Misreading a word

I only recently discovered that the word "segue" was pronounced segway. I knew the meaning, but always said in my head as "sayg" as I assumed it was a French word! I hadn't connected the word with the Segway vehicle.

Oh, i never knew that!

As a child I thought Enid Blyton was Gnuid Bluton. I think it was the way she signed her name.

I was mortified when I was told, after reading out a trivial pursuit question, that Persephone wasn’t actually pronounced Percy-phone.

agnurse

When Hubby was young, and growing up in the UK, he learned at school about a king named Cnut. The name was not spoken at school, and Hubby is dyslexic, we suspect. He promptly came home and told his mother they learned about King (rhymes with punt). My MIL was all, "You WHAT???"

This reminds me of sevem year old me coming home from Brownies and telling Mummy that we had been hearing about boggarts. Perhaps because English was not her native language and she did not know this word, Mummy went off the deep end, me never, never to say that word again, and that it certainly could not be what Brown Owl had said-

I was deeply mystified and felt very ill-done to being told off like that. It was many years later before I realised what my mother thought I had said.

Although how she could hear bugger for boggart I do not know!

On my route to work I passed a sign pointing down a lane where there were 'Trousers For Sale from £25000'

I thought that was unfeasibly expensive, until I realised it was a camping/caravan sales place and the sign was for 'tourers'.

On my way home from work I used to go past a big building with PAYAN TAKI in large letters along the top of the building. I thought it was an Asian company. Years later I realised it was a cash and carry called PAY AND TAKE.

Looking out at the garden I meant hollyhocks but said cauliflowers!

Secondwind

I was mortified when I was told, after reading out a trivial pursuit question, that Persephone wasn’t actually pronounced Percy-phone.

We had a girl called Hermione in our class and one of our teachers always called her Hermy-1. We never worked out if this was deliberate or ignorance and she never dared say anything because the teacher was very fierce.

watermeadow

Looking out at the garden I meant hollyhocks but said cauliflowers!

Someone asked me what i might wear for a sort of party.
I don't know where it came from, but i said "Oh, I'll probably just wear a pair of sandwiches"