Puzzle Description:

All the recent puzzles about mispronunciations brings to mind one of my first times reading aloud in class... The word on paper was water. Might have been my first time seeing it, and my eyes scanned the A followed by a consonant followed by an E, so obviously I said it with a long A, e.g., "waiter"!

#1: Belita (belita) on Oct 1, 2025

Oh, now I have to make a puzzle about my blunder.

Our class was reading a novel aloud with each student reading a paragraph. After a while I counted ahead to see what I would be reading. I couldn't believe my luck. The first word was "damn". I thought surely the teacher would rescue me. But, no. After a short wait I knew help was not to be, so some how I squeaked out the dreaded word and mumbled the rest of the paragraph.

There were a few people in class who wouldn't read the swear words and then everybody would yell "you missed a word!"

I remember reading aloud in class and being reprimanded about my pronouciation of "Madam"... Apparently I pronounce it with too much of a French emphasis (I was born in Quebec after all)... I still can't get my head around the way the teacher thought I should have said it (more New York??)... I think it's a matter of dropping the 2nd a...???

In 2nd grade, reading aloud, the printed words were "Calm down!". I -- transposing the a and l -- said, "Clam down!"

Don't feel bad, Susan. I thought Chick A Fill was a strange name for a fast food joint.

You are all so funny!

I was in English class, 8th grade maybe, and I had read my assignment and thought it was weird that chic (in my head pronounced "chick") had a meaning that was so close to the word I knew from hearing it pronounced "sheek". I was so relieved after a girl read the passage aloud and pronounced chic as "sheek". I would have said it wrong and been so embarrassed. That day two different words merged into one.

Dave, I realized (in my 40s) that "La Jolla" was pronounced "La Hoya" this entire time. I blame Oscar de la Hoya for that one!

In college I was sitting in an informal psychology discussion with some students, a few psych professors and my major psych advisor. I forget the topic but I recall trying to make a profound statement and getting a lisp attack. Posthumously camed out poth-humously. I coulda' died.

First time I saw a Chick Fill A, I thought it was chick fill ah. Called it that until someone finally corrected me.

there are a number of words that my wife mispronounces (some she realizes and some she doesn't). i don't correct her because i like it :) actually, occasionally i do correct her if it's the kind of thing that might embarrass her, like work-related words. apparently her ex used to criticize her all the time. i mean, who cares. she learned a lot of words from reading and the pronunciations in her head stuck :)

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