Microblog Memes

Got called out once for pronouncing epitome as Epi-tome.

That one stung more than Camus as Cah-mus instead of Cah-moo. At least thats just the French fucking with us.

Reading a new English word as a foreigner is super frustrating because you never know how to pronounce that.

Yes sure unanimous is not 'un-animous', it's 'you-nanimous'. Makes total sense.
Don't even get me started on the dozen different ways to pronounce 'ough'.

Fucking English, dumb language held together by tape and desperation.

Most languages don't need spelling lessons.

I pronounced hyperbole as it is spelled "hyper bowl" for decades and nobody corrected me! It wasn't until I finally saw someone say it in a TV show that I realized the error of my ways. Now I stumble over the word every time I try to say it because I have decades of habit to overcome. Sometimes when I think I might need to say it, I start mouthing it ahead of time so that I get it right on the first try. There are at least a dozen other words like this for me, and I'm sure dozens more that I'm not even aware of.

Edit: for those of you who have never heard it pronounced, hyperbole is pronounced "high-per-buh-lee".

I was 17 when my friend pointed out to me that epitome is pronounced epi-tome-ey

Rather than how I was saying it Epi-Tome.

I'm almost 50 and recently learned I've been pronouncing two words wrong.

• "Template" as 'tem' + 'plate' (like a dish) instead of 'tem' + 'plet' (like 'let')

• "Opacity" saying the middle 'a' like 'hay' instead of like 'math'.

That one I was SURE I was right when my wife told me, so I asked my Google home mini: "Hey Google, how do you pronounce the word 'opacity'?" (Pronouncing it my way), and to prove that Google has a mean sense of humor, (and I swear this is true) responded with "Guacamole". My wife has not let me live that down.

Shiboleet is a useful word

I thought 'segue' was pronounced 'seg' and 'Segway' was 'Segway'. I blame the mall cop transportation.

Segue - Seg? Segyoo? No, it's Segway.

It is even more funny if the reading isn't in your native language. I can write in English at a C1-C2 level but I am at the B level when speaking as I have no clue how to pronounce most of my regular vocabulary that I use when writing.

My pet theory is that spoken English and written English are two different languages that kinda translate between them.

In spoken English, "I read books." doesn't have ambiguous tense.

Hyperbole

"Hyper-bole"

So I thought :(

i still can't pronounce thesaurus correctly

I somehow didn't realise that "retry" was literally "re-try" and not "ret-ree" until I was in my 20s

Is not shibboleth just phonetic?

I am so with you. I'm not a native speaker. I learned most of my English from reading books - thousands of books, actually. So written English is absolutely no problem.

My pronounciation sucks, and my listening comprehension is horrible, on the other hand.

if i see Irish or Welsh i'm basically not even trying, although they both sound great

My wife has an English degree and I constantly throw out words that she swears I'm making up. Mungy is one for instance.