words that should be easy to pronounce but you can't pronounce

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Tell me words that you have trouble pronouncing, even though they aren't difficult words and no one else has problems with the words.

I have had real problem pronouncing the word "vocabulary", and also "McClusky"

― ken c (ken c), Tuesday, 3 August 2004 10:28 (twenty-one years ago)

This isn't me, but I really fucking hate it when people can't properly pronounce "escape".

― Girolamo Savonarola, Tuesday, 3 August 2004 10:30 (twenty-one years ago)

how do they say it?

― ken c (ken c), Tuesday, 3 August 2004 10:30 (twenty-one years ago)

"ex-scape"

― Girolamo Savonarola, Tuesday, 3 August 2004 10:33 (twenty-one years ago)

anesthetist

― Davel (Davel), Tuesday, 3 August 2004 10:34 (twenty-one years ago)

Smirnoff. I thought it was 'schmirnoff' but apparently I'm the only person who says this. And now I can't stop.

― ledge (ledge), Tuesday, 3 August 2004 10:35 (twenty-one years ago)

I say "Budveiser" and "Kraftverk" but I don't say "restaurau" like some prats do.

― dog latin (dog latin), Tuesday, 3 August 2004 10:44 (twenty-one years ago)

i say prat like "prahhhh".

I can't say "grolsch" either.

― ken c (ken c), Tuesday, 3 August 2004 10:46 (twenty-one years ago)

There's that drink called "Noilly Prat" that someone came into the shop I was working in and asked for "Nwalli Pragh" or something. What an oily prat!

― dog latin (dog latin), Tuesday, 3 August 2004 10:47 (twenty-one years ago)

"Elinor", which is a bugger as it's my boss's name.

― Markelby (Mark C), Tuesday, 3 August 2004 10:47 (twenty-one years ago)

Itinerary

― Dadaismus (Dada), Tuesday, 3 August 2004 10:49 (twenty-one years ago)

After the 50th time I've answered the 'phone on any given weekday, my pronunciation tends to be something like, "Hello, Nrrrraszjollygee". Not that 'neuroradiology' is that easy to pronounce in the first place.

― Liz :x (Liz :x), Tuesday, 3 August 2004 11:00 (twenty-one years ago)

I cannot say swivle. It comes out as sweeeal. It have no idea why this is. I can say it if I do it very slowly and have no other non-accent related speech impediments. Go figure.

― Pete (Pete), Tuesday, 3 August 2004 11:10 (twenty-one years ago)

I cannot say "participation" without jabbing another syllable in the middle of it.

― edward o (edwardo), Tuesday, 3 August 2004 11:21 (twenty-one years ago)

gynaecologist. it comes out jinacologist. freudian.

― Nellie (nellskies), Tuesday, 3 August 2004 12:45 (twenty-one years ago)

I can pronounce it, but whenever i say the sentence:"He/she edited it" I feel stupid. It's more of a tongue twister for me. you end up saying the same word twice. "editedit"

― scott seward (scott seward), Tuesday, 3 August 2004 12:50 (twenty-one years ago)

Scissor Sisters

― the neurotic awakening of s (blueski), Tuesday, 3 August 2004 12:58 (twenty-one years ago)

or as i say 'sizzuzuzuuzuzuzzz'

― the neurotic awakening of s (blueski), Tuesday, 3 August 2004 12:59 (twenty-one years ago)

worcestershire, comes out as worcesterestersh and just about then I give up and point to the bottle of sauce.

― donna (donna), Tuesday, 3 August 2004 13:59 (twenty-one years ago)

i cant say crisps. so i have to say a packet of crisp.

― pissboxer (pissboxer), Tuesday, 3 August 2004 15:08 (twenty-one years ago)

Comfortable.

― Huck, Tuesday, 3 August 2004 15:12 (twenty-one years ago)

> worcestershire

you know the 'worcester' bit is pronounced 'wooster', yes? makes it a lot easier 8)

― koogs (koogs), Tuesday, 3 August 2004 15:18 (twenty-one years ago)

Brewery, acuarela. And glockenspiel always comes out in a Sean Connery accent.

― lupine lupin (lupinelupin), Tuesday, 3 August 2004 17:19 (twenty-one years ago)

My mum can't pronounce cactus - it always comes out as catcus. This always annoys me greatly as I can't imagine how you can get a simple word so wrong.

― ailsa (ailsa), Tuesday, 3 August 2004 17:24 (twenty-one years ago)

aurora borealis

― cutty (mcutt), Tuesday, 3 August 2004 17:25 (twenty-one years ago)

you know the 'worcester' bit is pronounced 'wooster', yes? makes it a lot easier 8)

My British friend would always correct me on this, so now I say it both ways every time, just to make sure.

― Jordan (Jordan), Tuesday, 3 August 2004 17:27 (twenty-one years ago)

Yeah, because you can't be sure that the British person would be the one with the correct pronunciation of the name of a place in their own country ...

― ailsa (ailsa), Tuesday, 3 August 2004 17:28 (twenty-one years ago)

Oh, I never said it's wrong, but there's a 50% chance when I pronounce it either way that someone won't know what I'm talking about.

― Jordan (Jordan), Tuesday, 3 August 2004 17:31 (twenty-one years ago)

Many Englishers I know pronounce Gloucester as 'gluster' but all the New Englanders I know refer to their town as 'gloster'.

― Michael White (Hereward), Tuesday, 3 August 2004 17:35 (twenty-one years ago)

Then theres Fotheringay and Fongy

― roxymuzak (roxymuzak), Tuesday, 3 August 2004 17:37 (twenty-one years ago)

pwnd.

― briania (briania), Tuesday, 3 August 2004 17:38 (twenty-one years ago)

Play that fongy music, white boy.

― Michael White (Hereward), Tuesday, 3 August 2004 17:39 (twenty-one years ago)

Who pronounces it Gluster? That's just weird. (also I think these are falling out of the realm of "easy to pronounce")

― ailsa (ailsa), Tuesday, 3 August 2004 17:41 (twenty-one years ago)

I know someone who can't pronounce "drawer."

― jaymc (jaymc), Tuesday, 3 August 2004 17:43 (twenty-one years ago)

I thought it was Glauwster.

― Jordan (Jordan), Tuesday, 3 August 2004 17:46 (twenty-one years ago)

"OMGWTF"

― Jordan (Jordan), Tuesday, 3 August 2004 17:46 (twenty-one years ago)

pumpkin = punkin

― Je4nne ƒury (Jeanne Fury), Tuesday, 3 August 2004 17:49 (twenty-one years ago)

I thought it was Glauwster.

According to this thread (Strangely Pronounced Place Names), it's Gloster.

― ailsa (ailsa), Tuesday, 3 August 2004 17:56 (twenty-one years ago)

i can say "saturday" just fine, but for some reason i trip over it if it's immediately followed by "night live".

fortunately this does not come up very often

― mookieproof (mookieproof), Tuesday, 3 August 2004 18:47 (twenty-one years ago)

mirror (meer)
innards (in ahds)

― isadora (isadora), Tuesday, 3 August 2004 20:14 (twenty-one years ago)

My sister's idiot friend:

library (libarry)
picture (pitcher)
have (of) in conjugations

Come to think of it, many of the 'gluster' utterers are Yorkshiremen.

― Michael White (Hereward), Tuesday, 3 August 2004 20:31 (twenty-one years ago)

My friend says "sam-wij" for "sandwich." My aunt says "shtreet" for "street." Both make me want to punch walls.

― Je4nne ƒury (Jeanne Fury), Tuesday, 3 August 2004 20:33 (twenty-one years ago)

I actually had an ENGLISH PROFESSOR that said LahBarry instead of library. His degree? In "LahBarry Science."

― roxymuzak (roxymuzak), Tuesday, 3 August 2004 21:03 (twenty-one years ago)

my grandmother had two problem words "Burgular" and "Cutle-ry" My only error is pronouncing the "w" in sword. It started as a joke when i was 5 or 6 and i can't shake it.

― Anthony (Plato Guy), Tuesday, 3 August 2004 21:15 (twenty-one years ago)

Subtly. Sut-lee? Sub-tilly? Supt-lee?

― The Dreaded Rear Admiral (Leee), Tuesday, 3 August 2004 21:32 (twenty-one years ago)

months, or anything else that ends in "nths"

― oops (Oops), Tuesday, 3 August 2004 21:52 (twenty-one years ago)

this kid i knew in high school had trouble with certain contractions--instead of "wouldn't" or "shouldn't" he said "wunt" and "shunt". he couldn't say "couldn't" right either...

― mookieproof (mookieproof), Tuesday, 3 August 2004 22:01 (twenty-one years ago)

I can't park the car properly. It's always pahk the cah.

New Englandish.

― jim wentworth (wench), Wednesday, 4 August 2004 02:50 (twenty-one years ago)

i cannot pronounce statutory no matter how hard i try. this is an important issue for me since i have to say it numerous times daily at work and i am also studying law. people think i'm even more ditsy than i actually am.

― gem (trisk), Wednesday, 4 August 2004 03:12 (twenty-one years ago)

After years of work in coffee shops, I'd become actively annoyed when people would order 'expresso' rather than 'espresso.' I've got trouble saying 'Claude Debussy' - he always comes out "Clawedee Deebyousee," and Prokofiev always ends up 'Prokofovich.'

― x j e r e m y (x Jeremy), Wednesday, 4 August 2004 03:19 (twenty-one years ago)

Skipping 108 messages at this point... Click here if you want to load them all.

quiche or kitch

― calumerio, Friday, 26 April 2013 17:44 (twelve years ago)

I'm surprised no one has said hamster yet.

― c21m50nh3x460n, Friday, 26 April 2013 17:49 (twelve years ago)

I cant say "statistics". It always comes out "sasiststics"

― frogbs, Friday, 26 April 2013 18:01 (twelve years ago)

i always mix up "sale" and "sell"

― clouds, Friday, 26 April 2013 18:02 (twelve years ago)

but now i'm worrying that i invented this and that no one else says it this way?

I say it this way.

― jaymc, Friday, 26 April 2013 18:02 (twelve years ago)

I noticed only recently that I have problems with 'gallery' that don't correspond to how I pronounce anything else, it comes out like 'garrarry' unless I'm very deliberate with my tongue shape. A single word speech impediment.

― the kind of man who best draws girls' eyeballs (Merdeyeux), Friday, 26 April 2013 18:03 (twelve years ago)

saying "neesh" seems pretentious.

It's a French word. Either say it like it should be pronounced or say alcove. ;)

― He has a lot of baggage (handlers' perks) (Michael White), Friday, 26 April 2013 18:04 (twelve years ago)

i can't pronounce my wife's last name. wtf dude

― frogbs, Friday, 26 April 2013 18:05 (twelve years ago)

I never understood why Americans say nitch
I had trouble saying 'parliamentary' all week

― kinder, Friday, 26 April 2013 18:07 (twelve years ago)

Had the same thing above about 'segue'. Always pronounced it 'seeg'

― Pingu Unchained (dog latin), Friday, 26 April 2013 18:07 (twelve years ago)

wait, it doesn't rhyme with "egg"??

― clouds, Friday, 26 April 2013 18:08 (twelve years ago)

I have trouble with my own first name.

― WilliamC, Friday, 26 April 2013 18:09 (twelve years ago)

it's pronounced 'neitzsche'

― ampersand cooper black (elmo argonaut), Friday, 26 April 2013 18:11 (twelve years ago)

I guess the 'seeg' thing must have come from a mixture of 'vogue' and 'siege' in my mind

― Pingu Unchained (dog latin), Friday, 26 April 2013 18:16 (twelve years ago)

Oh, regarding niche -- boy, do I have stories when I moved here. I say <i>neeeeesh</i>. 'Nitch' sounds so strange to my ear.

Talking about phraseology and moving here, it's funny how some people 'corrected' my English because they thought it was incorrect, when really it was either another way of saying something or <i>they</i> were the ones in the wrong. It was frustrating at first, but I got used to it.

― c21m50nh3x460n, Friday, 26 April 2013 18:18 (twelve years ago)

neitzsche otm

― how's life, Friday, 26 April 2013 18:23 (twelve years ago)

cliché
quiche
crèche
clique
quickie

are a bunch of fuckers.

― ^ sarcasm (ken c), Saturday, 27 April 2013 08:17 (twelve years ago)

albeit

― ^ sarcasm (ken c), Saturday, 27 April 2013 08:19 (twelve years ago)

incentivize always gets me. after the first few syllables i give up and slip into the last bit of "synthesize"

― chilli, Saturday, 27 April 2013 10:12 (twelve years ago)

by the way what's the deal with putting an "L" sound in "both"? is this a common thing?

― chilli, Saturday, 27 April 2013 10:15 (twelve years ago)

Now that I think about it, I have trouble pronouncing my own last name sometimes. It's H0lm, and sometimes I get hung up on the transition from the o to the l.

― how's life, Saturday, 27 April 2013 12:54 (twelve years ago)

by the way what's the deal with putting an "L" sound in "both"? is this a common thing?

Say what?

― Bees Against Racism (Tom D.), Saturday, 27 April 2013 12:57 (twelve years ago)

so it sounds like "bolth." have you never heard this? it's fairly rare where i'm from but i hear it enough that i figure it must be some sort of variation in dialect.

― chilli, Saturday, 27 April 2013 20:49 (twelve years ago)

noticed that I had the same pronunciation issue when I was talking about Mulholland Drive last night.

― how's life, Sunday, 28 April 2013 12:06 (twelve years ago)

"curriculum" and "Lily" cause me serious difficulty (which sucks when you, like I do, live with someone called Lily).

― the Shearer of simulated snowsex etc. (Dwight Yorke), Sunday, 28 April 2013 12:40 (twelve years ago)

Girl at work says 'ibrufen' instead of ibruprofen

― Pingu Unchained (dog latin), Sunday, 28 April 2013 14:04 (twelve years ago)

dog latin says 'ibruprofen' instead of ibuprofen

(sorry)

― Pyotr Ilyich Chai Latte (Paul in Santa Cruz), Sunday, 28 April 2013 19:01 (twelve years ago)

lol snap

― the late great, Sunday, 28 April 2013 19:04 (twelve years ago)

scooby doo says "ribruprofen!"

― the late great, Sunday, 28 April 2013 19:05 (twelve years ago)

My mum calls it ibrufen as well. Google suggests this is definitely a thing. A WRONG thing.

― ailsa, Sunday, 28 April 2013 19:06 (twelve years ago)

'Canada Day'--my brain wants to eliminate the middle 'da', so I end up overemphasizing it and going 'Can-NUH-DUH-day'.

― lazulum, Sunday, 28 April 2013 19:08 (twelve years ago)

Puyallup, Washington

You pronounce it 'pwee-AWL-up'. But this is non-obvious. Humptulips is much easier.

― Aimless, Sunday, 28 April 2013 19:14 (twelve years ago)

pull a yup?

― the late great, Sunday, 28 April 2013 19:19 (twelve years ago)

until recently i had no idea people were saying "segue" when i heard "seg-way".

― sleepingsignal, Sunday, 28 April 2013 19:28 (twelve years ago)

i always thought it was c'est guaix

― Aimless, Sunday, 28 April 2013 19:30 (twelve years ago)

Speaking of the Northwest, I'm glad I don't live in Oregon because I can't say it. Always comes out "organ" or "or-gon."

― Josefa, Sunday, 28 April 2013 20:29 (twelve years ago)

i can't say "water" normally i can only say it with a gross long island /new jersey accent, "wuh-dda". (shudders) i've tried to correct it.

― Pat Finn, Sunday, 28 April 2013 21:14 (twelve years ago)

maybe it's more like "whugh-der" but still, it's wrong

― Pat Finn, Sunday, 28 April 2013 21:14 (twelve years ago)

I panic inwardly a little when I have to say "schedule" because I can never remember if sked- or shed- is the British pronunciation. I pick at random and worry people will jump to conclusions about my class and/or education from my choice. This is bad with other words with an older/French pronunciation vs a less pedantic pronunciation as neither option seems 100% safe, but I guess that's off-topic-ish.

For some reason "duplicate" I end up saying as doo-plicate so as not to say jew-plicate, even though I can successfully say dyu- without angst in other du- words.

When I say "thanks" the th- sound sometimes gets rushed and I feel like I just said "nanks" instead.

I have a very slow mouth, I think. I trip over lots of words, though usually not consistently, and just crash on and hope nobody noticed.

― susuwatari teenage riot (a passing spacecadet), Sunday, 28 April 2013 21:29 (twelve years ago)

the hardest word of all is PATHS. there is way too much going on there. any word beginning with a P is difficult, especially a P and then certain vowel sounds-- pussy is really hard to say too!-- and anything ending in THS. how do you know how long to say the th and the s?? i feel like i go on forever. paathhhhssssszzz. having to do readings during mass in grade school and the microphone just blowing up in your face on the plosives-- a reading from the aPOSTle PAUL's letter to the philiPPPPPPians or whatever has probably caused some deep anxiety forever.

― ehkarl, Sunday, 28 April 2013 22:00 (twelve years ago)

Oh yeah re "ths", "tenths" is bad. "Tense". "Tennuths". "Tenthuhs-uh". For some reason "months" is easier. We should all go back to saying "tithes" iirc

― susuwatari teenage riot (a passing spacecadet), Sunday, 28 April 2013 22:13 (twelve years ago)

four years pass...

something

― infinity (∞), Wednesday, 31 January 2018 17:40 (seven years ago)

two years pass...

How to pronounce “midwifery”? Is there a US/UK split?

― Time Will Show Leo Weiser (James Redd and the Blecchs), Saturday, 1 August 2020 18:00 (five years ago)

Mid WHIFF ur ee in U.S.

I can't say "google." Most people say GOO-gle. But I segment the word weirdly, and catch on the second hard g, and so it comes out GOOG-ull. When I try to say 'googling' it comes out GOOG-ling.

― america's favorite (remy bean), Saturday, 1 August 2020 18:11 (five years ago)

I hear differing opinions from yours, remy,

― Time Will Show Leo Weiser (James Redd and the Blecchs), Saturday, 1 August 2020 21:28 (five years ago)

Rural :'(

― Scampidocio (Le Bateau Ivre), Sunday, 2 August 2020 08:46 (five years ago)

When I was a child I always had problems with the 'unvoiced th' /θ/ sound - and that is a problem for an English speaker! And it carried over into adulthood so I sometimes found myself having to think about pronouncing words before I said them - I'm OK now though, sorry, though.

― Sonny Shamrock (Tom D.), Sunday, 2 August 2020 09:34 (five years ago)

I was tongueties as a kid so although it was operated on when I was 6ish I strugged to articulate some words and still have mental blocks on. I tend to refactor sentences around them if I can so "you should" becomes "you ought to", "just because" becomes "mainly because" anything involving the dishwasher avoids the name of the machine itself, I pronounce "schedule" the american way with a hard "k" sound. Lots of other examples I'm no longer even conscious of. ( there's another one... "conscious" becomes "cognisant"!)

― thomasintrouble, Sunday, 2 August 2020 09:49 (five years ago)

https://64.media.tumblr.com/b6b527f27309ea3678704ef206425f26/tumblr_o856abYMZl1u2if3uo1_400.png

― A True White Kid that can Jump (Granny Dainger), Sunday, 2 August 2020 10:51 (five years ago)

My pronunciation of "Minneapolis" often gets an extra syllable like "Indianapolis"

― Vinnie, Sunday, 2 August 2020 11:02 (five years ago)

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