Year-end language nostalgia

rogersgeorge on December 30th, 2013

This is the last post of 2013, so it’s time for a little reminiscing, and this Argyle Sweater is just the comic to remind me of some words in my past.

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Mostly you hear words mispronounced by children (I’ve heard several variations on cinnamon, spaghetti, and Elisabeth), though I’m told that it’s a sign you read a lot if you get words wrong when you’re older. I remember the day in sixth grade when I learned that sandwich had a “d,” and I used to pronounce metropolitan as metropolan. I was well into high school before I learned how to pronounce thesaurus. Someone told me they used to pronounce the lung disease “pee-newmonia.” A lot of people have trouble with names in the Bible. There’s a website about pronunciation ( I forget the name of it), and an exemplar for Philemon had it wrong. (It’s fy LEE mun) The village near Jerusalem is BETH fuh gee, not Beth fayj. One teacher told me the only correct way to pronounce an Old Testament name is with confidence.

What are your favorite mispronounced words?

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