I have a pretty good vocabulary. There aren't a lot of words that I'm unfamiliar with, and my stupid Latin background can help me figure out the rest. Most of what I know comes from reading, which I've been obsessed with since I was about 2. That's fine and everything, except for one thing:
You have to actually SAY the words in real life.
Facade ~ It's not actually pronounced fa-KADE. There's a little French thing on the C that apparently makes it an S...fa-SOD. The French would.
Vigilante ~ See this one I thought WAS French-sounding. vih-jil-AHNT. Little did I know, it's actually vih-jill-ANT-ee. Go figure.
Phoebe ~ I read a book about a girl named Phoebe when I was 8. I pronounced it POE-bee. Being 8, I didn't think about it. Then when I got to be about 13, I realized...that was little off.
Lambaste ~ I thought it rhymed with "cast." It rhymes with "paste." ...whatever.
Preface ~ It is not PRE-face. It's PREH-fiss. I hate words like this; they trick you with how simple they look, then all the sudden you find out you've been mispronouncing it since fifth grade.
Placate ~ ...yeahhh, I'm still not sure how this one goes.
Then there's the opposite problem, where I've heard a phrase all my life, but never actually seen it spelled.
You know the phrase "the whole kit and caboodle"? Until yesterday, I thought it was "kitten caboodle." Yes, I am seventeen, thanks for asking.
"For all intents and purposes." I finally saw that one written down a few months ago. Come to think of it, that makes a HECK of a lot more sense than "all intensive purposes." ...what was I thinking?
Hope this was good for a laugh, and maybe even a little bit enlightening XD
~Kendra
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7 comments:
I remember one day, several years ago, I was laying down in the floor staring at the ceiling for God knows what reason, when 'for all intensive purposes' hit me like a ton of bricks. I sat up and thought about it for minute, because it didn't make as much sense as you'd think it would, and then felt like the world was finally right again when I realized it was 'for all intents and purposes'. I went back to staring at the ceiling (and ever since have been horribly annoyed by the fact that so many people say 'for all intensive purposes', out loud and in writing! Trust me, we aren't alone in our confusion) xD lol. I have a habit of saying 'façade' like 'fasade'-glad to now know the proper pronunciation :). And I can't swear about placate, but I say it 'pla-sate' (and am now off to dictionary.com to see if I'm right!) :D. Lol, this post was fun to read!
Yikes, I was way off. Dictionary.com says it like 'play-kate'. Which makes no sense to me because it's related to pacify :-P. Lol, oh well, learned something new! Though I'll probably keep saying it 'pla-sate' out of habit and stubbornness xD
I can empathize with your plight...I can usually spell almost anything, but it takes me years to learn how to pronounce and/or hear things properly (I still take a lot of heat for pronouncing "blasphemy" as "BLASH-fem-mee"....it's too much of an ingrained habit for me to let go...:P)
[I'm pretty sure I used the word "empathize" correctly...that's one of those stupid words I could never quite figure out...]
:)Ian(:
Hey, you're one step ahead of me!
ROFLOL! I do the same thing!! I read a lot as a kid but almost never out loud so I can also spell almost everything, but have trouble with pronunciation lol. :D Oh and just to make you feel better I'm in my twenties and I was saying facade, lambaste and preface wrong! What's crazy is no one has ever corrected me on preface before and I know I've said that one wrong in front of other people. Embarrassing lol. Don't let it bother you. Apparently it's more common than any of us thought hehe.
You're way smarter than I am!
XD
(Laura)
Ha! TOTALLY know how that goes! I do stuff like that all the time. Actually, I normally just let myself. If it somewhat resembles how it's spelled, everyone knows what I'm trying to say anyways. LOL. My dad always goofs with me, because I say always "OL-ways". He says I must have some Canadian blood. Ha! But words like ornery don't make sense to me...why does everyone say "ON-ree". So, I say it like it's spelled, and everyone makes fun of me, but whatever. :]
This post definitely made me giggle. Fun stuff. ^_^
Love,
--Abigail
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