I was teaching about the Ancient Egyptians this week, and told the class my usual story of going home aged 4 to tell my Mum I had been in the P6 classroom and they were learning about the "Eggypitshuns". They always called that in our family now.
Apart from "Mizzled' for 'misled'; a common one, I can't think of more mispronounciations at the moment. No doubt you can.

'primarily' is often pronounced 'primErily'

and 'necessarily' " " " 'necessErily'

<<groan>> ::shudder::

My son read the name on the can of Smedleys Beans as 'Smeldeys'.Really I suppose the title of this thread should be
'misread words,' not 'mispronounced'. This is really what I meant. Sorry.
Do your family now use the words you misread? They are always Smeldies now.

"Height" often gets pronounced as "heighth" as if there was a "th" at the end.

And different parts of the U.S. will pronounce "idea" as if there was an "r" at the end, "idear".

'Vitamin', where 'vit' rhymes with 'hit', and not 'kite'. Also, 'basic' with a short 'a' as in 'cat, not a long 'a', like 'hay'.

I think that is a regional thing in Australia with the Victorians saying both words the wrong way. They cannot even say 'Newcastle' correctly. We New South Welshmen are much more cleverer and refineded.

My little nephew once said 'exkellentes' for the pasta his grandmother had made him. We still say it and it's been about 25 years.

one little cousin asked for a Seppi and they still say it to her now...she's well over thirty. That's pepsi to the rest of us.

We're still teasing my son about the Holly Bibble pronunciation.

My ex wife could never pronounce CUCUMBER correctly - we used to be rolling on the floor laughing every time she tried to say it! To this day my kids still refer to cucumber as KOOKUBBER lol

Yes and my ex ma-in-law called a phone kiosk a 'koisk'.
Ozzz I always say vitamin not 'vite'amin, because I am English. That's how we say it. I certainly never heard of a long 'a' sound in 'basic'

[QUOTE]"Height" often gets pronounced as "heighth" as if there was a "th" at the end.

---

My partner says that too - he says he got it from his high school when he had to board there and the couple of other blokes we know who were at the same school say it too.

Ren, your first post reminded me of one of my husband's relatives. When she saw the name "Egypt" in writing, she didn't recognise it and said "Who'd name a country "egg-wiped"?

We have numerous sayings in our family that have been derived from friends and relatives, especially the kids, making errors in pronunciation. September is "Sect-ember" because we have a friend who says that. Ditto "veg-bittles" for vegetables, "Dunderdin" for Dunedin, "mono-sybils" for monosyllables, and "mans laughter" for manslaughter. That's all I can think of for now but I know we have heaps of them!

The one I remember most growing up was "hearst" for the vehicle "hearse". BOTH of my parents mispronounced it (and both refused to change said pronunciation after countless corrections). Hearsts, I'd tell them, are rich newspaper people who had a kidnapped daughter out running around robbing banks. Hearses are those long cars that transport coffins.

Another was my Dad's never-changing reference to the condition "maniac-depression". No, Dad, it's manic, darn it! "But they're depressed AND they're maniacs, aren't they?" he'd invariably ask. Well? I suppose yes on the 'depressed' part but the 'maniac' part seems a bit harsh...

I LOVE "Mans laughter! LOL!!!
"Maniac depressives" will never be the same!
Oh yes, my ex called the condition that wood gets into when damp "woped" I do not know how he managed to get that from 'warped' . But he was a pretty woped guy as it happens...

Blackguard

Reading this thread made me cringe remembering my wonderful little 2 year old nephew (he's now a school teacher) and his mispronunciation of 'a large vehicle that transports things'. That's right....truck. Your imagination will now indicate how he misprounced the word.

Scott was a very large child, weighing about 13 pounds at birth; I asked my poor sister what she was going to call him..."quits!" she replied. I bought him his 'coming home' (from the hospital) outfit. I got the largest newborn size; the hat sat on the very top of his head; it didn't even approach his ears. The under-the-chin ties didn't even reach his chin. Even as a newborn, he would make yummy noises when he wanted to be fed. If you were slow in responding to the yummy noises, you would think Orson Welles was in the kitchen and just found out that the farmers were going on strike. You could watch the liquid leave his bottle. He could give you a hickey if your neck was in the way of his bottle nipple. With baby food, you couldn't pack it in fast enough. I thought there was a stranger in the house when he burped. Either that or Marlon Brando had just finished an all-you-can eat Mexican buffet. But I digress.

I used to say a silent prayer that, when Scott went with us outside of the house, that nothing bigger than a pickup ***ck would appear. I would get light-headed if we were at a crowded intersection and a delivery ***ck approached. I'd burst into song, or loud coughing, to hopefully drown out the obscenity. You couldn't just say, "Yes, Scott, I see it." That would encourage him to add modifiers like "big".

The county fair rolled around and, as fate would have it, Scott came alomg. Looking like a 30 year old midget (sorry--litle person) in his stroller, we approached one of the merchandise counters. My sisters wanted to look further so they left Scott in my good, if trembling, hands. I saw a gaggle of nuns approaching, their voluminous habits blowing in the wind. "O Lord, PLEASE!!!", I fervently prayed. Just then a huge 18 wheeler pulled in behind them; I almost started to cry as I saw Scott's lips form an 'f' and his eyes turn to the size of dinner plates. O God, I thought, we're going to get the biggest and best ***ck yet. With nuns for an audience. "You are a cruel God," I moaned. As I predicted, Scott went into a ***ck frenzy with what sounded to me like he had the vocal strength and clarity of Pavarotti. Reactions ranged from shock through embarrasssment to humor.

I lifted my head high, nose in the air, and stated, "He's teething." and walked away.

OH my Vendome you did it again.You made me weep with laughter with your post.

I had a nephew who had the same problem and it was hard not to want to stick a sock in his mouth if we saw a huge Truck.

Instead we let him keep his pacifer till he was almost
school age so he wouldn't blurt out that word in public.


He is a well adjusted Man with a 15 yr old son himself and I guess it must run in the family as his son had the same exact word problem.


Myself I could never say the word decapitatd for yrs.Still gives me trouble if I have to say it more than once.

So funny Rich, tears as per usual.

Chest for chess
Axe for ask
EK Setra for et cetera
Birfday for birthday

Boy! I could go for days! Can you tell I'm a teacher?

When I was little I used to say 'Mazagine' and honestly couldn't hear where I was wrong, as my family had hysterics. Talking of misreading, I was a very literate child, and I once told my mother someone was the 'eppy-tome' of elegance - well, I'd only read it, not heard it, so how was I to know it was eh-pit-oh-me?

Some words we pronounce differently in parts of Newfoundland are:

daw for door

bicky for biscuit

dead for dad

I often wondered what is the correct pronounciation of schedule.

I say sked ule but some people say shed ule. I was wondering if both are right or what is the correct pronounciation of this word.

I still say "aminal" instead of "animal" and "lomster" instead of "lobster", because that's how my younger brother used to describe his favourite stuffed animal that happened to be a lobster!

Vendome ... you kill me . I'm kinda glad, though, that your nephew wasn't around a German immigrant friend of ours years ago. I came to learn that saying Volkswagen that way is actually correct if one is in Deutschland. However, to we kids...

When I was a kid I could not say williams, it would come out willimums but the one word that I still pronounce wrongly is tooth.I do not say a long O but a short O,so it comes out toth but everybody in my family says toth so it may be a family idiosyncracy

When I was at grammar school we had three streams, X, Y and W - yes in that order. I don't know if it was an Irish thing, but my former headmistress used to say 'doubloh', not doubleU.