Wednesday, December 14, 2011

Words I've Been Saying Wrong My Entire Life

I married a very, very, intelligent man.

If I need to know something I just ask him and chances are that he knows the answer.

It's actually quite impressive.

He's like my own personal Google.

I find that I don't even bother to look up my own information or calculate anything on my own anymore. I just ask him.

But every so often there comes a moment when I think that I know something that he doesn't. Instead of lovingly sharing my information, it comes out more like "BOOYAH! You are so WRONG buddy!"

Take the word "melee" for instance. He pronounced it as "may-lay". I looked at him and asked him what he'd just said. He repeated it.

Oh this was my chance to set him straight.

I sat up a bit straighter and smiled at him.

"Actually, it's pronounced mee-lee." I said.

He didn't say a word. He just pulled out his iPhone and the next thing I hear is a voice saying "may-lay".

Dang.

About six months ago we were laying in bed, getting ready to go to sleep. We were joking around and he used the word "cacophony".

I asked him to repeat himself. He did.

Here we go, I thought.

"Um, Ian," I said, in my booyah you're wrong voice. "It's cah-co-phony."

And then I laughed and rolled over.

About ten minutes later, out of the darkness, I hear that same automated voice.

"Cuh-caw-pho-nee."

Dang.

For forty years I thought it was cah-co-phony.

My entire life.

I don't use that word often, but whenever I did, I was saying it wrong. And here I thought the person was all impressed with my word skills.

Wrong.

Julie has been working on a poem at school and one of the words was "ubiquitous". I asked her to pronounce it and she said she had no idea.

So... I asked my Google-Ian.

Instead of telling me, he asked me how I pronounced it. I rolled my eyes and said "I'm pretty sure it's yoo-be-qwee-shus."

He lovingly said "you-bit-qwi-tus" and gave me a kiss.

Dang.

Now I wonder how many other words I've been saying wrong.

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3 comments:

  1. I thought you said, "Hello" kinda funny, but I didn't want to offend you so I stayed quiet. ;) LOL!

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  2. This made me literally LOL. (My husband now thinks I'm nuts. Thanks, Kate.) ;-)

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  3. Ever since I learned to read, 30 years ago, I thought that gesture was like digest - different pronunciations depending on context. Never mind that I had no clear idea what the two different meanings would be, I was still sure there was a jest-ure and a guest-ure. Until last year, when I said the later out loud and realized that I was an idiot.

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