Whaddaya mean, you don’t pronounce the W in sword?

It’s lieutenant for me.

I know why words are this way, but, WHY ARE THEY THIS WAY

MOOD 🫠

I think "cordially" and "bourgeois" both deserve a seat in the handbasket to heck.

The best is when you're teaching a class and reading out a passage from a work, and you come across one of those words. You just know you will say it wrong, and you just know you will be silently judged for it.

Made it to college and never heard anybody say “cognac” in real life 😆

Pavillion, paladin, and palimino...

YAHCT Also I caught a lot of grief for my unique pronunciation of “archipelago”, which is apparently the wrong way

Archipelago, and my first 20 years of not hearing the word spoken, haunts me even more than my similar experience with ennui.

It took me that Doctor Oz thing where he called the veggie tray crudités that I realized I'd been saying it "crud ites" all this time. That being said, I hate correcting other people's pronunciation.

I'm reading Madeleine L'Engle books aloud to my kid, and the other day was stymied by "reticule". Knew exactly what it meant. Never had to say it out loud before...

Ooo I know this one from listening to @gailcarriger.bsky.social audiobooks! (highly recommended, though maybe not for your kid, depending on age)

Any time I get busted on pronouncing things the way they're spelled my go to is; "Good work boys! You've found yourselves a _READER_!"

And then there was “misled”. Obviously the past tense of the verb “to misle”, pronounced myzel. I though that until was 25 or so….

Same. Pack that one up in the handbasket to heck as well.

Apparently gaol is pronounced jail.

Believe it or not, also gaol.

Honestly, I can thank KFC for knowing how to pronounce that one, but it took me an awfully long time to connect the verbal and written words for naive and voilà, and forget about epitome and hyperbole.

When my friend and I were kids it was Pony in My Pockets, whose names were clearly pronounced: Cavalier (cah-vuh-leer), Colonel (col-un-ull), and Beau (byu). I remember arguing with my mom about our pronunciations and her eventually leaving in exasperation 🤣

Colonel can hang out in HECK with the British Lieutenant.

At least it sounds rad.