"I Thought It Was Pope-Yes": 29 Words People Mispronounced And The Hilarious Ways They Said Them
Sometimes you get tripped up pronouncing a word that you've only seen written down because phonetics can be tricky! These are 29 words people admitted to learning how to pronounce a little later than they probably wanted to.
1."Facade. I thought it was pronounced fake-aid. And I’m in real estate. So damn embarrassing 🫢."
2."Awry. Until very recently I pronounced it AW-ree. I’m 40. SMH."
3."I was in my 20s when I learned that chipotle was NOT pronounced as 'shi-pot-el' 😂"
4."My mom LOVES to tell the story of how I called algae allergy and asked a waiter at a restaurant once what a desert creep was (dessert crepe)"
5."Archipelago. My husband laughed (lovingly) at me as I tried to read it aloud arch-ee-pel-ah-go."
6."Photographer — I’m every day of 40 and read it as 'fo-toe-GRAPHER' every. single. time."
7."If you are eccentric, have unrealistic expectations for things, maybe delusions of grandeur, and are generally acting like Don Quixote, what are you? Key-HO-tic. Like Don Quixote. Not kwik-SOT-ic."
8."The discount fashion store Shein. I have been pronouncing 'shine' for literal years until today I realized it's pronounced 'she-in.'"
9."PharmaCUTEical gets me every time, it’s really pronounced pharmaSUITical but at least I can remember the spelling."
10."Thought Yosemite was yose-might."
11."My kid pronounced the soda drink Hi-C as 'hick.'"
12."Why is no one here saying lingerie? For the longest time, I thought it was 'lin-jur-ee,' rhyming with 'jury.' I was absolutely appalled the first time I heard the word while also looking at the spelling!"
13."Chaos. I learned most of my words from reading and I thought it was Ch-OWs for years."
14."When I was tiny and learning to read, I pronounced the word Chicago as chick-a-go. My dad nearly died laughing and pronounced it that way for the rest of his life (like, 20 more yrs) 😭."
15."Popeyes. I thought it was pope-yes. Like an agreement to the Catholic pope. Pope? Yes! Ugh."
16."Caveat! I was pronouncing it 'cav-eat' for the longest time. I'm still furious no one ever corrected me. The first time I heard someone else say it, I died internally."
17."I've said 'viola' on purpose in place of 'voilà' so many times I'm not sure I could get it right on the first try anymore."
18."The name 'Beatrice', I pronounced it 'beat-rice' instead of beer-tris."
19."Hemorrhaging, said like hem-or-hagg-ing. Whole class laughed at me for that one."
20."In fourth grade we each had to do a report on a 'famous explorer,' and my classmate read her report on 'Jack-ass Coo-stow' (Jacques Cousteau)."
21."When I was much younger, I thought 'colonial' and 'colonel' were the same word, just spelled different. Like they're/their/there."
22."I definitely didn't know how to say 'cerulean' for the LONGEST time. When I was little and reading my Crayola colors, I was adding a C and pronouncing it 'SIRK-yoo-leen.' Then a childhood friend told me it was pronounced 'KER-leen.' I kinda settled on 'seh-ruh-LEEN' until I heard it as 'seh-ROO-lee-in.' JEEZ."
23."'Reprise.' Saw it a LOT on my Disney soundtracks and it wasn't until I watched this classical music special last year that I realized it was 'reh-preez' not 'ree-Prize.'"
24."The name Sean through me for a loop and I was pronouncing it as ‘seen’ for whatever reason until my brother corrected me. 🙈"
25."When I saw chaos written I thought it was pronounced 'cha-oos.'"
26."Ennui. Must be 'en-you-why,' right? Nope. Awn-wee."
27."My favorite mispronunciation is from my friend’s dad. He saw 'fajitas' on the menu at a restaurant and pronounced it with a hard J and long I, as if it rhymed with 'vagina.' Faj-EYE-ta."
28."Indict is one of mine. There was a big legal case going on when I first read the word in a news article (can’t remember the case). At the same time though I was hearing about the case on NPR and they kept saying this word that was pronounced 'in-dite.' I started to get suspicious that maybe they were the same word so I avoided saying it all together until the day the person got indicted and I excitedly announced to my crush that the person was 'in-dik-ted.' Cue my horror after I ran out of the room to google the pronunciation like I should have done in the first place."
29."Hermione. When I was little and first read the books I thought it was 'her-me-own.'"
