While describing a book at dinner tonight kiddo pronounced devastated "dev-AH-sted." Someone started to correct her and my hand has never shot out so fast. There are few things as tender as a child who's learned a word from reading it.
Conversation
Two that almost all adults get wrong: ‘flaccid’ and ‘dour’ Teach her those and she can lord it over people for the rest of her life.
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I'm 59 and still make mistakes because I learnt English through books. I used to pronounce epitome as Epi-tome, basically how it's written, and my favorite, callous as caboose.
I had a 6th grade substitute teacher who taught us all about hyperbole, with the last syllable pronounced ‘bowl’. I went home and proudly told my mom, who almost cracked a rib laughing.
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You know what else I consistently mispronounce (I think)? 'Rabih'. Arabs seem to pronounce it with 2.5 syllables: ra-BEE-ya, with that last 'a' sliding over into schwa territory. I just say RAH-bee, mostly because it seems too pretentious to do it the other way.


