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So, here's my most recent embarrassing revelation:
There is no such word as "assertation." I've used it in at least 3 papers this semester, feeling really self-righteous that I used a word too complex for the spell checker.
Except, um... hello Annie! Did you mean assertion?
Oh. Right. Yeah.
This is even worse than the time I used esoteric and ephemeral for months in places where I meant to say ethereal. Whoops. Esoteric isn't even vaguely related in meaning to things that are vague and gauzy and ethereal. I guess I got confused because I wasn't in that select group of elites that gets to use words like esoteric
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Oh, and I also thought that the adjective form of serendipity should be serendipitious, which I pronounced ser-en-di-PI-shus, when serendipitous (ser-en-DI-pi-tuss) worked perfectly well for Merrian Webster. Who'd have thunk?
Posts: 8504 | Registered: Aug 1999
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quote:What stupid language mistakes have you made?
The last one I can think of is using "tantamount" to mean "paramount." At some level, I knew that "tantamount" meant something else, but I didn't really think about it before using it on my web site. I had to have it pointed out to me by an engineer.
*hangs head in shame*
Posts: 9945 | Registered: Sep 2002
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[EDIT: Jon Boy's post popped in and I had to correct the code for it, assume that whatever type of class AbovePost is has a pointer to the post above it (assuming Annie's post would have that value NULL).]
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I tend to pronounce words terribly wrong. For instance, for years I said "an-TESS-i-dent" for "antecedent." Rhymes with precedent. I think this is because I read more than I talked when I was younger and picking up words like crazy.
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No one. Though in one of those papers I decided to use the British spellings of everything and the professor marked every single one wrong. I can't decide if he was trying to be funny. You'd think using the word colour 27 times would be intentional. But he still made no assertations about my blantant misaprobations of words.
And P.S. Hobbes - you are not allowed to turn my self-depreciating threads into complements. Posts: 8504 | Registered: Aug 1999
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Yes, people who read a lot tend to know a word so well they forget that they've never actually heard it pronounced. I've done this too. I still much prefer my ludicrously wrong pronunciation of apoptosis as "AY-pop-TOE-sis", (because, of course, the cells pop), over the correct "A-po-TOE-sis" with a silent 'p' at the start of '-ptosis'.
My little brother who reads like crazy used to do this so much we teased him a lot and he got furious at me one memorable time and said, "Why must you always ridicule me?" pronouncing it "re-DICK-el". Poor kid, he got reDICKled about that too, it was too classic! Another time when he had typed and erased and cursed and reerased and retyped an envelope for about half an hour with his manual typewriter, I asked him what he was sending off for anyway and he said, "A typewriter eraser". I'm not making these up!
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When I was 6 and reading Encyclopedia Brown mysteries, I always prounounced it "en-ky-klo-pee-dee-uh".
And imagine my red cheeks when, in a college political science lecture, I finally realized that annihilation and "anna-hilly-a-shun" were actually the same thing. I audibly smacked my forehead.
Boy, as if I didn't already feel stupid around here. Posts: 575 | Registered: Jan 2004
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You know, I find this stuff incredibly... interesting. I know a phD in history (European, not my cup-o-tea), and I've heard him say "CHAY-oss" multiple times.
As someone who talks far more than he reads, I find this astounding.
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This isn't mine, but it's something a friend says that I've repeatedly corrected, but he refuses to change. He says "prequisite" (PREH-kwi-zit) instead of "prerequisite" (pree-REH-kwi-zit). Drives me crazy. Me, I try not to use words unless I'm sure what they mean. I guess I do have my own example. I thought the word "awry" was pronounced AH-ree.
Posts: 1090 | Registered: Oct 2003
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I remember as a kid a friend of mine and I used to buy Wacky Packages stickers. I remember one that was a spoof of Kiwi Black shoe polish, Piwi Bleeach. (with picture of barfing pygmies). My friend insisted it was pronounced pie-why bleach. He was pretty dumb.
Another time we were looking at a National Geographic about carnivorous (oops, I mean insectivorous) plants. The photo showed a pitcher plant with the caption "Maw agape, the pitcher plant awaits its prey." He read it as "Mow ah-gah-pay". claimed it referred to loving your mother. Did I mention he was dumb?
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That reminds me of a guy I was on a double date with once.
We were at a video rental store and were looking at the cover for Full Metal Jacket .
Trying to impress my friend, he puffed up and said, "Oh, yeah, I've worn that."
My brother is a physicist and one of his pet peeves is people who say "nuke-you-lar" instead of "noo-kleer".
Posts: 575 | Registered: Jan 2004
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I pronounced 'pithy' with a long 'I' sound and a voiced 'th'...like it was in the middle of the word 'tithing.' Yeah. I did it in the presence of my brilliant friend and he almost snorted whatever liquid he was drinking up his nose as he choked out "How did you just pronounce that?"
I blamed it on being raised in the midwest, when actually it was a result of what Brinestone was talking about. Another one of these results was the fact that I didn't know how to pronounce 'poingant' for years and I would use it in my writing all the time...and not be able to say it out loud.
:blushes again:
at Annie and her 'self-depreciating' posts.
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I was the Assistant Woof Leader at church for the past year. *sigh* My bishop and his wacky sense of humor.
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Throughout my high school years, I was constantly discovering new words that I had been pronouncing incorrectly, because my reading vocabulary had always been far larger than my "hearing" vocabulary.
I didn't discover that colonel was pronounced "kernel" until late high school - and I STILL pronounce it incorrectly in my thoughts, though not out loud.
For the longest time, I thought that "indict" was pronounced "indikt," and I thought that "indict" - pronounced correctly - was another word altogether. I still occasionally pronounce this incorrectly in my thoughts, though the frequency at which this happens is decreasing, because "indict" is actually a word that I hear fairly often.
There are dozens more, but I'm drawing a blank.
I am still discovering words which I pronounce incorrectly, to the extent that the correct pronunciation of a word is something that I am very reluctant to argue about, even if I am 99.9% sure I am correct.
Posts: 196 | Registered: Jul 2002
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I have always had the problem of reading words long before I ever heard them in conversation.. I've never met anyone else who did that and had the resulting mispronunciation - 'till now!
Ah, acceptance at Hatrack.
I still pronounce steak 'steek' (as in to rhyme with meek). I have to mentally practice in my head 'sounds like stake' to get it right.
I also got confused when I was about 3 and read the word "milk" for the first time. Although I *knew* it how it sounded, once I saw the letters I couldn't help saying it miLLUK.
What else? Heinous. I always get that wrong. In fact, I'm still not sure how to pronounce it.
There's a lot more - the funny thing is, I now do a lot of public speaking and law mooting: my team mates just get used to it. They correct me in the practise rounds, and just try not to laugh if I do it in competition.
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I remembered another one! Giblets! I have used a hard 'g' at the start of that word forever! I mean it's something I've encountered quite a bit in my catfeeding life of several decades' duration. I guess I only discussed it with the cats, or something, who never seemed to mind how I pronounced it. When I looked it up, that's not even listed as an alternate pronunciation or anything at all! Who knows how I got started saying it like that? Most likely just from reading it off the can in 1970 or some time. <laughs>
Posts: 2843 | Registered: A Long Time Ago!
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Where are you originally from, Sachiko? Much of Northern Maryland and Pennsylvania (and other parts of the East?) say "woof" instead of "wolf." So it may not just be you, and it probably isn't your fault.
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When I was in high school calculus, I actually pronounced the word "asymptote" as "a-SIMP-toe-tee."
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my stepfather says "woof" and any number of other silly central pa things.
i have the same problem with the reading vocabulary being larger than the speaking one. i also can't spell, so i look like just as much of an idiot using a big word over aim as i would trying to pronounce it irl.
(i still pronounce things way better than hobbes. wire-ums comes to mind....)
Posts: 3956 | Registered: Jun 2001
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Apoptosis is pronounced like that? Wow... every prof I've ever talked to is wrong. As are all my coworkers in the cell culture labs at my various places of employment. Hmm... in light of my experiences I'm going to claim the pronunciation AY-pop-TOE-sis in the name of England (and, by extension, Canada).
Oh, and the cells don't pop, they wither.
Posts: 3243 | Registered: Apr 2002
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I used to feel really superior whenever I would hear anyone use the word "preventative." It sounds completely wrong to me. It should be "preventive."
Then I found "preventative" in my dictionary as an acceptable alternative.
Posts: 1652 | Registered: Aug 2003
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A word I hate: "chiropractic," when used as "doctor of chiropractic" or "clinic of chiropractic."
The word violates my inner sense of grammar decorum. It should CLEARLY be "chiropractice," and "chiropractic" should be its ADJECTIVE.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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posted
Me too, Tom! I always thought "segue" was pronounced "seg," meaning that the real pronunciation was was spelled "segueway."
My history professor pronounces some things very strangely. He pronounced "cacao" as "KAY-ko." He also pronounces "literature" as "LID-a-ture." That one drives me nuts. There are more, but I think I've blocked them out. Then there was the guest lecturer who came to talk about the French Revolution and pronounced "Jacobin" as "YAH-co-bin." Maybe there's something wrong with history people.
Edit: "Chiropractic" as a noun has always felt wrong to me, too.
[ February 19, 2004, 11:19 AM: Message edited by: Jon Boy ]
Posts: 9945 | Registered: Sep 2002
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I used to try words out on my mom -- she's pretty good about repressing her snickers while asking, "Did you mean _________?" Now I check pronunciation with the online dictionaries that will say the word to you. Posts: 32919 | Registered: Mar 2003
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My most memorable one, was when I apparently created the word "consequate," which would define as "to assign consequences to a specific behavior.")
As some of you know, I am a "recovering Behaviorist."
The word makes sense to me - it should exist. I think I figured out why it doesn't. Behaviorists didn't want to go around sounding like Elmer Fudd trying to say "consecrate."
Like some others have reported, I mispronounced many words as a kid due to having a reading vocabulary that was way beyond the spoken vocabulary around me. Fortunately, in most cases, it was my parents who first heard the mispronunciation and minimized the embarrassment. Most of the time.
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I pronounce dysentery "DIS-en-tree" like an Americanized version of the British pronunciation. (I think the correct American pronunciation is "DIS-en-TARE-ee", isn't it?) I think that's because I must have first heard about it on BBC shows involving Brits in tropical places.
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I mispronounce everything! The best example I can think of right now is omnipotent. We were learning it as one of our vocab words last year, and I couldn't figure out why everyone (including the teacher) were pronouncing it funny. Then I realized that it isn't pronounced OM-ni-PO-tent. Posts: 1547 | Registered: Jan 2004
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I'm not making these up!
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at Annie and her 'self-depreciating' posts.
