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There's probably a word I've been pronouncing wrong my whole life that I don't know about (discuss.tchncs.de)

submitted 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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Just based on how often I notice someone mispronounce a word without realizing it (or have done so myself and realized it later). Statistically I'm probably still doing it with some word.

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

I would say you're actually witnessing the very real phenomenon of language-drift. Languages evolve for a billion reasons, but there's no right or wrong state of language.

That's why we distinguish between language, dialect, idiolect, sociolect. Each bearer of language is also a producer of language. Their version is just theirs, in whatever many ways that makes that version unique.

(Check linguistics to better understand this process of language-drifting )

[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago (2 children)

Panacea. I pronounced it incorrectly for a long time. Never knew because no one corrected me. Fortunately it didn't come up too often.

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago (3 children)

Though I want to know why Wednesday is pronounced "wendsday" or "wensday". The n is after the d!

[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (2 children)

The d before n is inherited from the original name Wodans dag (like Tiu's dag, Thor's dag and Frey's dag inherited through the Saxons and Danes from pagan germanic gods)

The rest is just linguistic shift through the centuries of changing language. Like Dag -> Day while for example in German Dag -> Tag.

But the root of the word is still Wodan then old english Weoden then Wedn.

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 9 months ago

My wife says "wheelbarrel" and I giggle every time.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago

My favorite example of this happened during a D&D game years ago in which the DM kept pronouncing the word portcullis as PORK-YOO-LISS.

To this day, the word causes the image of some sort of ancient Roman pig gladiator to appear unbidden in my mind.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago (1 children)

The channel this video is from can be a useful resource.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

Thanks for reminding me of these. A while back I met someone named Chateauneuf, and I tried to look up how to pronounce his name and found this very helpful answer.

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago

You can just look up words in the dictionary and look up the phonetic pronunciation key to refresh your memory. It pays to do this every once in a while.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago (2 children)

genre
only
gif
croissant
Aloysius
Edinburgh

[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago (1 children)

The rest I can understand, but... only?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago

I had heard the word “only” spoken in English, but didn’t know how to spell it. At the same time, I had seen the word written, but thought it was pronounced “on-lie” — oddly enough, I had never heard anyone use “on-lie” in speech; I thought it was one of those words that exist but aren’t used very much, like “splendid” or “indubitably”.

I just remembered I also had trouble for so long with the English words “union” (pronounced like English “onion”) and “onion” (pronounced “onny-on” or “on-ion”).

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago

We've probably all said a sentence that no other person in history has ever said.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago

Trough?

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