word weirdness or me weirdness--take your pick

[smg01]

Apparently it's spam day for me.

You know what word is hard for me to say? Well, there are many such words, but one of them is abandoning. It looks fine written. But if I say it, for some reason I find it difficult not to say "abandononing. Which doesn't really sound any righter than abandoning, but there you go.

While I'm making semantic confessions, here's another one. I was familiar with the word ethereal from a pretty young age. I'd seen it often in writing, but never really heard it said in such a way to connect the pronunciation with the spelling. Fortunately, I never really had cause to say the word out loud, so nobody ever knew that in my mind, it was always pronounced eth-a-reel rather than e-thear-ee-al. Nobody knew until now, that is.

In general, I tend to pronounce things in my head the way they're spelled because it helps me spell words right. Mostly. But sometimes I slip up and say the "spelled" version out loud. Which is how ennui sometimes accidentally becomes comes out en-you-ai. Oops.

If you're thinking that I silently pronounce paralysis and colonel as para-lye-sis and coll-o-nel respectively, you'd be right.

If you're also thinking that I might be a little soft in the head, well, I'm not sure I can argue against that interpretation right now.

Comments

[jungleeyedgirl.livejournal.com]

I have to stop myself when I'm trying to say "ethereal" and say it correctly because I do what you did, "eth-er-real" not "eth-eer-eal" because I had no idea how it was pronounced for a long time.

I have the same problem with conduit.

[suzannemarie.livejournal.com]

Perhaps this the inevitable result of my doing more reading than talking as I was growing up. ;/

[divalicious.livejournal.com]

Facade was "fack-aid" for me for years.

I'm still not sure if bedraggled is "be-draggled" or "bed" "Raggled"

[suzannemarie.livejournal.com]

Ooo, facade is a good one. Absolutely no clues that the c is soft. What a strange language we speak.

[shehawken.livejournal.com]

how about dee-pot and corpse?

Or, as the rest of the world knows them:

deh-poe and core (depot and corps)

[suzannemarie.livejournal.com]

That reminds me. When I have cause to use the words Marine Corps--which I do occasionally--I have to be really careful that it doesn't come out Marine Corpse.

[thatrachie.livejournal.com]

My boyfriend does this sort of things at least a couple of times a week. Saying words out loud as though he is reading them from an internal script, and for the first time. My favourite was "Orange You-Tang" (don't know about Americans but our pronunciation is "Au-Rang-Oo-Tang").

Con-Tra-Ver-Sy or Con-Trov-Er-Sy is a constant source of confusion for me.

[heanie.livejournal.com]

I agree with Corps and Colonel. I also have always had problems with luncheon.