Oops! I only ever saw it written down...

noranne said:

*Macabre, used to say it similar to "mackaber", this was probably 1-2 years ago I learned I was wrong

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I only JUST realized when reading your post -- I KNOW how this is pronounced, but for some reason in the silence of my own head I still pronounce it "MAK-ra-bay." (How the R got juxtaposed I have no idea.)

Also:

draught (pronounced it "drawt" -- I knew the word draft, but thought it was a synonym rather than a spelling variation....doubly confusing because you DO see both spellings used if you read from both sides of the pond as I always did, so I assumed the pronunciation "draft" went with the spelling "draft!")

sigil (SIL-gul -- for some reason my brain always likes to put an extra L in there)

solder (SOLE-der -- as someone else said, I was also familiar with the word pronounced "sodder," but thought they were different words until I learned soldering myself!)

gyro (JYE-roh)

Marlys said:

Ha! I had a similar problem with "solder." I thought it was a synonym for "sauter," the word I heard people say. Nope, just one word there.

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Dangit! *makes mental note*

It often happens the other way around for me. I have British parents and I live in Canada, so I've had a lot of embarrassing moments where I try to Canadianize a word I've only heard my parents say, only to realize I had the completely wrong idea of how the word was spelled. Take "gaudy", for example - I tried to spell/pronounce it "gordy" in grade 8. Boy the class got a good ol' belly laugh that day...

I'm sure there are a lot of words I've only read and have no idea how to pronounce, but I haven't been set right on them yet.

One I remember as a kid, though - Phoebe. I had no idea how to wrap my mind around that name, so I just kind of glossed over it with a weak "foh-eeb-blahwhatever".

avarice
riss or rice ?
not sure myself :-(

Labia. Did not know how to pronounce that until recently. Not a big deal though, since I don't think I've ever had to say it out loud.

Ok, I'm not too proud to admit this here, of all places.

deus ex machina - I used to think it was pronounced doo eks mashina (luckily I never actually said this aloud to anyone). It wasn't until I was watching Fringe and heard Alt-Astrid say it the correct way: day-us eks ma-keen-ah. Doh!

Fringe is also where I learned the correct pronunciation for macabre, and disparate (hint: it's NOT dis-parrot).

smalls said:

Ok, I'm not too proud to admit this here, of all places.

deus ex machina - I used to think it was pronounced doo eks mashina (luckily I never actually said this aloud to anyone). It wasn't until I was watching Fringe and heard Alt-Astrid say it the correct way: day-us eks ma-keen-ah. Doh!

Fringe is also where I learned the correct pronunciation for macabre, and disparate (hint: it's NOT dis-parrot).

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Wow! Me too with the first version. Never would have guessed it was pronounced like that. Are you sure?

Of course you are. Still :-O

I don't know why but I always pronounce palpitations as palpations, and didn't realize I was wrong until after I graduated college. How can someone last so long being wrong?

And I have just found out that is not pronounced doo-ex-mahkinuh!!!!!

No wonder that guy corrected me. I hated him so I just thought he was being stupid! ...that's embarrassing.

Segue - It's not "seg-yoo"? No, it's "Seg-way," a word I'd heard often but, like others, never connected that they were one and the same.

Debris - My mother still teases me about the time I called it "deb-riss". How was I supposed to know it was "de-bree"?

And the worst one, Sonja - Going to meet someone I'd talked to online IRL for the first time... while she's with friends...
"Hi, are you Son-ja?"
"It's Son-ya, but yeah, hi!"
"Nice to meet you! Please excuse me while I go die of embarrassment."

TAMaxwell said:

Segue - It's not "seg-yoo"? No, it's "Seg-way," a word I'd heard often but, like others, never connected that they were one and the same.

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Yes, this one for me too.

To this day, I can never remember the correct British pronunciation of "lieutenant", which is "lef-TEN-ant". Why the hell is there an f in there?

slhuang said:

ethereal (ee-ther-REEL, 3 syllables, ether like ethernet, real like the word real)

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That's not how you pronounce "ethereal"?

Parametric said:

To this day, I can never remember the correct British pronunciation of "lieutenant", which is "lef-TEN-ant". Why the hell is there an f in there?

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It's adorable in Sleepy Hollow though.

That's not how you pronounce "ethereal"?

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I KNOW, right??? Turns out it's four syllables -- eh-THEER-ee-uhl.

Glad I'm not the only one.

I was 13 when I learned that 'lingerie' is NOT pronounced "linger-EE". I had a bunch of friends over for a sleepover and read them a joke from the Reader's Digest, they laughed so hard and I was mortified!

When I was in third grade I mispronounced "Protestant" as pro-TEST-ant. It happened when I was looking at a world atlas, on the page that showed the distribution of religions. My mom politely told me the correct pronunciation.

(Further evidence that I was a big-time Social Studies Geek at a very early age).