"Stomach” threw me when I first saw it. From the pronunciation, I’d assumed that the word was spelled “stummick”, and I when I finally saw it printed I mentally pronounced it “stow-match” and wondered what it was.
What’s odd about the pronunciation of hogshead? It’s spelled exactly as it’s pronounced, as far as I know (and according to M-W and the OED).
Another one for me was the name “Hermione.” It took the longest time for me to pronounce that one correctly. The Harry Potter movies (where I heard the name over and over, as opposed to the books) finally drilled it into my head.
I suppose “tongue” was the one that got me the worst. I remember reading it in an Archie comic book and asking my older brother what a tong-goo was. He wasn’t particularly kind in explaining it, though perhaps from his viewpoint he was taking it easy on me. It’s all in the perspective. I also have to admit I got all the way to college before I looked up “moby” in the dictionary. (We didn’t read the book in High School.) It was a slang word among surfers in San Diego when I was a kid and I just never got around to questioning its legitimacy as a word. Just thought it was some old-fahioned word that got revived.
I had a problem with -gue words, too...such as fat-i-gyoo and cam-off-la-gyoo! Don’t remember if I ever misread segue, though. I think a lot of this has to do with having a larger reading vocabulary than speaking vocabulary.
Lieutenant; An eff? No, Surely not! Mind you, I’d imagine that even in America, the -ieu- sound is a bit of a puzzler, too; until you hear someone say it.
Out of curiosity, do Brits say (phonetically), “in leff of” or “in loo of”?
Isaac Asimov said that you could tell a chemist by showing them the word unionized and asking them to say it. Most people say union-ized, a chemist says un-ionized.
Lieutenant; An eff? No, Surely not! Mind you, I’d imagine that even in America, the -ieu- sound is a bit of a puzzler, too; until you hear someone say it.
Out of curiosity, do Brits say (phonetically), “in leff of” or “in loo of”?
~Valerie
The second one. No f sound in that sort leiu.
Just to perplex you further, there might be a pronounced or subtle y in it though; depending on the speaker’s dialect. Though some people would say “loo”
Just to perplex you further, there might be a pronounced or subtle y in it though; depending on the speaker’s dialect. Though some people would say “loo”
“lyoo”? Actually, I probably put a bit of y in there, tyoo. But the more serious question is how leftenant and right-hand man can be synonymous. ;-)
OED gives some interesting background to the pronunciation ‘leftenant’.
The origin of the {beta}type of forms (which survives in the usual British pronunciation, though the spelling represents the {alpha}type) is difficult to explain. The hypothesis of a mere misinterpretation of the graphic form (u read as v), at first sight plausible, does not accord with the facts. In view of the rare OF. form luef for lieu (with which cf. esp. the 15th c. Sc. forms luf-, lufftenand above) it seems likely that the labial glide at the end of OF. lieu as the first element of a compound was sometimes apprehended by Englishmen as a v or f. Possibly some of the forms may be due to association with LEAVE n.1 or LIEF a.
In 1793 Walker gives the actual pronunciations as levtenant, but expresses the hope that ‘the regular sound, lewtenant’ will in time become current. In England this pronunciation lewtenant is almost unknown. A newspaper quot. of 1893 in Funk’s Standard Dictionary says that leftenant is in the U.S. ‘almost confined to the retired list of the navy’.]
NB I’ve had to replace the phonetic spellings, for which I’m lacking the font, with my own attempts (italicized) to represent the sound.
Isaac Asimov said that you could tell a chemist by showing them the word unionized and asking them to say it. Most people say union-ized, a chemist says un-ionized.
Which reminds me of being caught out by anions and cations - thought they were pronounced like “onions” and “stations” respectively.
