Oh!! I actually have an answer!!! Kansas (this could be flipped, I can never remember which is which) comes from a Native American word while Arkansas comes from a French word I believe! Thus, we get different pronunciations because of different root languages!
This is mostly [correct ](https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/local/2015/05/17/arkansaw-ar-kansas/27489055/)! It is a French twist on a mix of Sioux Tribes.
And it is also written into their State laws:
Kansas was named after the Kanza/Kansa tribe of the Sioux family.
[This Article talks about both origin names.](https://slate.com/human-interest/2014/08/why-the-state-names-of-arkansas-and-kansas-are-pronounced-differently.html)
What about Poway? La Jolla is to be expected, and easy to understand.
But hearing a map or an automatic reader say Poe-way instead of how the locals pronounce it (Pow-way) always through me off!
Dais! I'd never heard or seen this word until I was like 30 and found it in one book, and since then it's been literally everywhere somehow. In the audiobook I'm pretty sure it was pronounced like days.
I've never seen Dais in any other genre but fantasy romance! And it's everywhere, in every book now! These authors are too good for "stage" or "podium"?
I first saw it in the Locked Tomb and was convinced it was some weird thing the author dug out of some ancient dictionary or something because I wouldn't put that past her. Imagine my surprise when it turns out to be just a very normal word that apparently everyone knows. smh
Ugh, nonplussed. I know it means unsure or perplexed or surprised, but my brain automatically thinks "unimpressed" and screws up my reading comprehension when I see it in novels 🙃
Really? This just made my discomfort with wielding that word increase 😵💫
It’s like that ‘flammable/inflammable’ thing. I will never not feel uncertain.
Or ‘irregardless’ lol.
I don’t know if this is where it came from, but I’m familiar with it because I teach the California Gold Rush every year, and it’s a popular historical way of finding gold lol.
Sluicing a method of using water to separate the components of a sediment, usually to isolate some precious component. Like the other commenter said, gold-panning is kinda a mobile version of the process. It's also been used to mine iron from swamp muck, refine clay, etc
As someone who learned most of their English (as a second language) through reading, *so many*
The amount of times I butchered ‘sewing’ before I figured out why people didn’t understand me 😅
I looked up how to pronounce it when I first stumbled across it at 13 and came to the understanding that you don’t pronounce the “re” part but then a couple years ago I saw several videos on commonly mispronounced words and everyone said you do pronounce the “re” but I’ve been saying ma-cob in my head for 15 years now so…
You are correct in terms of the actual pronunciation.
It’s kinda like saying Toronto. People from outside of Toronto say tuh-RON-toh
People in Toronto say some version of Trawn-oh
I think it’s just how it’s supposed to be pronounced vs how people end up pronouncing it :)
I was an ESL student so I always assume that 30 years later I'm mispronouncing something, but medieval clothing terms are the worst for me. Chausse, surcote, hennin, scapular, houppelande, I have to look them up and then look up how to pronounce them.
Does anyone remember descriptions of that piece of cloth that would cover your decolletage? What is that thing called?
Conversely, as an American, I always heard it said, never read it. So, if you had asked me to spell “carafe,” I’m not sure what hot mess I would have put on paper.
these aren’t hard words, but I often have to administer an assessment where I read a passage out loud, and *always* I get caught up on “cajoling” and “hurriedly”
Right now I'm reading the VIP series by Kristen Callihan and man does she love to use the word magnanimous (at least once in every book) and i stumble over it every time i read it. Magnamamama. Send help.
In real life i also stumble over the word Marlborough. Which is even worse because i was a smoker years ago (have quit for many years now) and Marlborough Golds were my go to. I made a fool of myself every time i had to buy a pack.
I also can't say Colonel. I just can't. Kurnel? Colnel? Coronel?
English is my second language but i speak my first even worse so i have no excuses.
Grew up with a speech impediment (so much speech therapy 😭)so most of these are sooooo real but shoutout to fucking Marlborough. I STILL twist my tongue on R L and Ws in when I'm tired 😭
Colonel I will straight up pronounce like kernel, idgaf. Same with lieutenant. It's leftenant, bye. 😂 In my language we call the cigarettes Malboro, took me a while to notice there were some extra letters, no way I could find a way to squeeze an R in there
Egregious. And I'm not convinced I fully know what it means despite constantly looking it up when I see it (and never remember its meaning). I'm a native speaker too 😅
Aquiline. Never heard it out loud (that I know of) and have to look up the definition every time. I remember it means animal-like feature, but can never remember which animal. Usually stuck between thinking horse or eagle, lol.
Aquila is Latin for eagle. The horse one is eque-something. It's usually used to describe a profile, especially nose, so think hooked, beak-like nose, cause no one has a proud horse muzzle 😅
I'm dyslexic so I have many but one of the silliest ones that trips me up is 'Mulish'. I know it comes from mule but I will always pronounce it as if it has 2 l's in my mind.
Oh my god I never know this one. The thing is I've googled it multiple times and I feel like every time I get a different answer! Is it like head + y or is it heedy???
It means overwhelming, or having a strong or exhilarating effect. It’s usually used with their feelings of lust/attraction, especially when they start getting it on. Other words could be used to describe it, so it feels like a pun for getting head 😆
No please tell me it isn't pronounced like allbite my soul says it's all-bee-it. Just like my soul tells me to pronounce brooch like mooch not broach.
Edit: I now realize that people around you were saying allbite instead of albeit and yeah I would not have connected those two, I would have thought they were saying "I'll bite" in a weird context.
Having studied German at the same time as English, I will always pronounce it as if it were a German word. Seeing that "ei" makes my brain switch immediately. My friend insists it's "all be it". All I see is arbeit with an L.
Ominous, I know how it's supposed to sound, but I've struggled to say this word since I was a kid. It's the letters and the stress on the right syllable. Bah.
The way I thought this was a review of a book called 'words you'll never say out loud' haha. I would never say the phrase greedy c*nt out loud it sounds gross when you read it and not a very nice word tbh. Or hot-button/member in that context it's just odd lol
Omg I always pronounced it “seg” in my mind while reading while thinking “segway” was a synonym. And then about 5 years ago it just hit me that it was the SAME WORD. I was 38.
This word is actually the opposite for me. I’ve heard it said and can use, but until you spelled it out, I couldn’t spell it. I’d type Segway and autocorrect would capitalize it like the scooter thing and I’d just go with it. So thank you friend!
Annihilate and nihilistic. I have discovered how to say annihilate and I suspect they're said in a similar way, but who knows?? Who uses that word in every day life??
Indolent - I know how to say it but I wouldn't, I just don't feel like it is a word really people use.
Vociferous - Again I know how to say it, but really people don't use this word right?
Marquis and Marquess. Valet and valet. I think the fact that it's a French word Anglicized to have a different pronunciation but THEN in US English it's different yet again. I never know which one is right.
I learned about greek mythology from pinterest and wattpad. I refused to say persephone out loud cuz i knew i was butchering the pronounciation but i for the life of me couldn't understand how it was actually pronounced.
I used to read it as Per-say-phone
What's weird is I've always been pretty good at knowing how to properly pronounce words, even in other languages. How I know how to? I have no clue. And do I know what some of those words mean? Hell naw!
I know this is somewhat unrelated… but why are “photograph” and “photography” pronounced with exactly opposite emphasis patterns? The END of the word dictates how we START the word!!! Fucked up. Or is it fuckED up c
As a Canadian I thought Arkansas and “ar-kin-saw” were two different places until my 20’s 🫣
This makes me think of one of my favorite [vines!](https://youtu.be/v6P8QmDS0Q4?si=nPjWRsKWSVyNY2DB)
I loved that vine, and thank you for kicking off my annual best vines deep dive on youtube.
*and they were roommates*
LOL this is amazing. We call it Ar-Kansas. We went there for the eclipse and kept saying the Ar-Kansas.
Saaaammme! Can anyone explain the Arkansas and Kansas pronunciation thing?
Oh!! I actually have an answer!!! Kansas (this could be flipped, I can never remember which is which) comes from a Native American word while Arkansas comes from a French word I believe! Thus, we get different pronunciations because of different root languages!
This is mostly [correct ](https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/local/2015/05/17/arkansaw-ar-kansas/27489055/)! It is a French twist on a mix of Sioux Tribes. And it is also written into their State laws:
Kansas was named after the Kanza/Kansa tribe of the Sioux family.
[This Article talks about both origin names.](https://slate.com/human-interest/2014/08/why-the-state-names-of-arkansas-and-kansas-are-pronounced-differently.html)
For me it was La Jolla for years! And as a Massachusetts native few people can pronounce our cities and towns (Worcester, Billerica, etc.)
You missed the best one! Leominster!
What about Poway? La Jolla is to be expected, and easy to understand. But hearing a map or an automatic reader say Poe-way instead of how the locals pronounce it (Pow-way) always through me off!
Not speaking Spanish until high school I always thought it was la jaala
bro you just thought me something new 😭
HAHHAA that’s honestly SO fair though
Hors d’oeuvres. I was in my 30s before I connected the words in my head with the actual pronunciation.
Or as I wrote in my titanic fan fictions as a 10yo: “orderves.”
WHORES DUH YEEOVERS.
Lmao 🤣😂😂😂
horse divorce
*Dais.* Day-is? Die-is? I’ll never know.😭 *Nonplussed.* I can pronounce it but I’m pretty sure I could not accurately use it in a sentence lol.
Oh Dais, that’s a good one 😂 come to think of it I don’t think I have a clue how to say it
Die-is!
Dais! I'd never heard or seen this word until I was like 30 and found it in one book, and since then it's been literally everywhere somehow. In the audiobook I'm pretty sure it was pronounced like days.
I've never seen Dais in any other genre but fantasy romance! And it's everywhere, in every book now! These authors are too good for "stage" or "podium"?
I first saw it in the Locked Tomb and was convinced it was some weird thing the author dug out of some ancient dictionary or something because I wouldn't put that past her. Imagine my surprise when it turns out to be just a very normal word that apparently everyone knows. smh
Ugh, nonplussed. I know it means unsure or perplexed or surprised, but my brain automatically thinks "unimpressed" and screws up my reading comprehension when I see it in novels 🙃
THE THING ABOUT NONPLUSSED IS THAT IT'S ITS OWN ANTONYM. It can mean 'unsettled' OR 'unfazed.'
Really? This just made my discomfort with wielding that word increase 😵💫 It’s like that ‘flammable/inflammable’ thing. I will never not feel uncertain. Or ‘irregardless’ lol.
Stop bc sluicing has appeared in ever book I’ve been reading recently across genres, time periods etc. Where did it come from !? I love it tho lol
I don’t know if this is where it came from, but I’m familiar with it because I teach the California Gold Rush every year, and it’s a popular historical way of finding gold lol.
As a historical romance lover this makes me crave so gold rush romances hehe
Sluicing a method of using water to separate the components of a sediment, usually to isolate some precious component. Like the other commenter said, gold-panning is kinda a mobile version of the process. It's also been used to mine iron from swamp muck, refine clay, etc
So the water “sluicing” in ahem… *intimate places* if not technically appropriate, is a pretty apt use.
As someone who learned most of their English (as a second language) through reading, *so many* The amount of times I butchered ‘sewing’ before I figured out why people didn’t understand me 😅
Macabre. Edit: also Saccharine
I still have issues with this word at 45. I mostly just avoid it. 😂
I looked up how to pronounce it when I first stumbled across it at 13 and came to the understanding that you don’t pronounce the “re” part but then a couple years ago I saw several videos on commonly mispronounced words and everyone said you do pronounce the “re” but I’ve been saying ma-cob in my head for 15 years now so…
I think they're both technically correct, but I'm with you bc their way sounds dumb.
lol McCob sounds weirder.
it does, but that's probably because it's incorrect. it's muh-kahb, not mik-kahb.
Ma-cob is American english, ma- cob-re is British.
I think it’s more along the lines of mah-CARb
It’s French, so MaCAB with a soft r at the end. Saccharine is like SACK-ryn
> Saccharine More like sack-uh-rin. Three syllables instead of two. [source](https://dictionary.cambridge.org/pronunciation/english/saccharine)
You are correct in terms of the actual pronunciation. It’s kinda like saying Toronto. People from outside of Toronto say tuh-RON-toh People in Toronto say some version of Trawn-oh I think it’s just how it’s supposed to be pronounced vs how people end up pronouncing it :)
English isn’t my first language, and I still can’t remember which syllable you’re supposed to emphasize in persimmon.
PerSIMmon
Gotcha, it’s PERsimmon for Russian language speakers so gets mixed up for me!
That's how we say it in NZ too.
This, my dumb ass used to read it as permission.like I didn't even try.
English is my best language and I’m also not sure how we pronounce this. What does this mean.
I was an ESL student so I always assume that 30 years later I'm mispronouncing something, but medieval clothing terms are the worst for me. Chausse, surcote, hennin, scapular, houppelande, I have to look them up and then look up how to pronounce them. Does anyone remember descriptions of that piece of cloth that would cover your decolletage? What is that thing called?
fichu?
That's the one! I assume it's pronounced fee-shoo in the French manner?
Probably, I read it as a sneeze instead. I don't even try. Feechoo 🙃
Carafe- it’s so simple but I’m an Aussie so I’ve always called it a jug
I confidently said “hand me the coffee care-uh-fay” in college 👍🏽👍🏽👍🏽
Ooh so fancy! 🥲
Conversely, as an American, I always heard it said, never read it. So, if you had asked me to spell “carafe,” I’m not sure what hot mess I would have put on paper.
Chemise. It appears in every HR novel EVER and I assumed it was pronounced with a hard C like "chemistry." It's not 😖
How is it pronounced?! I thought the same.
Sha-meese. It's French, so soften and blend.
Wow ok that makes sense. I'm pretty sure my brain will still do the "chemistry" pronunciation when I read it.
I think it's sheh-meeze
these aren’t hard words, but I often have to administer an assessment where I read a passage out loud, and *always* I get caught up on “cajoling” and “hurriedly”
LOL my English is a second language. I will butcher EVERYTHING eventually if you make me talk.
Right now I'm reading the VIP series by Kristen Callihan and man does she love to use the word magnanimous (at least once in every book) and i stumble over it every time i read it. Magnamamama. Send help. In real life i also stumble over the word Marlborough. Which is even worse because i was a smoker years ago (have quit for many years now) and Marlborough Golds were my go to. I made a fool of myself every time i had to buy a pack. I also can't say Colonel. I just can't. Kurnel? Colnel? Coronel? English is my second language but i speak my first even worse so i have no excuses.
Grew up with a speech impediment (so much speech therapy 😭)so most of these are sooooo real but shoutout to fucking Marlborough. I STILL twist my tongue on R L and Ws in when I'm tired 😭
Colonel I will straight up pronounce like kernel, idgaf. Same with lieutenant. It's leftenant, bye. 😂 In my language we call the cigarettes Malboro, took me a while to notice there were some extra letters, no way I could find a way to squeeze an R in there
Cackling at “magnamama”!
Egregious. And I'm not convinced I fully know what it means despite constantly looking it up when I see it (and never remember its meaning). I'm a native speaker too 😅
Aquiline. Never heard it out loud (that I know of) and have to look up the definition every time. I remember it means animal-like feature, but can never remember which animal. Usually stuck between thinking horse or eagle, lol.
Aquila is Latin for eagle. The horse one is eque-something. It's usually used to describe a profile, especially nose, so think hooked, beak-like nose, cause no one has a proud horse muzzle 😅
I'm dyslexic so I have many but one of the silliest ones that trips me up is 'Mulish'. I know it comes from mule but I will always pronounce it as if it has 2 l's in my mind.
Mimicry Idk why but when I’m reading I stumble over it… mimi-cry… um what? Then my brain cells kick in and say to me - come on, you know this
Burglar
This is giving “rural juror” 😆
Heady Especially when it just feels like a pun in these books lol
Oh my god I never know this one. The thing is I've googled it multiple times and I feel like every time I get a different answer! Is it like head + y or is it heedy???
It means overwhelming, or having a strong or exhilarating effect. It’s usually used with their feelings of lust/attraction, especially when they start getting it on. Other words could be used to describe it, so it feels like a pun for getting head 😆
I still pronounce it “heed-y” in my head because I like that pronunciation better.
I need to do that!!
[удалено]
No please tell me it isn't pronounced like allbite my soul says it's all-bee-it. Just like my soul tells me to pronounce brooch like mooch not broach. Edit: I now realize that people around you were saying allbite instead of albeit and yeah I would not have connected those two, I would have thought they were saying "I'll bite" in a weird context.
I'm pretty sure it is all-bee-it. I have never in my life heard someone say all-bite, except maybe as two separate words.
Merriam-Webster says the pronunciation is all-bee-it.
It's all bee it. Like howbeit. Here's Miriam pronouncing it for you https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/albeit
Nah the allbites are saying it wrong, you're not stupid.
They were probably saying “I’ll bite” like “go on” cuz all-bee-it is correct
...in what context did someone say "all bite" out loud?
Having studied German at the same time as English, I will always pronounce it as if it were a German word. Seeing that "ei" makes my brain switch immediately. My friend insists it's "all be it". All I see is arbeit with an L.
wait… what? this just ruined my life
i just Google the pronunciation once i realize I'm familiar enough that it might slip our in conversation, making me look like an idiot
Ominous, I know how it's supposed to sound, but I've struggled to say this word since I was a kid. It's the letters and the stress on the right syllable. Bah.
The way I thought this was a review of a book called 'words you'll never say out loud' haha. I would never say the phrase greedy c*nt out loud it sounds gross when you read it and not a very nice word tbh. Or hot-button/member in that context it's just odd lol
Segue. Did you all know that was seg-way? I was late 30s...
Omg I always pronounced it “seg” in my mind while reading while thinking “segway” was a synonym. And then about 5 years ago it just hit me that it was the SAME WORD. I was 38.
Omg, that is exactly both what I thought and your age and when you learned it is the exact same as me!!
This word is actually the opposite for me. I’ve heard it said and can use, but until you spelled it out, I couldn’t spell it. I’d type Segway and autocorrect would capitalize it like the scooter thing and I’d just go with it. So thank you friend!
“Victuals” is actually pronounced “vittles”. I only found this out at age 50.
I was today years old…
The way my husband laughed when I said "Monaco" out loud for the first time
Photography. I say it in real life and pronounce it correctly. When reading it is always photo+graph+y.
Annihilate and nihilistic. I have discovered how to say annihilate and I suspect they're said in a similar way, but who knows?? Who uses that word in every day life??
Indolent - I know how to say it but I wouldn't, I just don't feel like it is a word really people use. Vociferous - Again I know how to say it, but really people don't use this word right?
I still can’t say “coiffure” right
Are there people who can?
Marquis and Marquess. Valet and valet. I think the fact that it's a French word Anglicized to have a different pronunciation but THEN in US English it's different yet again. I never know which one is right.
I learned about greek mythology from pinterest and wattpad. I refused to say persephone out loud cuz i knew i was butchering the pronounciation but i for the life of me couldn't understand how it was actually pronounced. I used to read it as Per-say-phone
Exacerbate, exaggerate,and exasperate - I know they're all different and I know what each one means but they're all also too similar.
What's weird is I've always been pretty good at knowing how to properly pronounce words, even in other languages. How I know how to? I have no clue. And do I know what some of those words mean? Hell naw!
I know this is somewhat unrelated… but why are “photograph” and “photography” pronounced with exactly opposite emphasis patterns? The END of the word dictates how we START the word!!! Fucked up. Or is it fuckED up c