Incorrect pronunciations you have (or have had) to unlearn

[linguoboy]

In English I am used to, guillotine is pronounced without an /l/, and the only Spanish word where <ll> is pronounced as /l/ is llama.

Armadillo, cigarillo, flotilla, guerilla and sapodilla are also commonly pronounced with /l/. (In any of these words but the last, /j/ would sound affected.) But tomatillo and manzanilla always with /j/ (or rather [j], since some pronunciations I would phonemicise as e.g. /ˌtoːməˈtiːoː/).

There are also toponyms with /l/ for <ll>, at least in their traditional local forms. (For instance, not only is "Pinellas" in the names Pinellas Park and Pinellas County in Florida pronounced with /l/, the vowel in the initial syllable is /ai/, not /iː/. I would guess it's the same with Costilla County and River in Colorado.)

[Travis B.]

In English I am used to, guillotine is pronounced without an /l/, and the only Spanish word where <ll> is pronounced as /l/ is llama.

Armadillo, cigarillo, flotilla, guerilla and sapodilla are also commonly pronounced with /l/. (In any of these words but the last, /j/ would sound affected.) But tomatillo and manzanilla always with /j/ (or rather [j], since some pronunciations I would phonemicise as e.g. /ˌtoːməˈtiːoː/).

There are also toponyms with /l/ for <ll>, at least in their traditional local forms. (For instance, not only is "Pinellas" in the names Pinellas Park and Pinellas County in Florida pronounced with /l/, the vowel in the initial syllable is /ai/, not /iː/. I would guess it's the same with Costilla County and River in Colorado.)

I had completely overlooked armadillo, flotilla, and guerilla, which, yes, are typically pronounced with /l/. (The rest of these /l/ words I do not remember having heard, so I will take your word for it w.r.t. them.)

[Zaarin]

In Dutch we write "Dzjengis", and I've ported that pronunciation over to English. Never occured to me it's pronounced with an initial [g].

Don't worry, [d_Z] is the "dictionary" pronunciation and absolutely correct, it's just that many people don't seem to know that and pronounce it with [g]. Merriam-Webster, which I assume reflects American usage, has [d_Z] as the main pronuciation and [g] as a variant.

Really? I have never heard an American pronounce Genghis with /ʤ/. I'm always torn: /ʤ/ is closer to correct but risks sounding uneducated in English.

I'd say the opposite. Whenever I hear /ʤ/ it sets my teeth on edge. Why? Specifically because it sounds like someone trying to sound educated. It's not the pronunciation that winds me up, it's the values I perceive the person using it to hold, rightly or wrongly!

I have no problem sounding just slightly pretentious. My issue is with people who try to sound educated but at the same time make it extremely obvious that they know precious little about the subject they're posturing to be knowledgeable about. I had a literature professor in college who was such an unbearably arrogant snob, but at the same time if you'd ever actually read the stories we were discussing it was obvious that he was waaaay out of his league (and I later found out he was a film major, so...). After taking one class with him I avoided him like the plague, but one of my classmates found that all of his lectures were drawn from Spark Notes.

I work with someone who always says /ʤ/enghis, guiotine (guillotine), paeya (paella), and Budapesht.

People pronounce "guillotine" with an /l/? Huh.

Yes, and it makes me weep every time I hear it.

(I did not know anyone pronounced Budapest with an /ʃ/ in English.)

I live in an area with a pretty sizable Eastern European (including Hungarian) community, so I'm far more used to hearing it with /ʃ/ than /s/.

There are also toponyms with /l/ for <ll>, at least in their traditional local forms. (For instance, not only is "Pinellas" in the names Pinellas Park and Pinellas County in Florida pronounced with /l/, the vowel in the initial syllable is /ai/, not /iː/. I would guess it's the same with Costilla County and River in Colorado.)

Floridian here: I've always heard "Pinellas" with /ɪ/, not /ai/: /pʰɪˈnɛləs/.

[KathTheDragon]

People pronounce those words without /l/? I was also under the impression that guillotine was French.

[jal]

People pronounce those words without /l/? I was also under the impression that guillotine was French.

Yeah, so? In French it's not particularly an [l] either.


JAL

[KathTheDragon]

Oh, I was just expressing surprise that it's Spanish, not that I thought it should be with /l/ because of French.

I'm gonna keep saying them with /l/ though because otherwise I doubt anyone I come across would know what I'm talking about. "Can you pass me the /gi:.əti:n/?" "The what?"

[Vijay]

In general, English g before e/i either patterns as /dZ/ as with Romance loans or as /g/ as with native Germanic words. It might be that 'Genghis' has more a Germanic feel to it than a Romance one.

The presence of initial /g/ in the second syllable probably has at least as much to do with it, if not more. (Americans tend to treat <gh> identical to <g>. Cf. Ghiradelli, a popular brand of chocolate, locally pronounced with /ʤ/.)

I also have always pronounced "Genghis" with two [g]s. I think that's because in foreign names or loanwords that aren't from French, I tend to expect <g> to represent [g] rather than [d͡ʒ], like in gestalt, geisha, Ögedei, or geta (at least in this sense).

[Zaarin]

Oh, I was just expressing surprise that it's Spanish, not that I thought it should be with /l/ because of French.

I'm gonna keep saying them with /l/ though because otherwise I doubt anyone I come across would know what I'm talking about. "Can you pass me the /gi:.əti:n/?" "The what?"

...In exactly what context would you want someone to pass you a guillotine?

[Vijay]

Oh, I was just expressing surprise that it's Spanish, not that I thought it should be with /l/ because of French.

I'm gonna keep saying them with /l/ though because otherwise I doubt anyone I come across would know what I'm talking about. "Can you pass me the /gi:.əti:n/?" "The what?"

...In exactly what context would you want someone to pass you a guillotine?

I think "guillotine" is a term for something other than this in British English, but I keep forgetting what. Maybe a paper cutter? Maybe that usage exists in American English, too, but I don't hear it often. For me, a guillotine is either the decapitation device or this card game.

[linguoboy]

I think "guillotine" is a term for something other than this in British English, but I keep forgetting what. Maybe a paper cutter? Maybe that usage exists in American English, too, but I don't hear it often.

I can confirm that it does because I literally just came across it this morning. Of course, this was in a novel whose author was born in Georgia during WWI so the usage could be (a) Southern or (b) outdated or (c) both.

In any case, I remembered another word that I incorrectly pronounced with a /g/ because of its Anglo-Saxon appearance: harbinger.

[Sumelic]

In any case, I remembered another word that I incorrectly pronounced with a /g/ because of its Anglo-Saxon appearance: harbinger.

For I while I mentally read that word as the partially metathesized/analogized "harbringer."

When I first saw the word "eidolon," I thought it was stressed on the first syllable.

[Zaarin]

I think "guillotine" is a term for something other than this in British English, but I keep forgetting what. Maybe a paper cutter? Maybe that usage exists in American English, too, but I don't hear it often.

I can confirm that it does because I literally just came across it this morning. Of course, this was in a novel whose author was born in Georgia during WWI so the usage could be (a) Southern or (b) outdated or (c) both.

In any case, I remembered another word that I incorrectly pronounced with a /g/ because of its Anglo-Saxon appearance: harbinger.

I just associate "harbinger" with this.

In any case, I remembered another word that I incorrectly pronounced with a /g/ because of its Anglo-Saxon appearance: harbinger.

For I while I mentally read that word as the partially metathesized/analogized "harbringer."

When I first saw the word "eidolon," I thought it was stressed on the first syllable.

Eidolon is one of my favorite words, both for its meaning and aesthetics.

[KathTheDragon]

Oh, I was just expressing surprise that it's Spanish, not that I thought it should be with /l/ because of French.

I'm gonna keep saying them with /l/ though because otherwise I doubt anyone I come across would know what I'm talking about. "Can you pass me the /gi:.əti:n/?" "The what?"

...In exactly what context would you want someone to pass you a guillotine?

I think "guillotine" is a term for something other than this in British English, but I keep forgetting what. Maybe a paper cutter? Maybe that usage exists in American English, too, but I don't hear it often. For me, a guillotine is either the decapitation device or this card game.

Er, yes, it's a paper cutter.

[linguoboy]

When I first saw the word "eidolon," I thought it was stressed on the first syllable.

Aw, crap. At least I got the initial vowel right.

[Sumelic]

"emblazon." For some reason, I thought the "a" was short.
"penult." The pronunciation I've been using (stressed first syllable as in "pen") actually is listed in some dictionaries, so it's debatable whether it's "incorrect," but pronunciations with stressed /iː/ in the first syllable or stress on the second syllable appear to be much more common.

[Vijay]

I just associate "harbinger" with this.

I associate "harbinger" with some Indian English comic where I think one of the characters refuses to let a certain (farm?) animal, which he calls "that harbinger of death," inside his house or something (or maybe inside his compound). I'm racking my brains trying to remember which story this was, though.

Come to think of it, maybe it wasn't an animal at all...

[Vijay]

Now I remember where I saw "harbinger"! It was indeed in an Indian English comic, but in the context of a story where a young man seeks to do a good deed every day but doesn't know what that entails and asks a priest for help. The priest tries to take advantage of him (by making the young man do things that he expects to benefit from), but his efforts to do so keep backfiring and even get him hurt, as a result of which the priest becomes increasingly eager to avoid the young man instead. At one point, he thinks to himself, "I dare not open my eyes and look at that harbinger of bad luck."

[StrangerCoug]

concomitant /kəŋˈkɑmɪtənt/. Probably by analogy with "commit," I had been pronouncing this mentally as /kɑŋkəˈmɪtənt/.

My mispronunciation's similar to yours: /ˌkɔnkoʊˈmɪtənt/.

[jmcd]

My pronounciation is like Sumelic's. And my harbinger doesn't even have the /g/: /harbɪŋər/.

[Jonlang]

In the lead-up to the new season of American Horror Story I have been pronouncing the season's sub-title, Roanoke, as /ˈroʊ.ənoʊki/ and I just found out that it's actually /ˈroʊ.ənoʊk/. In my defence, I know next to nothing about Native American cultures or languages.

[Zaarin]

In the lead-up to the new season of American Horror Story I have been pronouncing the season's sub-title, Roanoke, as /ˈroʊ.ənoʊki/ and I just found out that it's actually /ˈroʊ.ənoʊk/. In my defence, I know next to nothing about Native American cultures or languages.

Given that it was such an early colony, I wasn't actually aware Roanoke had a Native American etymology, but Wiktionary says it's from Powhatan rawrenock. When it comes to any Native American name on the East Coast that isn't in New York, you can usually guess that it's been pretty heavily Anglicized. (Though the Native American place names are one thing I love about America: especially the Iroquoian names in New York and the Salish names in Washington--like Tillamook and Snohomish. )

[linguoboy]

When it comes to any Native American name on the East Coast that isn't in New York, you can usually guess that it's been pretty heavily Anglicized.

What makes the ones in New York so different? Chautauqua, Adirondack, Massapequa, Poughkeepsie, Oneida--are these any less anglicised than other East Coast names? Even the spelling conventions seem the same.

Anglicised toponyms of Native origin are found throughout the USA. The only real exception which comes to mind is Hawai'i. In former French territories, these coexist with gallicised names (e.g. Ouachita, Natchitoches, Catahoula) and in the Southwest with hispanicised ones.

And while we're on the subject, "Ouachita" is a name I only recently mastered. I used to give it a pseudo-Spanish pronunciation (i.e. /wa'ʧi:tə/), but a friend from Arkansas set me straight (/ˈwɔʃᵻtɔ/).

[Salmoneus]

So what do Americans call guillotines, then? [and yes, it has /l/] Just "paper cutter", or "carboard cutter", etc?

Do you also say "paper cutter thing" for what we call 'scissors'?

[alynnidalar]

"Paper cutter", yes.

[linguoboy]

Do you also say "paper cutter thing" for what we call 'scissors'?

So what do y'all call a "letter opener"? An éviscéreuse? A scalpellum? A disenvelopater?