Imralu wrote:
A weirder one is the words "length", "strength" and "breadth" which I was pronouncing with /ɪ/ ("lingth", "stringth", "bridth") until my early 20s. At least for the first two, that's what it sounded like to me when other people pronounced it, which might be the velar nasal after it having some kind of effect, or it might be from analogy with "width". When I worked in a bottle shop, I kept fucking up with my hypercorrection, and saying "med stringth" instead of "mid strength" ...
Huh, interesting. For me, /ɛŋ/ sounds like /æŋ/, so I'd be more likely to shift the pronunciation the other way. It's an uncommon sequence of sounds.
Looking at my file of mispronunciations I discovered I have, here are some others:
eidolon (I thought it was /ˈaɪdəˌlɑn/, but it's actually /aɪˈdoʊlən/)
pathos (I thought it was /ˈpæθoʊs/, but it's actually /ˈpeɪθɑs/)
epistle (I thought it was /ˈɛpɪstl/, but it's actually /ɪˈpɪsl/. This one still trips me up, even though it should be easy to remember as it's just like "apostle")
conch (the pronunciation with /tʃ/ has become fairly well established by now, but still, it really should be /k/)
And also, Greek names were really hard for me to get the hang of.
Like, "Calliope" is not /ˈkæliˌoʊp/, Danae is not /ˈdeɪni/, Pasiphae is not /ˈpæsɪfi/, Laocoon is not /laʊˈkuːn/. All the hiatuses and non-silent final "e"s.