefully?) it’s indistinguishable when I’m speaking…
Yeah, I said Du Bois’s name “du bwah” until I was told! Aha… Another one I want to mispronounce is Coleridge… really want it to be “collar-idge” but it’s “coal-ridge.” And I want Yeats to be “yeets” but it’s “yates” ... doesn’t help that Keats is “keets.”
It doesn’t bother me, but it is interesting that people up in the Poconos and surrounding area often say “wooder” for water.
In Minnesota, I noticed people will use the word “loan” for both borrow and loan, just like in Sweden.
@Soubresaut For the most part a subgroup of black people pronounce ask aks. They usually are from lower income.
I say our the same as hour. I think most people do.
I saw a video in my French class about the difference between English and French – which parts were harder for the learner etc. The French person pointed out that intonation doesn’t really exist in French so she found it hard to grasp in English where the stress of the syllable changes the meaning eg Re-CORD and REC-ord
@Stinley Not only pronunciation, but English has a ton of words spelled exactly the same, many pronounced the same, and mean totally different things. Fine (a penalty fee, or something is ok). Read (present tense or past tense) and when writing don’t mistakenly write red. The list goes on.
Young children have the same difficulties when learning to read aloud, even if their first and only language is English. As they sound out words they might say re-CORD when REC-ord is correct. Other languages have rules and accent marks to indicate where the emphasis is. However, accent marks are a pain in the ass. It slows typing, and is a huge annoyance in texting. By context we know meaning or how to pronounce a word, and in the end it’s much simpler overall. Although, spelling in English is it’s own nightmare.
Some of the pronunciation variations mentioned above are regional, not right or wrong.
Here are sample questions from Which American Accent Do You Have? .
How do you usually say the words DON and DAWN? Do you say them the same or differently?
The three words MARY, MERRY, and MARRY. How do you say them?
I say all 3 differently
I say MARY and MERRY alike, but MARRY is different
I say all 3 the same
Do you say words like BATH, PASS, and STAFF with the same vowel as BAT, PACK, and TRAP?
Times I’m with people from “upstate” or people from other parts of the country, the NY accent I have is obvious. Just the other day I was watching a cooking show and the host pronounces water as “watt er.” I say it “waa ter” and I also say “dawg” but upstaters will say “dog” to rhyme with “log.” I was with one of my upstate friends once and we were joking about pronunciation. I asked her how she’s pronounce “gaudy.” She pronounced it like “gotty.” I said it like “gaw dy.”
@JLeslie: I usually pronounce “our” like “hour” but when I’m talking fast, sometimes I’ll say it like “are.” “Where’s are luggage?”
I pronounce things differently too @jca . When I say certain things in my Scottish accent, people round where I live in England ask me to repeat. So I now say them with more of an English accent. One I have found really hard to stop though is the long i eg the i in “I am”. I tend to say a short “i” more close to “a” eg “a am” with the two words practically rhyming. I’m is said Am. My family can understand me!
The word “talking” I pronounce like “taw king.” Upstaters and from other parts of the country, they pronounce it like “tock ing.”
Brits pronounce “garage” as “GA raj.” Here in the US, we say “ga RAAZH.” Brits say “shed ule” and in the US, we say “sked uhl” for “schedule.”
@jca Interesting. I think maybe I do alter how I say our in some sentences, but not to the point that it sounds just like are.
@Call_Me_Jay Dawn is another one for sure.
In TN/MS a lot of people say pen like pin. I remember a friend if imbue complain a friend if hers calls her Jinny, but her name is Jenny. She was “complaining” that she couldn’t understand why her friend couldn’t get it right. I offered that a lot of people in the area pronounce pen as pin, so it’s probably part of the same thing. My friend Jenny looked at me, paused, and said, “I say pin.”
Also, in the UK, it seems people pronounce “film” as “fill im.”
Re: Pen/pin
A lot of people use short “i” as if it’s the only vowel. I hear reporters on the radio talking about the “iliction for the Sinit” (election for the Senate). As I typed this I heard “Jinnifer” and “ixpirience” and “trinsition” (transition). It grates my ears.
@jca “Ad-ver-tiss-ment” is the UK pronunciation.
This site suggests the UK and the American pronunciation of “film” are the same. The only difference is in the UK you have to sound like a woman, and in American you have to sound like a man. I think that’s what that means!~
I think it’s one thing to “mispronounce” a word when you were raised with “mispronouncing” it. That can be a cultural thing. However, something I find interesting is that a group of adults will learn a “new” word in the course of their jobs. Everyone will be using this word, and yet one will mispronounce it consistently. For example, when I was in the wireless industry the term “analogue” was used quite a bit, by everyone in the industry. My boss, however, always said, “ant-ti-log.”
There were other words she mispronounced, and I wonder if some of it is just a processing thing? Combing the familiar, such as “anti” with the new?
On the other hand, she’d compose an email, and spell check would flag her on her spelling..a LOT of misspellings. She’d go, “All those words are spelled right!” ignore the suggestion and send the email.
We have a cat named “Vanta.” My 8 year old grandson constantly calls her “Avanta.”
@jca The Irish say “fil-um”, or a similar splitting of the word into two syllables.
I’ve never heard anything other than a single syllable “film” by other British English speakers. Though we do use “film” instead of “movie”.
The Irish pronunciation sounds like they’re throwing a bit of Gaelic into it. That makes sense.
I have a friend who used to pronounce “penguin” as “PENK win.” I could not resist the urge to tell her it’s a “GWIN” not a KWIN.”
Hm. That sounds like the way a two year old might say it, but was never corrected. Sometimes it’s so cute you don’t want to correct it! But usually they do figure it out.
When she was 3 my granddaughter used to say “squirrid,” for “squirrel,” but that was only for a few months. She’s 12 now. WE still use “squirrid” sometimes though because it’s cute.
How many words do you think we take from our childhood into adulthood having never been corrected?
I have an 8 year old grandson who is incredibly smart…but so often he still uses the tenses the way a 2 or 3 year old, who is just learning to talk, will use them. “Goed” for “went,” and “falled” for “fell…” I don’t understand it. I correct him when he’s here.
The other day he mentioned that he doesn’t like his language classes in school because they confuse him. I told him he needs to pay extra close attention to them.
@Dutchess_III
He does it because he is smart.
He learned the rule “past=verb+‘ed’ ” (like learn + ed = learned) and applies that rule to other verbs.
It is not his fault that the english language is full of pointless exceptions and special cases that conform to no pattern or rules.
These are the mispronunciations that bother me. Obviously we all pronounce things differently depending on local dialect, but if I hear these mispronunciations, I cringe a little:
espresso (not expresso)
especially (not expecially)
et cetera (not excetera)
poinsettia (not pointsetta)
bouquet (not bow-kay)
coupon (not kyew-pon)
foliage (not foilage, people!)
….Ok. How do you pronounce bouquet?
I’m good with the others…except I’ll bet I tend to say “kyew-pon.” Since I never really talk about dhem dings I’ll have to pay attention nest time i du.
I just played ALIT in WWF. It took it. I looked it up. It is the past tense of alight. I’ve never heard it before. It would never occur to me to say, “The butterfly alit upon the flower.” I guess I’d go the long way around and said, “I watched him alight upon the flower.”
Actually, I’d probably say, “The butterfly landed on the flower….” I am so clunky.
@Dutchess_III re your grandson’s speech. I was worried about my daughter’s speech when she was tiny and read a few books on speech and development. One of the ways to help a child learn the correct grammar or pronunciation is not to correct it (that’s undermines their confidence) but to reply using the correct form.So don’t say ‘it’s not I goed, it’s I went’ but say ‘You went? Well I went too’ or similar.
I did that too, when my kids were young. Also, if a cuss word like, “shit!” came out I’d go, “It’s shoot!” and then use it a few times in a sentence over the next few minutes. It’s easy enough to change in those early beginning stages.
However, he is WAY beyond that. He’s only with me a small, minute percent of the time. I don’t know why he persists. Maybe he just does it to annoy people.
(I do it with my husband!! He’ll say, “He has went to the store” I’ll say, “He has gone to the store?” trying to stress the “gone” a little….drives me nuts. But that’s how his whole family talks. >_<.)
@JLeslie: Re: Niche – in French, the “i” is pronounced “ee” as in “limousine.” The “ch” is pronounced “sh” as in “champagne.”
@jca I hear people pronounce it both ways. I’m not saying my way is right, I was just admitting that’s how I pronounce it.
My SIL says:
Cartier (car-tee-er)
Filet (fil-let)
There are others I can’t think of now. I think it’s mostly because she is first language Spanish, but I noticed Gordon Ramsay says fil-let also. In Spanish the word is actually filete, pronounced fil-et-tay.
It is a dilemma whether we pronounce new words from another language in the style of that language or how they are spelt phonetically in our language. Niche is a good example. I’m not bothered either way about most words like this. I must apply this to scones…
What I don’t get is English names for foreign countries and cities.
Why would we call Munchen and Espana Munich and Spain?
I understand creating local words for things we import, but why for things that never leave their home countries?
^^I agree. I guess we do it for easier pronunciation? We not only change cities, but people’s names. Christopher Columbus comes to mind.
Aaaand….that’s how languages evolve into new language. Yay.
When I watch a movie that has subtitles, when the characters have moments that they are speaking a different language I read the subtitles while listening to them talk. I can piece together about 40% of their spoken language with the written. It is very, very interesting that words for recent inventions, like, “computer” are the same across the board, but the accents change the word, sometimes drastically, so that if I wasn’t reading it at the same time, I might miss it.
Has any one notices that the Brits are gradually getting harder and harder to understand…?
@Call_Me_Jay Other languages have their own names for English and other foreign places.
Even people’s names get changed. Ludwig von Beethoven was published as Luigi di Beethoven in Italy, and Louis de Beethoven in France.
@Call_Me_Jay, to add to what @Kropotkin said—I would agree it’s about the pronunciation. I would guess that it’s less about preserving a foreign phonetics, and more about speakers of language having a name for the country that is phonetically familiar to them. Usually I’m not going to talk about Spain with someone in Spain—most of my interactions (well in my case, all of my interactions) are in English… I think, too, that people often do try to emulate the words they hear from other languages. I’m blanking on examples, but I’m pretty sure it’s a thing for a given language to have phonetic approximations of foreign words which then become a word of that given language. I imagine a similar pattern would emerge for country names. (Of course, this theory could explain things like Espana/Spain, but it does little to explain things like Deutschland/Germany.)
Just thought of another: Chipotle. Many people say “chip POLE tay.” It’s “chip OTE lay.”
I was recently watching some tech support scam videos on YouTube, and all the Indian fake technicians ask:
“Do you have a laptop or a dekstop computer?”
@jca I have only ever seen chipotle written and in my head I’ve pronounced it chip otl. Luckily I don’t really know what it is (a sausage?) and have never needed to say it.
It’s a dried jalepeno pepper.
I only say it how I hear it in commercials.
@Seek I was a bit wrong then! I think I was associating the word with chipolata sausages. I knew it was food.
Judge Judy always pronounces the word “trauma” as “TROW-mah” (like “trowel,” with out the el.) She’s the only person I have heard who calls it that. I, and everyone I know, says, “TRA-much.” But since it’s her, it makes me wonder.
@Dutchess_III: “Trow” rhymes with “throw” or rhymes with “draw” in the way she says it?
The way she says it is like “trowel” without the el. Like, “ow.”
Why wouldn’t “trow” rhyme with “ow?” Or “towel?” Or “trowel?”
Trauma has the same vowel sound as coffee.
Here’s an explanation of Bernie Sanders’ accent, which is the Brooklyn Jewish accent. It’s a bit different from the the one I grew up with, but not too much. With the trained ear, you can almost track down what street someone grew up on.
LOL I talk like him. “Tawlk.” “Caw fee.” “Maw l” I grew up right above the Bronx.
Well, @Seek, that’s how I pronounce it too, as well as everyone I’ve ever heard, in real life or on TV. But Judge Judy says it with the same vowel sound as “cow.”
I pronounce trowel like the “o” in cow.
Me too @jca. I assume everyone does could be wrong, though. That’s why I gave that as an example of how JJ pronounces “trauma.” She has that OW sound, instead of the AH sound that I’m used to.
I pronounce it “spachtel”
I’m more The Bronx too. My mom is much more extreme Bronx than my dad, and they both grew up there in different areas. I say cawfee. My accent also comes out with my birthday month January. The A being a little exaggerated. The Bronx, and NYC in general, is all about the A’s. The Midwest is more about the O’s and especially the OU’s.
So how do you pronounce “trauma,” @JLeslie?
Like Obama. Lol. And, drama.
When I say traumatic I change the sound a little I think.
Me too. That’s why I’m not understanding Judge Judy’s pronunciation of it. We all mispronounce words, but it takes a bit of ignorance to keep pronouncing them wrong after you’ve been corrected, and Judge Judy is not ignorant.
I guess the word is spelled traw-mat-ic. I’m thinking of the word “taught” and how I pronounce that au. Accent isn’t necessarily saying a word incorrectly, sometimes it’s just pronouncing it differently. Saying ask aks isn’t an accent, it’s pronouncing a word not as it’s spelled.
Like the word barrette. The way MI pronounces sound different to me, they say it with an accent to me. But, they actually say it how it’s spelled.
Edit: And, think about this, taught and bought rhyme. The au and ou are pronounced the same. At least I pronounce them the same with those two words.
…Traw = “au” sound, doesn’t it?
If it was spelled trauma or trama I’d probably say it the same.
What? It is spelled “trauma.”
“Trama” has something to do with the study of mushrooms.
Right. Actually, I didn’t know trama was a word at all in English. I’m just saying I say them the same so the au is sort of irrelevant in how I pronounce the word.
Well, according to Dictionary.com, Trama is actually pronounced ” [trey-muh]”.
And, according to Dictionary.com, “Trauma” is pronounced both ways, [trou-muh, traw-]
OK, so if both pronunciations are listed in the dictionary, which one is more righter? ~
When I say “traumatic” I say the first syllable really quickly, so it comes out “truh MATIC.”
Me too. From what I’m seeing, everyone here does. But not Judge Judy. She’s the only person I’ve ever heard pronounce it like “tr-ow.” And apparently that’s OK too.
So I guess sometimes pronunciation is neither right nor wrong. It just depends on the person, the region, the dialect.
I swear I heard the announcer on NPR say “lie-berry” yesterday.
And people taking “pitchers” with their cell phones is still pretty common in the rural Midwest.
We had special lessons in library school on how to pronounce lie- brae (I wish we had…)
My grandmother used to put a lot of effort into teaching me to say “Feb-roo-ar-y.”
I remember my mother making fun of me for putting on airs when I stopped saying “simular”. What’s the point in saying something differently from the way it’s spelled? Way too much effort just to sound ignorant.
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