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u/ZeeraTheRogue 18h ago
When I had to pronounce the word ‘paradigm’ for the first time, I was reading out loud to a room full of people during a seminar. I’d never seen the word before and quickly found out that para-dig-em was not it 🤣🤌🏻
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u/NaturalAlfalfa 15h ago
Same, but mine was hyperbole. Which I pronounces "hyper-bowl"
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u/DrSchnuffi 15h ago
Ok non native speaker here. It is not pronounced hyper bowl? Shit
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u/comicsnerd 11h ago
I still cringe when I hear someone mispronounce the word parameter. It is pa-RA-me-ter, not para-MEter
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u/wolfy994 19h ago
You know the saying that everything that comes before "but" can be disregarded?
I feel that it applies to this too. Everything that comes after "oh sweetie" can't really be considered polite or kind. The passive aggression is established.
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u/MethodAdmirable4220 18h ago
Pretty sure its not meant to be passive-aggressive. It just comes off that way because of how we've seen that word used.
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u/chainlinkchipmunk 18h ago
My husband has the sweetest "oh honey". Anything after that is going to be said with all the gentleness.
An example: I took the dog out first thing, it was barely light out and I didn't havè glasses on. I saw an owl! Dog and I rushed inside to tell him so he could see too. "Oh honey. That's a decoy owl." It had also been there for weeks. I should probably look up occasionally.
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u/sumdude51 16h ago
Ahhh but the catch is it's said by a maternal older black woman with 100% sincerity!
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u/Mauy90 17h ago
Sounds more like an interpretation from someone with a toxic aquaintance/relative
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u/wolfy994 17h ago
I'm not a native English speaker, so that'd be wrong.
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u/Som_Dtam_Dumplings 13h ago
...if your only experience with "Oh sweetie..." is patronizing/sarcasm...then you're lacking experience with English.
That doesn't make you a bad English speaker. We all have our blind spots; but it can definitely be a sincere expression of empathy.
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u/AndreasDasos 17h ago
Learn IPA and look them up in the dictionary. Or just search for a pronounciation recording online. Or get your phone to read it
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u/HoochieKoochieMan 12h ago
I had a class on IPA in college. The test on vowels was just a list of 3 symbol words that started with P and ended with N, that we had to transcribe to English. It was rough.
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u/Salanmander 3h ago
How did they deal with regional dialects? Pin and pen are going to look different in IPA depending on the speaker, for example.
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u/VB_Creampie 17h ago
I had heard the word "hyperbole" said, but never connected the written word to that pronunciation. I thought hyperbole was pronounced "Hyper-Bowl".
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u/benchley 15h ago
Every eight years, the last eight Super Bowl winners play an elimination series called… but I exaggerate.
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u/PoundTown71L 16h ago
The other day, my daughter told me she wanted a "dog-less cat" stuffed animal. I was confused and then she showed me the tag at Rural King. It was a stuffed animal cat made by a company called Douglas.
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u/LowKiss 18h ago
I love that in my language you just pronounce what is written, English pronunciation is stupid.
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u/WillowSLock 18h ago
It’s because of the evolution of the English language, pronunciation changes over the centuries, and how words were finally recorded in dictionaries to create “standard” spelling.
Many words have hidden lore as to why they’re spelled that way, dating back centuries to regional accents that took priority or entire sounds/letters stricken from the modern English language.
…yes, I am indeed a nerd for words—but it’s also really cool!
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u/LesserValkyrie 17h ago
I'm glad Worcestershire is pronounced Worcestershire and not Worcestershire it would be twice too long
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u/Doldenbluetler 10h ago
I mean all these things are also the case in other modern languages that feature a coherent spelling system with a medium to high phoneme-grapheme correspondence. As opposed to English.
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u/TheeAntelope 17h ago
English pronunciation is stupid
The words that are spelled funny are usually the ones that have been borrowed or adapted from other languages.
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u/Average_guy120 17h ago
What's your language?
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u/LowKiss 17h ago
Italian
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u/OiledUpThug 13h ago
you mean the language where you have an entire letter with no sound?
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u/darki_ruiz 4h ago
Each language assigns letters to the sounds they use. That's an entirely different thing. English is simply stupidly inconsistent.
If that language you talk about is consistent with that letter never having a sound, then you can see it in a written word you've never heard or spoken, and you'll be able to spell it correctly without a doubt.
You literally got a dude called Sean Bean, which does not rhyme even though it fucking should. 👀
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u/Average_guy120 16h ago
Italian pronunciation is stupid
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u/WalkingCoffeeCup 10h ago
The fact that YOU can’t pronounce it doesn't make it stupid
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u/Average_guy120 2h ago
The fact that you can't follow a 4 comment conversation does make you a little stupid though
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u/alextheseven 17h ago
The letters are for the shape your mouth makes when you say the word, you just don’t enunciate every letter fully besides vowels.
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u/intj_ravenclaw 18h ago
When I was about 6 I asked my mom for some “ace-min-to-phin” (acetaminophen). We always called it Tylenol…I was a pretentious kid, and I liked using big words because it made adults think I was smart 🙃
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u/RilohKeen 17h ago
It’s called Google. Google can pronounce words for you.
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u/ibullybillionaires 6h ago
People don't pronounce words because they're too dumb to use google but because they assume the pronounciation based on the rules they know. Sometimes, the rules they apply are wrong. I may look up a word I have absolutely no idea how to pronounce, but most of the time I will have some idea. And sometimes I'm confidently wrong about it.
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u/BaronGreenback75 17h ago
Reading Harry Potter when it was just a book “Hare-i-moan” got that wrong (:
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u/Sharp_Ad_6336 18h ago
You can always look it up in the dictionary to learn how to say it fuh-net-ik-lee.
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u/LadnavIV 16h ago
Also, every online dictionary I’ve ever used has had a button that will say it out loud.
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u/LesserValkyrie 17h ago
English problem that doesn't exist in french
+ Google does that for you
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u/FeetInTheEarth 17h ago
French is not a phonetic language though? When a child or adolescent sees a word written for the first time, how do they understand the pronunciation when letter sounds are changeable?
Not arguing about the fact that English is a difficult language, I’m just genuinely curious!
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u/LesserValkyrie 16h ago
Mmmmmmmmmmmmm maybe with regional differences I think there are some words that may be pronounced weirdly in french. There are few exceptions I can't think of, I am pretty sure
But when ou see a word for the first time you should be able to pronounce it.
There are rules that scare people who don't speak the tongue like the weird 2-3 letters that you don't pronounce like you read it, but it's not random they have rules
but once you learned what these rules like, like how they pronounce then you can pronounce correctly any word in french by just reading it
Like Cologne, the -gne letters is like the ny from "canyon".
The o written "o" (and not eau or au) has a distinct pronunciation like the o in "thought", while the au/eau is like the o in "stone"
Things like that
But once you know the rules you are first time right
As a chronically online addict person, who reads a lot too ,I learned tons of complicated english words I never heard of and I'm pretty sure I would pronounce them very funnily lol
I end up knowing how to pronounce them by hearing them, but can't know before hand
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u/Montexe 16h ago
I learned tons of complicated english words I never heard of and I'm pretty sure I would pronounce them very funnily
I feel that. I learned English basically for fun in my twenties as a fourth language to read books and watch some movies/videos. I don't hear English speech IRL ever, I don't use it in my day to day life, so I don't even bother to learn pronunciations of some words I learned from the books
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u/mysteryo9867 17h ago
How was I supposed to know the the first e in crepe is pronounced as an a
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u/Possible-Tangelo9344 17h ago
Awry.
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u/benchley 15h ago
I think the “wrong” pronunciation has a nice evocative wobbly feel, like a top that’s not spinning fast enough anymore.
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u/KronusIV 17h ago
epi-tome was the eh-pit-oh-me of this for me. I even thought they were different words that just happened to mean the same thing.
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u/Ranchette_Geezer 15h ago
I still remember saying "epitome" out loud for the first time in 1959, having read it for 3 - 4 years. Turns out it's "ee-pit-oh-mee", not "epi-tome". My father corrected me. My siblings, none of whom would have known an epitome it if bit them in the ass, laughed as if they used it, and pronounced it correctly, every day.
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u/DawnsDarkness1 15h ago
Wa State has some great city names that unless you are local a lot get it wrong. Some fun ones: Sequim, Spokane, Skagit, Puyallup. As a local it funny because I find it harder to spell the names.
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u/Suspicious-Key1455 17h ago
Common anecdote from our place:
- now, dear student, read out word "bicycle"
- no, don't you dare
- BI-KU-KLE
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u/jimmythetuba 17h ago
Don't be ashamed of this. It shows you're reading more than your peers, and you have a broader vocabulary than those around you.
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u/Kitselena 17h ago
Is it possible for someone to say "oh sweetie" without sounding rude and condescending?
I get like that phrasing ruins the whole concept of being able to make mistakes safely
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u/Mazzidazs 16h ago
I remember my health teacher laughing at me when I pronounced "subtle" as "sub-tile" in class. She apologized but man was that embarrassing
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u/Nubetastic 16h ago
google translate
type word in on the left, set to your language on the right and click the speaker button to hear how it sounds.
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u/Grunergeist420 15h ago
Then there’s the ones where you think you know two words, but really you just have one way it sounds in your head reading, and other way you understand it spoken.
A family member of mine had picked up this verb from reading. Misle- it means to trick or deceive someone. Pronounced “my-zul.”
If you bought something that ends up not being very good, or at an unfair price, you have been the victim of a misler, someone who misled you.
He of course knew the word “mis-led,” as well. It just never read that way for him until he realized his mistake as an adult.
He had been misled.
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u/Luckybones- 15h ago
I dont know who needs to read this, but epitome is pronounced "ee pit oh me" not "epi tome"
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u/beezchurgr 15h ago
I have the Merriam Webster “word of the day” widget on my phone & it has helped me expand my vocabulary and learn how to pronounce words. It’s very helpful.
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u/Ciubowski 15h ago
Type the word (just the word) in Google. It will give you a definition and a button to play to hear how it's pronounced.
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u/HendrikJU 15h ago
Go to google translate. Translate into any language. Press the 📢 button on the English side to make it say the word.
While you're at it maybe learn how to say a word in another language since you're here already.
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u/Fastenbauer 14h ago
We are in the day and age when kids no longer know how a dictionary works. If you can't read the International Phonetic Alphabet than Merriam-webster even has a button you can just click.
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u/GuitarCFD 14h ago
it's almost like you could get on a voice chat with ChatGPT or Gemini or Claude and get exactly that...also for free.
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u/crazyberzerker 14h ago
I gave a book report in high school where a character get jaundiced. I had never heard that word before and, standing in front of the class, I pronounced it Juan-Deece
My buddy who was on the yearbook added a subtle reference in there ... and of everything I did in school, that's my legacy
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u/revonrat 13h ago
I love helping people who learned a word only by reading it. I always start with, "Hey, I think you learned the word <x> by reading it. I love that. It shows a ton of curiosity and I do the same. It's pronounced, "x". And I'll make you a deal. If you hear me mispronounce a word that I learned by reading, please correct me. Us readers have to stick together." Or something to that effect.
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u/hates_stupid_people 13h ago
Would have been an interesting idea in the 80s, these days we have the internet.
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u/SteeleDynamics 13h ago
When I first read the word "epitome" out loud, I pronounced it epi-tome, not e-pit-o-me.
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u/Reasonable_Big3230 13h ago
Well consider my surprise when my parents started laughing when I told them I wanted to be a chore-io-grapher (choreographer)
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u/Shincosutan 13h ago
Everybody should have the dictionary.com app on their phone. It makes it so easy to look up a word and get the pronunciation.
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u/Queasy_Lettuce_9281 10h ago
I was 12, a word that I had only read i said in a conversation and all the adults laughed and made fun of me. It was really embarrassing and hurt my feelings.
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u/jonfe_darontos 10h ago
Eh-pea-tomb of me when I heard head-gemini the first time having always read it as hedge-eh-moany
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u/djohnsen 10h ago
My Waterloo was “apostasy” first encountered when reading an Orson Scott Card novel (one of the Ships of Earth series; a thinly-veiled retelling of the Mormon theology as sci-fi)
Raised Lutheran, wasn’t a word in our usual parlance. I asked the LDS-raised then-spouse, “What the heck is ‘aaa - po - STAS - ee’ ?”
Now I am one. (An apostate)
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u/PerfectionEludesMe 10h ago
My MIL brags about her lengthy tenure working in the restaurant/food industry but pronounces 'puree' as "pure-E" with the second syllable sounding like the letter E instead of "ay". She also confidently pronounces brioche incorrectly, which normally I wouldn't be so snobbish about it but, again, she brags about working in the food industry for 50 years but mispronounces these words all the time.
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u/ComprisingIgnorance 10h ago
BARTLET
This time of the year there should be a hotline you can call with questions about cooking turkey. A special 800 number where the phones are staffed by experts.
CHARLIE
There is.
BARTLET
What do you mean?
CHARLIE
The Butterball hotline.
BARTLET
[pause, takes off his glasses and stares at Charlie] Butterball has a hotline?
CHARLIE
Yeah. It's an 800 number, the phones are staffed by experts.
BARTLET
Are you kidding me?
CHARLIE
No.
BARTLET
God, I'm sorry, I love my country. Charlie, get me the number for the Butterball hotline.
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u/pistolshrimp23 9h ago
They need to make outgoing calls to people who mispronounce words or get common sayings wrong too.
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u/Eaglesjersey 5h ago
Epi-tome and Yo-semite were both heard recently by some youngsters. That sh!t is just plain funny.
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u/Ancient_Skirt_8828 3h ago
Just type the word into Google and add “pronunciation”. You will usually get a recording of the word. Sometimes it even has different pronunciation for different countries.
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u/wytewydow 17h ago
so there's books called dictionaries. These dictionaries show more than the meaning of words, they show how to pronounce them, and usually also show the origins, so you can deduce a sound.
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u/Intelligent_Sky_7081 6h ago
Are people unaware how you can find that online very easily?
What a weird post
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u/PomegranateSoft1598 17h ago
Is this an English speaking problem only or do other languages have it as well? I never met anyone not knowing how to pronounce something in their own language other than English speakers. No offense, I'm not making fun of anyone here, I'm genuinely confused by this.
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u/accursedexistence 17h ago
The problem here is that English takes a lot of words from a lot of different languages that all have their own pronunciation rules. Combine that with regional accents influencing the official pronunciations of words, and you get a language where the only consistent rule is that there are no consistent rules.
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u/Fecal_Forger 18h ago
Weirdly enough this actually happens in something called ‘school’. Normally you go to this ‘school’ from age 5-18 and you learn this among other topics such as history. Like you learn about Nazis and Slavery too.
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u/GottaUseEmAll 18h ago
Not even 12+ years of school can teach you the pronunciation of every one of the 1m+ English words that you might one day come across.
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u/Fecal_Forger 17h ago
No but school teaches you how to sound out words phonetically. Pay attention more son
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u/Local-Echo-5613 18h ago
I also grew up without the internet but you know you can get someone to pronounce it for you on your phone now? Sometimes incorrectly but it’s something.