261
There's probably a word I've been pronouncing wrong my whole life that I don't know about
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this post was submitted on 29 Jan 2024
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Ghoti
Ha I don't even know what that is so I will never say it.
GH is pronounced F like in "enough".
O is pronounced E like on "women".
TI is pronounced SH like in "action".
Therefore, ghoti is pronounced fish.
You CAN pronounce it fish, but you can also just simply not pronounce it.
GH is pronounced _ like in high.
O is pronounced _ like in jeopardy.
T is pronounced _ like in potpourri.
I is pronounced _ like in receive.
Therefore, ghoti is completely silent.
Fun fact: every letter except V can be pronounced silently.
That's interesting! How about Q?
Lacquer. (Which I believe is the only word in English with a silent Q. Proper nouns don't count.)
Do you mean stuff like acquire? There are a good bunch of 'cq' words.
No, the C is silent in "acquire." Otherwise, it'd be pronounced "akire."
Got it, thanks.
Kind of a cop-out, since that's a straight-up French loanword. "Soften" would be better. Or "often," if not for the fact that it's so commonly mispronounced.
True! I just remembered that there was a way to make the whole word silent but didn't remember the T bit so I looked it up. This was the first example. Soften is much better!
for fuck’s sake
I remember this one! They're was another one as well which I've sadly forgotten. I believe I tried to make a couple up myself once upon a time.