A "Showerthought" is a simple term used to describe the thoughts that pop into your head while you're doing everyday things like taking a shower, driving, or just daydreaming. The best ones are thoughts that many people can relate to and they find something funny or interesting in regular stuff.
Welcome to the world of Irish names!
We got:
And many more!
Worcestershire
One of my friends once called me pedantic, and I got to correct his pronunciation of it - he stressed the first syllable. One of the high points of my life.
Someone is peDANTic, but they themselves are a PEdant. Probably why they made that mistake
its aluminium
I'll concede aluminium when the Brits adopt platinium
theyll adopt aluminum as soon as you wrap your lips around a fag
A "niche" is not a "nitch"
You're a bit too late for trying to complain about that one.
The latter has been the dominant American pronunciation of the word for so long that it now appears as the primary pronunciation guide in American dictionaries.
Both Oxford English Dictionary and Merriam-Webster agree that "nitch" was the correct pronunciation in both British and American English until very recently. You already linked Merriam-Webster, so here's O.E.D:
N.E.D. (1907) gives only the pronunciation (nitʃ) /nɪtʃ/ and the pronunciation /niːʃ/ is apparently not recorded before this date. H. Michaelis & D. Jones Phonetic Dict. Eng. Lang. (1913), and all editions of D. Jones Eng. Pronouncing Dict. up to and including the fourteenth edition (1977) give /nɪtʃ/ as the typical pronunciation and /niːʃ/ as an alternative pronunciation. The fifteenth edition (1991) gives /niːʃ/ in British English and /nɪtʃ/ in U.S. English.
(N.E.D is the original name of the O.E.D. "/nɪtʃ/" is pronounced "nitch" and /niːʃ/ is pronounced "neesh".)
For me it isn't "some" word it is "many, many" words.
charcuterie (shar-KOO-terr-ee) (TIL)
potable (POH-tah-bull)
prerogative (preh-ROG-ah-tiv) -- wait, wat? Damn. I say it (pur-OHG-ah-tiv)
preternatural (pree-ter-NAT-chur-al)
remuneration (reh-myoo-ner-AY-shun) -- I'm not admitting how I say it lol
surprise - let's just say I spelled it suprise for ages. sigh
victual (vittle) - wait, that's how you spell it??
Indefatigable (IN-dih-FA-tih-gə-bl) not in-dee-fa-TEEG-able
Primer: \PRIMM-er\ -- small book / short informative piece of writing. (Brits can use long-i for both the paint undercoat and the book).
Mischievous: \MISS-chuh-vuss\ though mis-CHEE-vee-us is a non standard alternate pronunciation.
Interlocutor: \in tuhr LOCK you tore. I had no idea how to pronounce this so I never said it.
I think some "mispronunciations" are down to regional pronunciation. Like, I say miniature as MIN-ih-chure by habit though I'm well aware of how it's spelled and "should" be pronounced. I swear that's how I heard it growing up.
Maybe it isn't regional and it is just me. That would explain some things lol.
And uh, yeah I have a bunch more, some I know but am forgetting at the moment. Undoubtedly I mispronounce many more while having no idea. What must people think of me? Lol
Look, I was on board until you started throwing out made up words like preternatural, victual, and indefatigable, then I knew you were pulling my leg.
I was like 25 when I found out it was wheelbarrow and not wheelbarrel
I hear so many people pronounce "cavalry" as "calvary," which is a different word altogether.
For the C/C++ nerds: Clang. There are still many people pronouncing it "Cee-lang".
Wait but...but that means I'm supposed to pronounce it like the sound of slamming metal doors? but it's for the C language!
am I seriously getting gif'd again?
Not exactly related to the question, but as a non-native English speaker, whenever I read something related to weights in imperial, e.g., 150 lbs, my mind reads it as 150 lubes.
I know it's pounds, if I would read it out loud, I would say pounds cause I'm not a weirdo (well...). But still, my internal monologue has lbs = lubes
Worcestershire.
Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiasis.
I must be pronouncing them right enough for voice to text to understand me because I certainly cannot spell those.
I made the mistake of pronouncing epitome as "ep-i-tome" for a while.
Mine was "daschund". I always thought that was a separate breed from a "doxen".
Even after being educated on how the word is actually pronounced, I still purposefully pronounce it literally "daschund". Fuck 'em - should've spelled it better.
Hyperbole, not ‘hyper-bowl’ (like superbowl)
I had a roommate in college that pronounced "epitome" like "epi-tohm." He also pronounced "tome" like "toom." Drove me nuts.
You could record the times when you find out a new word that you've been pronouncing wrong. You should notice less and less new mispronounced words as your list of known mispronounced words gets longer and longer. If you graph the data out, you can extrapolate the curve out to infinity, and you can estimate how many total words you're mispronouncing.
As a non native EN speaker, this website helped a lot. Even has regional variants
It took me a long time before I found out how pilates was actually pronounced
So swaive vs suave or deboner vs debonair? Maybe 'fisticated vs sophisticated? You could be a swaive, deboner, 'fisticated urbane 'burban urbanite.
Personally, I blame the French for the short comings of the English language, just because I randomly can.