Words I Don't Know How To Pronounce..

I used to make the por-TAK-abin mistake too. .

Another one for me is behemoth. I thought it was beer moth but apparently it's pronounced be-hee-muth.

(I used to imagine it as a massive, drunken moth).

Ooh, granjura, I thought that and didn't like to say! As a child I loved westerns and Alan Ladd was my favourite film star, closely followed by Lassie, Gene Autrey, Roy Rogers and Trigger! Can't remember whether Gene Autrey had a named horse.

Do you mean she read it as 'mizzled'?

(Because surely it is proinounced 'miss led')

This thread got me thinking about malapropisms. A dear friend once asked me to come and look at a sick goldfish that was looking very "emancipated" and mentioned someone always graviating towards someone else. My pet hate at work was science teachers who couldn't pronounce nucleus but always said nuculus. And I agree with another poster (sorry can't remember who) that people crate or cuh-rate nowadays rather than create. Some people say pacific instead of specific and I hate sickth instead of sixth!

Oh! The self check out in Morrison's says, "Morrison's More card excepted" and I always mutter back, "I think you mean accepted, my dear!"

Ana yes, I'm puzzled too

My dear MiL always used to say cerstificate, and talk of the builders now starting the 'second phrase' of the housing development. Her sister was another one - I remember being genuinely puzzled by the dessert she was telling me she'd had the previous evening. It was, apparently a 'merring-gyew'. It took me a while to realise she'd had a meringue

My mother recommended tinned rataquill to me!

I'm just finding out how many words I say wrongly. Most of my mispronunciations are down to reading words without having heard them first. I still can't remember how to say "integral". Is it inter-gral, intee-gral or integ-ral?

My mother drives me mad by saying "ta-tics" instead of "tac-tics" and I drive my offspring mad by mispronouncing "theatre". I don't know why but I always thought it was "th-ee-eter" not "thee-ah-ter" and nobody has ever corrected me but my children!

I don't know how old I was when I finally realised "tongue" is pronounced "tung" and not "tongyiew".

When I was growing up, chimney was always chimbley. Arthritis was always arthur-ituss.

Thee-uh-tuh where I'm from, firmly in the north...

From Liverpool you'd call it your tong, gettingonabit. My neighbour eats a sam-nidge while I have a sam-widge.

My children used to think I carried ham in my hambag. I got quite used to saying, "Pass me my hambag please (there's no ham in it...)"

Awry - I always thought it was or-ree, but that was just my pronunciation gone awry

My son used to think if you wore clows (clothes) then his T shirt must be a clow! It's just lazy speech, I suppose...

lizzy where I grew up it was "clors" too; so the singular HAD to be a clo".

I like words though.

malapropisms- love that word ;)

But again they depend on where in the UK you live (like the word 'tea' as in come for tea)- or American (as in fag, fanny, pants, etc)...

As a French speaker, always makes me laugh when my very posh niece always uses 'ménage' (household - as in the British 'ménage à trois') for 'manège' (horse riding enclosure).

The use of 'prostrate' for 'prostate' is funny. And so many more... One neighbours told me recently he was very worried because he had 'blood pressure' and I thought he would have to be a lot more worried if he didnt'.

Isn't language wonderful? (add an 's').

AGgain, 2 days after arrival in digs in London, needed some more hangers for the wardrobe (or is that cupboard?) - and went to the local shop and asked for 'cloff hangers'- the Indian lady just couldn't understand, and there I was gesturing to try and explain- and one little lady behind me said 'I think she needs some hangers for her clothes'.
That's how you learn a language, thrown in a the deep end, full immersion- get on with it until your head hurts and feels like it's going to explode- and then it all falls into place.

My pet hate is Kee-a-batter! ??

??? what do you mean?

Yes accept/except are so often confused as are diffuse/defuse
affect/effect. Malapropisms are great as in erotic/exotic and then there are Spoonerisms , isn't language wonderful.

I thought Segway was a piano brand? lol

granjura I think nannymarge means ciabatta.

gettingonabit I pronounce "tongue" as tong! why should it be "tung"? and does it matter?
I do tend to say las-ag-ne as a sort of joke but I know that is wrong. It does help with spelling though.

I think Quinoa is pretentious however you say or eat it. Too gritty for my taste.
My daughter pronounced bannisters as bunnystairs when she was small.