In my childhood I read “impious”, assumed it was pronounced “impy-us”, and deduced it must mean “like an imp”, i.e. something like “devilish in a trivial way” or “naughtily disrespectful”. In context that made just enough sense to stop me going and looking it up in the dictionary, so I went on believing it for years till I heard somebody say it aloud.

Collecting postage stamps as a boy, I was well acquainted with the Scandinavian countries Norge (rhymed with gorge) and Sverige (rhymed with ridge). Having since moved to Sweden, I now know them more correctly as Nor-je and Sver-je. Swedes often have a little difficulty understanding my boyhood mispronunciation :).

sorry, somehow this ended up in the wrong thread…

In my childhood I read “impious”, assumed it was pronounced “impy-us”,

You were right; that’s the normal pronunciation.  The AHD and MWO give “im-PIE-us” as a secondary pronunciation, but “IMPy-us” first, and the OED only mentions the impy version.

Yes, that comment had me very confused!

frma - 26 March 2007 05:05 AM

Collecting postage stamps as a boy, I was well acquainted with the Scandinavian countries

those words took me back a long, long way, frma.  It was the Greek stamps that puzzled me. I remember wondering why the Greeks called their country “EVVAE”, and why they wrote “V” upside down.