Precocious readers need not be ashamed of mispronouncing words like misled or epitome—it’s never too late to actually hear it pronounced properly for the first time, although it can be a little embarrassing. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Learning the Proper Pronunciation”
You’re listening to A Way with Words, the show about language and how we use it. I’m Grant Barrett.
And I’m Martha Barnette. On an earlier show, we were talking about words that we mispronounced for years.
And Grant, you confessed to mispronouncing hyperbole.
Hyperbole.
And I admitted that for a long time, I thought the woman’s name was Penelope.
Oh, instead of Penelope.
Exactly. Well, we heard from lots and lots of listeners about this.
Mike from San Francisco wrote about the word misled.
He writes, my friend had both seen the word in print and heard the word pronounced, but never at the same time.
So when reading to herself, she pronounced it myzled.
Myzled.
Myzled.
I’ve heard a lot of people pronouncing it as mizzled.
And his friend found out only when she was in a classroom where they were all reading from the same book and somebody was reading it aloud.
And then she, you know, had this moment.
Had the dawning moment.
Yes.
And I love this one. Anne Peter wrote from Wisconsin to say that someone she knows kept talking about a do-wagger.
Oh, instead of a Dowager.
Yeah, she was reading a lot of historical fiction and she picked up this term do-wagger duchess.
Oh, no. The do-wagger duchess. That’s a whole different profession.
Right. And then we got a call from Harley who said that he should have known better because he has a bachelor’s degree in linguistics.
He’s an attorney and has been one for decades, but it wasn’t until he was in his 50s reading something aloud to his wife that he pronounced the word epitome.
And his wife, bless her heart, said, oh, honey, I like how you pronounced epitome as epitome.
And he said, what do you mean?
It’s epitome, right?
I mean, what a great way to connect.
That is a really great way to make a loving correction.
How cute of you to pronounce it.
Well, maybe that’s condescending.
I mean, he was actually enthused about learning a new word.
And I think that’s the great thing about being able to learn a new pronunciation later in life.
When you pick up words from your reading and not from your hearing, then you’re likely to make mistakes.
This is the place to talk about that and a lot of other things related to language and linguistics and speaking and writing well.
Email words@waywordradio.org.
