6mo ago

And people who don't read make fun of you for it.

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The one that I mispronounced for awhile was hyperbole. I thought it was pronounced like "hyper bowl."
- But "hyperbolic" is exactly like you expect.
- Segue for me. I pronounced it seg-goo and my mom busted out laughing.
  
  Huh… don’t think I’ve ever seen segue written down. I’d be writing Segway if I had to.
  
  Sounds like something you ride or a place that makes so so sandwiches.
  
  Now that I think about it... it makes sense now! A segway is a segue between two places!
  
  Exactly! A segue between the inventor's life and death!
  
  I was at the store with my partner and I was like
  “What’s… kwee-know-ah?”
  
  I'm still not 100% on how that is pronounced.
  
  My partner looks at me and says… “KEEN-WAH???” and I’m like uhhh suuuure, that one…
  
  I've heard segue being spoken in so many different ways that I have no fucking clue which is the correct. Se-geh, segway, se-goo-ee
  
  The second one you wrote is the correct way to pronounce it.
  
  I tend to read it as Sergey without the "r".
  
  That word's spelling is a practical joke and you can't convince me otherwise.
  
  Challenge accepted: non-standard spellings are very common. I won't use the obvious example, rough/though/through/tough/cough/enough/Gough, I'll try to keep on theme. So give these ones a go: argue, vague, ague, merengue, brogue, chaise-longue, fatigue... are these all practical jokes or just accidents of lexicographic history?
- Mine was "banal".
  Sounds like "canal".
  
  Were you pronouncing it b-anal?
  
  Of course not!
  
  Bane-all
- Epitome and Penchant for me. Mocked mercilessly for those two.
  
  Oh yeah, epitome for me too. It was the epi-tome.
  
  So apparently for the latter you can just claim to be using the american pronunciation https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/penchant
  
  All mispronunciations can be defended with linguistic descriptivism. It's usually a pissweak argument though!
- Wait... it's not??
  I gotta check now: Oh god dammit. I never made the connection.
- Facade. Got laughed for saying fac-aid. How am I supposed to know a c make an s sound.
  
  That's because it's not the correct spelling. It should be "façade" but English keyboards lack the correct glyph. This doesn't tell you how to pronounce it but it at least gives you a hint that you can't use English rules and that you should investigate it further
- What? Shit
  
  Hi per Bol e (e as in how it sounds in see)
  
  Man, this is ridiculous. It resembles Akkadian more and more with each passing day.
  
  I came here to reed!
- Sound it out they said
- I did that one
  The other one I was embarrassingly called out on when I was a teen was pronouncing inevitable in eh VITE able.
- It's like the Super Bowl, only better.
- Sounds like you never played Space Quest IV.

167 comments