hello to everyone else who had no idea how you were supposed to pronounce “foyer” or “hors d'oeuvres” to the point that you heard both of them in real life and didn’t connect them to the words you read in books for years
Replies
"Colonel" is a prank played on obnoxious 11-year-olds.
aug 31, 2025, 1:42 am • 81 0 • view
hold the cologne L
aug 31, 2025, 1:54 am • 11 0 • view
It helped if you were around when Colonel Sanders was still alive
aug 31, 2025, 4:43 am • 0 0 • view
I see a picture of a dude who sells a lot of corn, confusingly
aug 31, 2025, 1:05 pm • 0 0 • view
More than plenty to read into this, but simply, if you were alive at the time you heard the word & saw it spelled out at the same time
aug 31, 2025, 1:33 pm • 0 0 • view
I didn't learn how to pronounce "clique" until my late 30s
aug 31, 2025, 2:07 am • 2 0 • view
What? Rapport? Do you mean ripore?
aug 31, 2025, 1:42 am • 8 0 • view
wait, how the fuck is foyer pronounced
aug 31, 2025, 1:59 am • 0 0 • view
foi-a "foh-yay" is a good approximation
aug 31, 2025, 4:44 am • 0 0 • view
the fuck it is
aug 31, 2025, 4:45 am • 2 0 • view
for me it was stuff like "khakis"
aug 31, 2025, 12:16 pm • 0 0 • view
My husband pronounces it like car keys. It may be a British thing because I heard it that way on tv once too.
aug 31, 2025, 12:25 pm • 0 0 • view
Hihelloyes, if you, too, would like the option of pulling this out because a pedant is bugging you, this problem is so prolific with the former, specifically, that both pronunciations of “foyer” are technically correct now; they’re considered a dialect difference.
aug 31, 2025, 3:56 pm • 0 0 • view
I'll never forget the look on my Mom's face when I asked her if we could make whore's devores for Thanksgiving
aug 31, 2025, 1:43 am • 50 0 • view
Ha! It’s horsie doovers, silly!
aug 31, 2025, 1:46 am • 14 0 • view
Horse d’ ovaries
aug 31, 2025, 2:47 am • 0 0 • view
"Doovers" is one of those non-words I wish was a word because it's so fun to say Doover. Doover doover.
aug 31, 2025, 3:07 am • 4 0 • view
Dooverlacky is an Australian thingumabob.
aug 31, 2025, 5:23 am • 2 0 • view
Doover cellar door
aug 31, 2025, 8:27 am • 0 0 • view
I may have just realized recently that Tas in Dragonlance carries a Hoopack and not a Hookpack. My brain just added the “k”
aug 31, 2025, 1:49 am • 3 0 • view
Where items “magically” appear
aug 31, 2025, 4:01 am • 0 0 • view
I will add Adirondack and also... thank DIsney for saying Yosemite Sam out loud when I was yojng.
aug 31, 2025, 2:48 pm • 1 0 • view
"awry" was my disconnected word. I said it in my head as awree, emphasis on the first syllable, and took a while to put things together
aug 31, 2025, 3:16 pm • 0 0 • view
You mean it’s not whore’s divorce!?!?
aug 31, 2025, 3:09 am • 0 0 • view
For me it was coup de grace, first read the term at 9-10 and was probably 16 before I heard it spoken and "Ooohhhhhh!"
aug 31, 2025, 4:18 am • 2 0 • view
Horses' doovrers
aug 31, 2025, 7:01 am • 0 0 • view
Fruition/fruitation Fat-i-gue Epi-tome
aug 31, 2025, 2:45 am • 0 0 • view
Just ‘inevitable’ ‘hyperbole’ (the latter was corrected, in a very kind way, by a tutor at university when I was studying English Literature!)
aug 31, 2025, 7:59 am • 1 0 • view
47 yr old, married, attorney, home-owner. Afraid to say nonplussed or dues ex machina aloud
aug 31, 2025, 2:28 am • 5 0 • view
Chaos
aug 31, 2025, 2:18 am • 2 0 • view
Was I the only one who also missed genre (gen-air)?
aug 31, 2025, 2:31 pm • 0 0 • view
Victuals.
aug 31, 2025, 6:40 am • 1 0 • view
I was about 30 the first time I said epitome out loud (and rhymed it with dome) and my friends thought I was Doing A Bit…
aug 31, 2025, 9:57 am • 0 0 • view
let's just say y'all a "niche clique"
aug 31, 2025, 1:50 am • 7 0 • view
Facetious
aug 31, 2025, 2:07 pm • 0 0 • view
I’d love to hear you talk about putting your attaché on the semainier in the foyer
aug 31, 2025, 2:11 am • 1 1 • view
Me, who pronounced chaos "chows" until they were 14
aug 31, 2025, 4:47 pm • 0 0 • view
Still not sure how to pronounce “quixotic.”
aug 31, 2025, 3:51 am • 1 0 • view
Quicks and otic like at the end of exotic - watch me be corrected
aug 31, 2025, 5:26 am • 0 0 • view
Feces. Hard C
aug 31, 2025, 2:45 am • 1 0 • view
Rendezvous was mine
aug 31, 2025, 1:42 am • 7 0 • view
I'm from the UK. I grew up with pronouncing it as horse dervras as a joke, people knew how to say it correctly. It's still a thing to pronounce french words incorrectly
aug 31, 2025, 8:07 am • 1 0 • view
I knew someone who pronounced theatre as tay ah tra. Anyone else know someone who says it this way?
aug 31, 2025, 8:09 am • 0 0 • view
I will never say foy-yay 🫡
aug 31, 2025, 2:31 am • 3 0 • view
It’s funny because my mom used “hors d’ouevres” in speaking all the time (we lived in a big dinner party neighborhood) and I read it in books all the time and yet it wasn’t until many years later that I realized it was the same word
aug 31, 2025, 2:17 am • 4 0 • view
It took me multiple readings to get the shoe pastry pun in Hogfather. 🤦
aug 31, 2025, 4:02 am • 2 0 • view
Though if you are aware that you might be getting it wrong it's infinitely easier to get an embarrassment-free answer than it was 25 years ago.
aug 31, 2025, 2:17 am • 1 0 • view
I thought chaos was pronounced “chows”
aug 31, 2025, 4:52 am • 1 0 • view
Macabre and Hyperbole off the top of my head.
aug 31, 2025, 2:09 am • 4 0 • view
Hyperbole. Totally fucked up my teen self…still get stuck on it because of that😁✌️
aug 31, 2025, 2:51 am • 0 0 • view
I submit segue I spelled it like the damn scooter for years
aug 31, 2025, 2:02 am • 4 0 • view
Yeah i pronounced the first one "seeg" for years
aug 31, 2025, 2:16 am • 1 0 • view
"seg-gooey" was how I said it because I didn't know lmao
aug 31, 2025, 1:53 pm • 1 0 • view
This one. I figured out these were one word *in grad school*!
aug 31, 2025, 2:36 am • 2 0 • view
Also: queue
aug 31, 2025, 2:39 am • 5 0 • view
SAME. 'Horse de voors.'
aug 31, 2025, 11:08 am • 0 0 • view
Debacle and foyer were my downfall
aug 31, 2025, 3:19 am • 3 0 • view
Whores davores was how my colleague referred to tiny, delicious appetisers
aug 31, 2025, 9:08 am • 0 0 • view
I thought anxiety was pronounced anx-ity.
aug 31, 2025, 2:05 pm • 0 0 • view
fucking debris… “Deb-rhis”? oh no, that’s too easy. use the French pronunciation!
aug 31, 2025, 1:44 am • 1 0 • view
I knew someone who pronounced it der-bis - just got the middle letters transposed in her mind.
aug 31, 2025, 1:54 am • 2 0 • view
I still remember the shock in my teens when I realized that "whores-de-ovres" and "orderbs" were the same word. also "chick" and "sheek"
aug 31, 2025, 2:07 am • 3 0 • view
I asked a waiter for the whores de ovaries once as a little kid.
aug 31, 2025, 2:46 am • 1 0 • view
Oh yes…horse divers
aug 31, 2025, 2:12 am • 2 0 • view
i cannot to this day remember which syllable to put the emphasis on in caricature so if i'm speaking i just say "an exagerrated cartoon drawing" or something lol
aug 31, 2025, 1:45 am • 23 0 • view
my rule is: when in doubt, make it Spanish
aug 31, 2025, 2:14 am • 4 0 • view
my mom says to just say it authoritatively
aug 31, 2025, 2:16 am • 8 0 • view
not a bad strategy since your audience may not know themselves, may think they know but be malleable, and/or may be interested in trying something new for the fuck of it
aug 31, 2025, 2:18 am • 3 0 • view
(this works *extremely* well with Latinate binomial names of plants and creatures)
aug 31, 2025, 2:22 am • 1 0 • view
I can't pronounce "tangential" to this day, and this is compounded by the fact that my husband keeps correcting me by pronouncing it "tan-JEN-tee-ul."
aug 31, 2025, 3:10 am • 1 0 • view
Bill S. Preston, Esq., and Ted "Theodore" Logan completely and forever wrecked my ability to read or say "Socrates" correctly the first time.
aug 31, 2025, 1:50 am • 34 0 • view
lol I say it correctly but there’s always the Bill and Ted doubt that maybe I’m wrong
aug 31, 2025, 2:29 am • 7 0 • view
wait, is foyer not pronounced like it's spelled?
aug 31, 2025, 8:37 pm • 0 0 • view
For me as a kid - melancholy. "Meh-lan-cho-lee," as 7 year old me pronounced it. Gave my mom fits when she finally understood what I was trying to say.
aug 31, 2025, 6:38 am • 0 0 • view
And don't forget "solder." I had no clue it rhymed with "potter" until I was in my 20s
aug 31, 2025, 2:33 am • 2 0 • view
This one is mine. I heard people say a word that I assumed was spelled "sauter" and never thought to connect it to "solder," because how could that possibly be the spelling?
aug 31, 2025, 8:06 am • 2 0 • view
Adding façade and debris to this list
aug 31, 2025, 2:28 am • 4 0 • view
I grew up in Illinois, and not only did we have a foyer, we pronounced all the letters as midwesterners do. Oh,it was CONtribute.
aug 31, 2025, 1:49 am • 11 0 • view
It was wild in college to learn that the name of nearby Des Plaines was "dez-PLAINz," like someone was making fun of Americans. Of course in NC we had a FOR-yer, which is a foyer with a bonus R because you can never intone aloud too many letters.
aug 31, 2025, 2:12 pm • 1 0 • view
I grew up in NYC and "foyer" has always rhymed with "lawyer".
aug 31, 2025, 4:30 am • 6 0 • view
Americans who have a foy-yay also put their flowers in a vahhz
aug 31, 2025, 3:14 pm • 2 0 • view
And I thought new Yorkers rhymed lawyer with liar.
aug 31, 2025, 4:02 pm • 2 0 • view
it was just a couple days ago that I learned ‘victuals’ is pronounced “vittles” so this curse continues to follow into my thirties
aug 31, 2025, 3:53 am • 3 0 • view
Things I learned today. Also why? Is this another French one
aug 31, 2025, 5:21 am • 0 0 • view
Granny Clampett taught me this one.
aug 31, 2025, 1:06 pm • 1 0 • view
I pronounced omnipotent as omni-potent for years.
aug 31, 2025, 2:32 am • 10 0 • view
I prefer omni-potent fwiw
aug 31, 2025, 3:25 am • 5 0 • view
Same with impotent for me.
aug 31, 2025, 8:51 am • 1 0 • view
Oh god, yeah, I thought “rendezvous” was pronounced like it would be in English until I heard it pronounced in the movie of a book I’d read and connected it via a quote
aug 31, 2025, 2:08 am • 2 0 • view
The Internet has made it so you can find the answer, but technocrats have made it so we no longer have the skills to ask the question. Anyway, I've mispronounced a shit ton of words because I was reading Lord of the rings in 5th grade.
aug 31, 2025, 2:03 pm • 0 0 • view
Nauseous
aug 31, 2025, 2:14 am • 2 0 • view
I thought the word was dis-shelved, which made sense to me because that’s how it would be if someone pulled all the bookshelves over.
aug 31, 2025, 3:00 am • 4 0 • view
My father told me he thought for years that misled was "mizzled". {indignant voice} "I've been MIZZLED!"
aug 31, 2025, 1:56 am • 9 0 • view
omg i'm not alone! bsky.app/profile/theb...
aug 31, 2025, 3:25 am • 3 0 • view
I remember giving a report in grade school on Canyon "Dee Chellee" and having the teacher ask "Do you mean Canyon De SHAY?" and replying earnestly that no, this is Canyon De Chelly, it says so right in the book.
aug 31, 2025, 2:24 am • 2 0 • view
I hate how long I thought Facade was said "Fah-cayd" until I heard a character in a movie say it and the joke was he was a dumbass saying Facade wrong.
aug 31, 2025, 2:54 am • 3 0 • view
My Fellow Americans?
aug 31, 2025, 5:18 am • 0 0 • view
Hours devours! You devour them an hour before dinner. This is obvious to anyone.
aug 31, 2025, 1:32 pm • 1 0 • view
Americans say foy-er, the French have not earned out respect.
aug 31, 2025, 1:35 pm • 1 0 • view
i was 13 when i learned that "pseudo" starts with a silent letter and doesn't rhyme with "tornado"
aug 31, 2025, 2:31 am • 2 0 • view
Infrared for me.
aug 31, 2025, 2:29 am • 3 0 • view
Yes!! Me, too! Why is it not infra-red?!?
aug 31, 2025, 3:55 am • 1 0 • view
For years I wondered why people only got misled in the past tense, you never read about "be careful, don't let him misle you"
aug 31, 2025, 4:33 am • 3 0 • view
Hi whores devores checking in.
aug 31, 2025, 1:42 am • 7 0 • view
I know how the word is pronounced now but I still contend that our failure to spell it orderves is a profound cultural shortcoming. We don't owe it to the French to pretend we approve of their unnatural relationships with vowels.
aug 31, 2025, 1:49 am • 38 0 • view
What, you don't love single-syllable words with double-digit numbers of letters, pourquoi pas
aug 31, 2025, 1:57 am • 12 0 • view
I love that Mr. Webster literally did this kind of thing when he decided to write his dictionary. "That u in colour is unnecessary" etc. He's responsible for a lot of the subtle differences in spelling between American English and British English.
aug 31, 2025, 4:04 am • 6 1 • view
Real American Hero
aug 31, 2025, 4:11 am • 4 0 • view
I learned many words that I never bothered trying to sound out. I saw the word, understood it, and went on.
aug 31, 2025, 2:14 am • 2 0 • view
One that comes to mind is coelacanth. I just pictured the fish when I saw this word.
aug 31, 2025, 2:07 pm • 1 0 • view
I was one of those kids- I didn't and still don't hear words in my head as I read. I became an adult who was auditioning for a production of "our town" and just straight up cold-read the script, and as a result absolutely butchered the word "Presbyterian". I did not get a part.
aug 31, 2025, 8:01 am • 1 0 • view
Horse Devorse.
aug 31, 2025, 1:42 am • 12 0 • view
You see when two equines no longer wish to be married...
aug 31, 2025, 3:55 am • 6 0 • view
Yep, I got a story there:
aug 31, 2025, 3:19 am • 8 0 • view
The first time I read ma'am on a page I was really thrown for a loop.
aug 31, 2025, 10:52 am • 0 0 • view
Also Colonel for some (me)
aug 31, 2025, 2:40 pm • 0 0 • view
Cha-ose. Like disshelved.
aug 31, 2025, 3:02 am • 2 0 • view
Check out "The Chaos" - Gerard Nolst Trenité share.google/6xLYVFpE9irx...
aug 31, 2025, 4:48 am • 1 0 • view
Some still get me like some sailing/ship terms that I realized while listening to some of the Master and Commander audio books and seeing the terms in my Constitution model’s instructions was a bit of a face palm moment.
aug 31, 2025, 1:51 am • 5 0 • view
Don’t read those books— but boatswain or bosun, what is going on there
aug 31, 2025, 3:20 am • 1 0 • view
And a hearty "nihilism" to you
aug 31, 2025, 1:45 am • 8 0 • view
“Halcyon” mispronouncer checking in
aug 31, 2025, 2:11 am • 2 0 • view
Mine was "abridged". Pronounced it ah-bry-ged.
aug 31, 2025, 2:15 am • 3 0 • view
I had the opposite problem: my parents would shove raisins into Cheerios and call it hors d'oeuvres and I thought it was spelled orderves until I was made to study French in school
aug 31, 2025, 2:23 am • 1 0 • view
Never forget that poor country girl saying bourgeois out loud for the first time in front of fancy college friends. (It me.) 🫣
aug 31, 2025, 2:34 am • 1 0 • view
I identify with this in general, but I don't understand how "foyer" would be problematic. It's pronounced exactly the way you'd think it would be? I think?
aug 31, 2025, 1:46 am • 1 0 • view
Pretty sure foy-yay is proper but well enough anglified that foy-er is ok too
aug 31, 2025, 2:47 am • 0 0 • view
I speak some French, so I get what the French pronunciation would be, but if someone busted that out in English, I'd immediately think they were hypercorrecting.
aug 31, 2025, 3:09 am • 1 0 • view
I’ve heard both “foy-yer” and “foy-yea”
aug 31, 2025, 2:00 am • 1 0 • view
some dialects of English use the French pronunciation: foy yay
aug 31, 2025, 2:01 am • 4 0 • view
I’m Canadian and don’t recall anyone here pronouncing it other than foy yay .
aug 31, 2025, 2:14 am • 4 0 • view
It’s because we have actual French-speakers so nobody can get away with screwing up the French words on our TV.
aug 31, 2025, 4:08 am • 1 0 • view
I love Canada sometimes. The folks from fauxburg (fox berg) renovated their foyer (foy yay).
aug 31, 2025, 4:51 am • 2 0 • view
Counterpoint- if a loan word doesn’t accept a new phonetic spelling in the new language it forfeits the right to be pronounced properly
aug 31, 2025, 4:13 am • 0 0 • view
some dialects of English pronounce it foy yerr
aug 31, 2025, 3:21 am • 5 0 • view
Hello from a kid who pronounced rendezvous phonetically until high school due to having read it in elementary school and not connecting it to the same word being spoken
aug 31, 2025, 2:15 am • 5 0 • view
Sorry, I watched too much murder she wrote at six to relate to this, I even knew about the stupid apostrophe
aug 31, 2025, 2:16 am • 3 0 • view
“Circuitous” though. “Circuitous” made me its bitch the first time I said it.
aug 31, 2025, 2:17 am • 2 0 • view
Doorknob ended up pronounced dork nob for ages for me. I thought it worked for the character 😅
aug 31, 2025, 9:09 am • 0 0 • view
"facetious" is the one that got me. :)
aug 31, 2025, 2:18 am • 3 0 • view
synecdoche
aug 31, 2025, 3:13 am • 6 0 • view
One of my favorite things, the first time I saw the word, thought it was pronounced "chay-os"
aug 31, 2025, 12:14 pm • 0 0 • view
As a French person, I want to thank you for this thread. You’ve made my day 😁 Also, dear English speakers, please never stop using French words - at worst, it’s cute and funny, at best, you sound kinda sexy 🔥😅
aug 31, 2025, 7:33 am • 1 0 • view
Horse doovers
aug 31, 2025, 1:49 am • 6 0 • view
My two most memorable ones are names - Deborah (De-BORE-ah) and Penelope - rhymes with antelope in my head. Also epitome and quay have to be corrected in my head before i speak them out loud
aug 31, 2025, 8:36 am • 0 0 • view
"Chaos" for me
aug 31, 2025, 2:49 am • 1 0 • view
Law and chows? :)
aug 31, 2025, 3:12 am • 1 0 • view
Deffo with the ch sound and not k.
aug 31, 2025, 3:15 am • 2 0 • view
You mean it’s not pronounced “Whore da vores”
aug 31, 2025, 1:45 am • 3 0 • view
My 3rd grade teacher told me to look hors d’oeuvres up in the dictionary to learn how it was spelled. Did NOT expect “h”
aug 31, 2025, 7:55 am • 0 0 • view
Old memory of being a kid and asking my parents "What's a whores door and why is it being advertised at the restaraunt?" That was fun.
aug 31, 2025, 10:08 pm • 0 0 • view
The fact that "dais" is not pronounced like a French word ("day") is endlessly frustrating for me.
aug 31, 2025, 1:46 am • 16 0 • view
I lowkey hate this word ngl
aug 31, 2025, 1:58 am • 6 0 • view
Wasn’t until like 10 years ago that my partner corrected my pronunciation of LAY-pels (lapels)
aug 31, 2025, 2:48 pm • 1 0 • view
For me, I read these words in english, but only learned how to pronounce them when I learned french so when they come up I have to dip into the french pronunciation and get weird looks.
aug 31, 2025, 8:17 am • 0 0 • view
My brother and I, when we were kids, had trouble with “sword” for a bit. Why would you throw a useless W in the middle of a perfectly good sord? And then some time later… came the word sabre.
aug 31, 2025, 2:15 am • 3 0 • view
up until middle school i thought "misled" was pronounced my-zuld and it was just a synonym for the word it actually is
aug 31, 2025, 3:16 am • 2 0 • view
*guess-tures in agreement*
aug 31, 2025, 1:44 am • 11 0 • view
I pronounced naive as “nave” in my head for YEARS.
aug 31, 2025, 5:04 am • 0 0 • view
Add "confit" to the list. As I ordered it phonetically in a Belgian restaurant and the waiter was kind enough to say nothing
aug 31, 2025, 1:42 am • 9 0 • view
The word minuscule broke me as an adult lol. Foy-er or foy-ay, both acceptable. Can say the appetizer word but never gonna spell it
aug 31, 2025, 3:14 am • 1 0 • view
Grew up in the dark ages in Wisconsin & sometimes can’t pronounce a word I know the meaning of —only know the word from reading books
aug 31, 2025, 3:07 am • 0 0 • view
Sometimes still struggle with Professor Emeritus.
aug 31, 2025, 8:05 pm • 0 0 • view
Charcuterie is a fun one too. Personally I struggled for years with doubt, because my brain pronounced the B. Dou-bett. Dub-t?
aug 31, 2025, 8:03 pm • 0 0 • view
I think Foyer is fine. Horsey Doovers is a little awkward though.
aug 31, 2025, 7:40 pm • 3 0 • view
Still remember when I learned about the *other* ways to pronounce "decal". So many ways. More than pecans even. My favorite after moving to the SW was on hearing "ink pen" because the pens here sounds like pins (sometimes).
aug 31, 2025, 2:39 am • 0 0 • view
For me, it was bourgeoisie. Heard it spoken, read it written, had no idea boo-zwai-zee and bore-geo-see (with a hard G) were the same word for way, way longer than I'd like to admit.
aug 31, 2025, 2:20 am • 8 0 • view
Apparently the phonetic pronunciation I gave to ennui (enn-you-EYE), coupled with my mild southern accent, was a source of some amusement for people aat the time
aug 31, 2025, 2:59 am • 3 0 • view
I'll never forget complementing my aunt's crochet work. Except I pronounced it crotch-it.
aug 31, 2025, 3:06 am • 8 0 • view
I got owned by "ethereal" one time lol
aug 31, 2025, 1:47 am • 5 0 • view
Segue, ennui, and monsignor. The worst part was with monsignor I was reading aloud 1:1 with an adult and I guess it didn't register to them that "mon-sigg-noor" wasn't actually a word?
aug 31, 2025, 3:51 am • 1 0 • view
Are you from the UK? Absolutely a thing to pronounce french words incorrectly on purpose
aug 31, 2025, 8:17 am • 0 0 • view
I'm from the US, and have the fun little habit of pronouncing certain words like I'm from the UK (basil, centrifugal, some others) because of media from my childhood.
aug 31, 2025, 1:30 pm • 0 0 • view
I personally apologize for this confusion, but my daughter's condition is critical, and any help from you would make a huge difference, even if it's just sharing.💔😢🥺
aug 31, 2025, 3:16 pm • 0 0 • view
'facade'
aug 31, 2025, 2:03 am • 1 0 • view
Horse da ovaries
aug 31, 2025, 2:22 am • 1 0 • view
For me this word was "facade". I still remember the embarrassment when I said "fa-KAYDE" and people looked at me like I had three heads.
aug 31, 2025, 12:07 pm • 0 0 • view
Hello! Between being bookish ("bureau" was my nemesis) and midwestern, I had no chance at all...
aug 31, 2025, 2:26 am • 2 0 • view
My BFF was 19 years old when she realized that the Pah-hoe-nix in Arizona she'd read about was the same city as that Fee-nicks place they talk about on the TV news.
aug 31, 2025, 2:21 am • 9 0 • view
Hors d’ouevres = Whore’s divorce for at least one person I know
aug 31, 2025, 2:17 am • 1 0 • view
aurr duh vurr
aug 31, 2025, 7:54 am • 0 0 • view
"there is no french word for "entrepreneur""
aug 31, 2025, 7:50 am • 0 0 • view
Epiphany was my word.
aug 31, 2025, 1:53 am • 3 0 • view
Good ol horse doovers
aug 31, 2025, 1:08 pm • 0 0 • view
Hearing the pronunciation Bella Russe took me years to recognize it was Belarus
aug 31, 2025, 4:42 am • 1 0 • view
I learned how to pronounce a lot of words that I read being a giant fiction dork by also be a giant movie dork where they said those words all the time
aug 31, 2025, 6:11 am • 1 0 • view
Colonel Debris Segue Epitome And that’s just off the top of my head
aug 31, 2025, 3:57 am • 0 0 • view
Superfluous.
aug 31, 2025, 1:13 pm • 1 0 • view
assuage mores plague (though in my defense I was like 6 and reading the Passover story)
aug 31, 2025, 2:40 am • 0 0 • view
I once heard someone say "never laugh at someone who mispronounces a word because they've only seen it in print. It means they read a lot."
aug 31, 2025, 1:48 am • 40 0 • view
Totally agree. Auto-didactism is something we should value and always celebrate!
aug 31, 2025, 7:46 am • 3 0 • view
I was probably 20 when I put it together that that was how you spelled orderbs
aug 31, 2025, 2:25 am • 1 0 • view
Happened to me with epitome and "epitamy."
aug 31, 2025, 2:16 am • 20 0 • view
How much do I owe you for this education because until this post I honestly thought they were two different words? I'm now frantically trying to remember if I've ever said Epi-tome out loud
aug 31, 2025, 11:43 am • 2 0 • view
To this day I have to mentally correct myself when I read "epitome".
aug 31, 2025, 2:39 am • 7 0 • view
My brother told me solemnly that an eppy-tome (my pronunciation) was a little book on top of a big book (like an epicycle).
aug 31, 2025, 7:24 am • 8 0 • view
“Laud” was my downfall I was 40 before I heard anybody pronounce “interregnum”…and to my surprise it was in the context of 60’s college football Thank you @edsbs.bsky.social
aug 31, 2025, 1:48 am • 3 0 • view
I only knew bc I was homeschooled in French at 11 but man so many other words I mispronounced
aug 31, 2025, 2:58 am • 0 0 • view
Macabre got me. I thought it was pronounced “mackabray”. Even though I had been taking French in school for several years at that point 🤷♀️🤦♀️
aug 31, 2025, 1:54 am • 6 0 • view
“Clichés” was one of mine. I heard it in my mind as clih-cheese
aug 31, 2025, 3:26 am • 1 0 • view
Facade, for me
aug 31, 2025, 1:53 am • 11 0 • view
Bona fide and plethora. Just wrecked them
aug 31, 2025, 4:22 am • 1 0 • view
Oh crudités
aug 31, 2025, 1:43 am • 7 0 • view
Enquired slightly too loudly about crud-ites at a posh pub meal with a girlfriend's family. Felt burning shame then, feel proud now.
aug 31, 2025, 7:43 am • 2 0 • view
I will admit, that one tripped me up when I first saw how it was actually spelled! And I don’t usually have spelling issues.
aug 31, 2025, 4:48 am • 2 0 • view
Indict.
aug 31, 2025, 6:31 am • 1 0 • view
Surprised it took most of the comments to find this one. I must have thought it was two different words until I was about 30
aug 31, 2025, 12:17 pm • 1 0 • view
Guess what "banal" doesn't rhyme with after all
aug 31, 2025, 2:18 am • 19 0 • view
Well that's a pain in the ass
aug 31, 2025, 2:42 am • 11 0 • view
Take pride in it
aug 31, 2025, 3:51 am • 0 0 • view
Or those who eventually saw Guerilla written down as a kid and finally made sense of the news story about Gorilla's stealing an aeroplane...
aug 31, 2025, 9:22 am • 0 0 • view
I still say baynall for ‘banal’
aug 31, 2025, 3:34 pm • 0 0 • view
"chaos" 😔
aug 31, 2025, 4:52 pm • 1 0 • view
I said "epi-TOME" for years.
aug 31, 2025, 2:26 am • 2 0 • view
Ricochet got me. There's probably some irony in that.
aug 31, 2025, 1:47 am • 9 0 • view
Quay Fuck that word, I refuse to pronounce it properly on principle.
aug 31, 2025, 7:53 am • 0 0 • view
Me lane kolie (Melancholy)
aug 31, 2025, 1:42 am • 6 0 • view
Muh-lanch-o-lee
aug 31, 2025, 2:57 am • 3 0 • view
horse divorce
aug 31, 2025, 1:58 am • 12 0 • view
Sough and slough.
aug 31, 2025, 1:56 pm • 0 0 • view
I didn’t know how to pronounce “ennui” until I heard Ella Fitzgerald sing it in “I Get A Kick Out of You” and something connected in my brain with the word I’d read for all those years
aug 31, 2025, 2:27 am • 9 0 • view
For me it was misled, which I thought of (and may once have voiced out loud) as ‘mizzled’.
aug 31, 2025, 7:48 am • 2 1 • view
Ditto, only I’ve heard it as “myzled”.
aug 31, 2025, 7:58 am • 2 0 • view
🤣
aug 31, 2025, 8:34 am • 0 0 • view
Ennui was a stumper for me. I'd read it en-new-i until I heard the correct pronunciation in an audiobook. 😊
aug 31, 2025, 6:02 pm • 0 0 • view
I learned how to say objet d'art this year.... because Quark says it in an episode of ds9
aug 31, 2025, 2:27 am • 2 0 • view
Another big one is subtle. Read it a lot before I ever heard it. Of course you don’t pronounce the b or the t, and for fun add two d’s in their place. Makes perfect sense
aug 31, 2025, 2:30 am • 1 0 • view
EPPI - TOAM (epitome)
aug 31, 2025, 1:42 am • 18 0 • view
That and epilogue were my undoing.
aug 31, 2025, 1:54 am • 3 0 • view
Pre JOO diss (prejudice)
aug 31, 2025, 1:58 am • 2 0 • view
for the longest time I thought a racist person was a prejudist
aug 31, 2025, 2:00 am • 2 0 • view
Arch eh type and Arc eh type still makes my pause
aug 31, 2025, 5:12 am • 1 0 • view
Colonel, man. What a discovery.
aug 31, 2025, 3:57 am • 2 0 • view
No idea how I, a mere child reading books, was supposed to know “colonel” was the same thing as the word spoken as “kernel.” How dare they expect me to intuit such nonsense.
aug 31, 2025, 1:43 am • 42 0 • view
*waves back*
aug 31, 2025, 1:42 am • 2 0 • view
Worcestershire kids check in
aug 31, 2025, 1:49 am • 18 0 • view
That was me with pinochle. Like, one was an old timey thing people in my fantasy books played. One was a game we played on holidays.
aug 31, 2025, 1:42 am • 23 0 • view
Hors d'ouevres was a word on a spelling test, and our teacher had (for some long-forgotten reason) designated a classmate to read the words. "Hors da vores."
aug 31, 2025, 2:14 am • 5 0 • view
Oh god, I remember some kid being forced to look up genre in the dictionary by a teacher midle of class and he couldn't find it because he was looking in the Z's
aug 31, 2025, 8:08 pm • 0 0 • view
Are you going to finish those horsedovers?
aug 31, 2025, 2:15 am • 2 0 • view
“Subtle” I mean, what the hell??????
aug 31, 2025, 1:57 am • 2 0 • view
is foyer not str8fwd
aug 31, 2025, 2:01 am • 2 0 • view
Foyah
aug 31, 2025, 2:05 am • 1 0 • view
Foy-eh. But I still hear it as foy-yer more often.
aug 31, 2025, 2:07 am • 4 0 • view
Now-ah listin heah! It’s “foyah”
aug 31, 2025, 2:10 am • 2 0 • view
For-yay is just darn high-falutin
aug 31, 2025, 2:22 am • 6 0 • view
FOY-er is perfectly acceptable!
aug 31, 2025, 2:43 am • 2 0 • view
oh jus realized therez a uk std pronunciation
aug 31, 2025, 2:07 am • 2 0 • view
Rhymes with "lawyer" and always will, for me.
aug 31, 2025, 4:41 am • 2 0 • view
You would learn a lot about tricky pronunciations by reading "The Chaos" out loud and paying attention to the rhymes. The Chaos - Gerard Nolst Trenité share.google/6xLYVFpE9irx...
aug 31, 2025, 4:45 am • 0 0 • view
Young me saying pee-op-ll (people) and an American's face when I said Arkansas as ar-can-sass
aug 31, 2025, 7:53 am • 0 0 • view
the best part of this post by far is that there are roughly 37 different pronunciations of “hors d’oeuvres” in the replies
aug 31, 2025, 2:13 am • 186 0 • view
Segue was the one that really messed me up. SAY-goo instead of Seg-way.
aug 31, 2025, 2:16 am • 11 0 • view
And now I’m humming the old Veggie Tales “Song of the Cébu,” but as “Song of the Segue.” Thanks brain.
aug 31, 2025, 2:38 am • 1 0 • view
The people who made those obnoxious stand-up scooters ruined that one by spelling the name of their product the logical way.
aug 31, 2025, 12:08 pm • 1 0 • view
Seeg for me. League, segue…
aug 31, 2025, 2:40 am • 7 0 • view
Dang French borrowed words, they stole all those extra vowels from the Welsh.
aug 31, 2025, 2:22 am • 30 0 • view
I knew someone who used to read the word “misled” as myzled.
aug 31, 2025, 7:56 am • 1 0 • view
Ours-devours?
aug 31, 2025, 2:56 am • 1 0 • view
I once served hores dee vores to a guy named Don Qwee-jote who came from Yoze Mite (to be pacific about it).
aug 31, 2025, 3:32 am • 1 0 • view
I live in Quebec and speak both English and French. I know to pronounce it in French but I get tripped up every time trying to pronounce « hors d’œuvres » in « English ». Don’t get me started on « charcuterie ». It’s much easier to pronounce it in French.
aug 31, 2025, 3:32 am • 2 0 • view
As a Quebecois living in BC, I sometime just turn the english switch off and the french one on just for those words. Its kinda weird though since my voice change depending on which language I'm speaking
aug 31, 2025, 3:41 am • 2 0 • view
There are also a number of words given in the examples that are not french at all (or totally wrecked) 😅
aug 31, 2025, 4:59 am • 1 0 • view
I’m really thankful my mum gave us a French tutor at home when I was a kid 😁
aug 31, 2025, 2:22 am • 3 0 • view
When I was young & in hospital once, I told my mother I wasn’t an “in-valid”. She thought it was hilarious.
aug 31, 2025, 2:00 pm • 0 0 • view
aug 31, 2025, 7:44 pm • 1 1 • view
Yes the word whores d’ vores
aug 31, 2025, 7:18 am • 0 0 • view
It was "hyperbole" for me
aug 31, 2025, 3:19 am • 2 0 • view
Hyper bowl?
aug 31, 2025, 4:34 am • 1 0 • view
Hi-PER-bo-lee
aug 31, 2025, 6:59 am • 2 0 • view
I had a Latin teacher 30+ years ago who taught us the word “meme,” what it meant, & how to use it properly. Whenever I threw it out in conversation, I got puzzled looks, but “smugly” chalked it up to *them* not being familiar with the term. Friends, he taught us to pronounce it “may-may” 👍
aug 31, 2025, 2:36 am • 1 0 • view
Zabaglione
aug 31, 2025, 1:57 am • 0 0 • view
horse divorce is a way I saw someone on tiktok say it and that’s now the only way I say it
aug 31, 2025, 5:09 am • 8 0 • view
I must have been a teenager when I learned hyperbole is not pronounced "hyper-bowl" (at least not in America)
aug 31, 2025, 9:09 am • 1 0 • view
Not a reading thing, the skin condition I have, eczema, is pronounced "eggs-a-ma" But for 20+ years I pronounced it "ek-ze-ma" and I only stopped bc people didn't know what I was talking about when I mispronounced it
aug 31, 2025, 9:13 am • 2 0 • view
“Segue” and just about every literary French term (“Esprit de Corps,” et cetera.)
aug 31, 2025, 9:37 am • 1 0 • view
there are loads of words I didn’t know how to pronounce but the ones that took me longest to recognize once I heard them were segue and awry
aug 31, 2025, 2:30 pm • 0 0 • view
One of the more unusual I’ve encountered was someone who thought “laughter” was pronounced “lawter”
aug 31, 2025, 3:23 am • 0 0 • view
My favorite is comparing the pronunciation of laughter and daughter
aug 31, 2025, 5:30 am • 1 0 • view
My mom and her sisters (old German-speaking ladies) called them “whores ovaries”
aug 31, 2025, 7:50 am • 2 0 • view
I thought I was alone!
aug 31, 2025, 9:17 am • 1 0 • view
Voila
aug 31, 2025, 4:03 am • 0 0 • view
I had a coworker who pronounced ‘orchid’ with the soft ‘ch’ instead of ‘ork-id’. More than once. 🤦🏻♀️ I quietly corrected pronounced it the right way, so she’d hear what it was supposed to be.
aug 31, 2025, 4:47 am • 2 0 • view
I’m here to help! You can trust me, I used to be an English teacher.
aug 31, 2025, 8:27 am • 0 0 • view
Fond memory of mine is when I pronounced "ennui" correctly in front of my partner and he said "what's that?" I defined it, and he said "oh like en-you-ai?" And I was like "wait, no, they're the same word." It was cute. My word like this was "colonel," a common one I'm seeing in the comments.
aug 31, 2025, 9:42 am • 1 0 • view
I am a "read it, not said it" person myself. I know a lot more words than I use in conversation. My writing however, is full of great words I can't say... Lol
aug 31, 2025, 5:47 pm • 0 0 • view
With me it was cupboard which caused acute embarrassment in 2nd or 3rd grade reading aloud. If it’s supposed to rhyme with Hubbard it should be spelled cubbard.
aug 31, 2025, 5:31 am • 1 0 • view
Me with lingerie vs “lawnzhuray” Nothing about that word makes any sense. 😂
aug 31, 2025, 7:58 am • 1 0 • view
Segue. INXS.
aug 31, 2025, 4:30 am • 1 0 • view
I lost my shit over pronouncing segue as segway. When I was young, people pronounced it as see g. The same with hyperbole pronounced as hyper bowl.
aug 31, 2025, 8:16 am • 2 0 • view
I read "hors d'oeuvres" as "horse divorce" when I first read it
aug 31, 2025, 2:31 am • 0 0 • view
Pinochle. Was YEARS as a reader before I discovered it was pronounced pee-knuckle.🤣🤦♀️
aug 31, 2025, 5:02 am • 1 0 • view
“Foyer” is tricky bc there’s two diff pronunciations depending on whether you’re doing it yank or brit style (foy-er vs foy-yay)
aug 31, 2025, 6:25 am • 0 0 • view
I'm so confused about this! I'm in the auk but German and I speak French and the pronounciation of how you would say it if you didn't know (your first one) is not fundamentally different from the actual one (your second one)?
aug 31, 2025, 8:00 am • 0 0 • view
I think in actual French you found pronounce it with the emphasis on the second syllable but you definitely don't in English
aug 31, 2025, 8:01 am • 0 0 • view
It’s super confusing! Here’s a link to the us vs uk: m.youtube.com/watch?v=Pxwm...
aug 31, 2025, 5:07 pm • 0 0 • view
Now im confused about the original post, the American pronunciation is exactly how you would say it if you don't know it was French and were just reading it off! Is Micah not American?
sep 1, 2025, 5:56 am • 0 0 • view
A thought I still remember having "People always eat Hors De awvers in books but i never hear anyone eating them in real life"
aug 31, 2025, 10:22 am • 0 0 • view