Bedraggled. I pronounce it beDRAGGled.

At about age eight I caused a minor sensation at school be confusing rumour and aroma. I think I'd written something about an *arumour. The teacher asked me what I meant and I replied by saying the word could mean 'the smell of tea or coffee' or 'a story going round'.

I'm not sure whether I ever misread misled, but I remember being momentarily nonplussed when I read in a school history book that our troops in the Crimean War were underfed. I interpreted it as un-derfed and wondered what on earth was involved in derfing a soldier.

I just remembered I love "oodles"

Oxymoron's a great word. A mate of mine calls them "poxymorons". I think we should all get together and work out a definition of derf. I'm sure it's a word in a language somewhere. As for a synonym being used because you can't spell the word you want, well I'm guilty of that ;-)

I have a new word for my favourites list. "Bumbershoot"! It's a 19th century American term for umbrella. I love the word brolly but bumbershoot has overtaken it temporarily. It's in a quiz I wrote coming soon so if you see it you'll know what it is

Whisper. A fun thing to do in a woman's ear.Or vice versa.

Without resorting to Monty Python's' woody and tinny words as a criterion, I really like obfuscation - the sound of the word fits so nicely with the meaning (wilfully ambiguous).

Brouhaha is good. I like exponential because being a greedy guts the idea of things growing at a massive rate appeals.

My mother grew up reading much more than her family and neighbours, became a school teacher and parent, and only discovered in her 50s (corrected by her helpful children) that "misled" WASN'T pronounced "mizzled." She'd have been comforted to know from this discussion that her error was so common!

I find it hard to choose one or two favourites from the tens of thousands of words available in just the English language, with new ones added every day. Peregrination does arbitrarily come to my mind, and hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia could apply to those who are afraid to finish long Finnish words.

On the subject of "underfed," I just learned through Dictionary.com that a soldier would likely rather be derf than un-derf-ed:

Derf

Derf\, a. [Icel. djafr.] Strong; powerful; fierce. [Obs.] -- Derf"ly, adv. [Obs.] Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, © 1996, 1998 MICRA, Inc.

I like the word "tinkle".... no idea why

Indubitably - especially when pronounced like an old-fashioned English gentleman. Much like one of the Vulgarian spies from the film Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.

I have a few because they make me laugh when I hear them [someone I know mispronounced them]: coup, debris, paradigm, lineage, indigenous [all those words but one were from when I was in anthropology class, and the person who pronounced them wrong was the one reading my textbooks]

I like the word “inconceivable” because every time I see or hear it I’m reminded of the most common dictionary definition: “not conceivable”) [I cracked up when I saw that].

When I first saw the place names “Nova Scotia” and “Saudi Arabia” written, I didn’t pronounce them right. To this day, my mother and I still laugh about that (and I was definetly old enough to know better with “Saudi Arabia”)

Mom’s ex-boyfriend’s daughter used to say “walermelon” instead of “watermelon.” She could say “watermelon,” but for whatever reason whenever she was talking fast it didn’t come out right. [Her brother, incidentally, said “Lebadon” instead of “Lebanon.”]

Place names I like would have to be Trout Run and Wyamissing.

Someone I know doesn't pronounce the r in California, and it's not the local accent, so it makes me laugh [she grew up here and has never beenout of the state].

I forgot all about happenstance. Don’t see or hear it much.

Lollygagging I'm sure had an innocent background. Why am I reminded of it whenever I see LOL? Are folk dawdling when they type it?