ChatterBank1 min ago
Mispronouncing Words
81 Answers
I’ve been reading a funny thread on Twitter where intelligent, book-loving adults realise they’ve been misreading or mispronouncing words.
My favourite was the guy whose mum pronounced ‘unstable’ to rhyme with Dunstable.
I’ll admit to mine. I was fairly well into adulthood when I realised that ‘banal’ doesn’t rhyme with ‘anal’.
Anyone got any more?
My favourite was the guy whose mum pronounced ‘unstable’ to rhyme with Dunstable.
I’ll admit to mine. I was fairly well into adulthood when I realised that ‘banal’ doesn’t rhyme with ‘anal’.
Anyone got any more?
Answers
That reference to Goethe reminds me of the old (reverse) Irish joke. Paddy goes for a job on the building site. Smug English foreman says, "OK providing you can tell me the difference between a girder and a joist". "That's easy", says Paddy, "Goethe wrote Faust and Joyce wrote Ulysses".
13:17 Wed 22nd Jul 2020
I'm almost blushing in shame as I type this. Many years ago, I read a book called Willard in which the title character had a pet rat named Socrates. I was almost half way through this book when I realised the name was not pronounced so crates (I had been thinking all along what a stupid name it was) but Socrates, after the Greek philosopher. Now I am blushing :-(/