Ohhh... NOW I get it!

[teapot37]

This may make me sound like a dunderhead, but it wasn't until I was in London last year that I figured out that it's called the Tower Bridge because it's right next to the Tower of London.

It took a while for me to learn that the phrase is actually "card sharp" and not "card shark".

My sister reads a lot of historical romances, and it wasn't until a couple of years ago that she figured out that "gaol" is pronounced "jail".

[ArtVark]

It took a while for me to learn that the phrase is actually "card sharp" and not "card shark"

Actually, both are in use. There may be a little bit of a distinction between the two, in that a "card sharp" frequently implies one who cheats, whereas a
shark tends to imply a not necessarily cheating, but expert and ruthless player.

I was honored when the guys that I play poker with nick-named me the Shark. I later found out that I got that nickname from my table manners...

[econgator]

This may make me sound like a dunderhead, but it wasn't until I was in London last year that I figured out that it's called the Tower Bridge because it's right next to the Tower of London.

I was there in May of last year. When did you go?

[j]

It took a while for me to learn that the phrase is actually "card sharp" and not "card shark"

Actually, both are in use. There may be a little bit of a distinction between the two, in that a "card sharp" frequently implies one who cheats, whereas a
shark tends to imply a not necessarily cheating, but expert and ruthless player.

I was honored when the guys that I play poker with nick-named me the Shark. I later found out that I got that nickname from my table manners...

This long-time game show indicates that "Shark" has been in common usage for at least 30 years:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0127991/

[bblankin]

Now I have to pause for a few seconds when I'm asked the "soup or salad" question and prevent myself from saying "Yes."

If the norm was to ask that reversed, do you think there would be people wondering about the taste of salador soup? Or maybe even salad door soup?

"The Salvador Soup? That's French onion, with two fried eggs, being sodomized by a loaf of Portuguese bread, with melting clocks on the side."

that may be the funniest thing i have ever read.

on the list of words that are difficult to pronounce, my least favorite would be "patina." i can't decide where to put the emphasis, or whether the i is long or short. so there are at least four pronunciations that could be correct: PA-tina, PA-tie-na, pa-TIE-na, pa-TEE-na.

on the larger question of aha moments: when i was very young, i noticed the velvet ropes dividing the lines at the movie theater, and i asked my sister (who is 7 years older) what they were. she told me, straight-faced, that they were elephant trunks. i believed her without question. i think i was in college when i suddenly realized that they aren't, in fact, elephant trunks.

[skullturfq]

It took me a very long time to "get" the children's poem Solomon Grundy. I think when I was very small, I thought it was a fanciful tale of somebody who led their life in a magically sped-up way, going through an entire lifetime's worth of experiences in one week.

Then, I never thought about the poem again for years and years. One day probably when I was in my late teens or early adulthood, I thought of that poem again for some reason, and it suddenly clicked.

[bblankin]

"The Salvador Soup? That's French onion, with two fried eggs, being sodomized by a loaf of Portuguese bread, with melting clocks on the side."

Is that a baguette in your pants or are you just glad to see me?

Alice replies, "Give us this day our Dali bread"?

[rockgolf]

on the larger question of aha moments: when i was very young, i noticed the velvet ropes dividing the lines at the movie theater, and i asked my sister (who is 7 years older) what they were. she told me, straight-faced, that they were elephant trunks. i believed her without question. i think i was in college when i suddenly realized that they aren't, in fact, elephant trunks.

Family can be cruel. When my kids were about 3 & 4, I told them that the motion detector on our alarm system was actually a closed circuit camera and every time the red light came on, it mean Santa was looking in on them. Come Christmas Day, after opening their presents, they ran into the kitchen where the detector was and yelled to it "Thank you, Santa!" And since they were jumping up and down, obligingly the motion detector light came on.

[baronworm]

I am often reaching for this one to settle an argument:

"The Big Book of Beastly Mispronunciations: The Complete Opinionated Guide for the Careful Speaker"
http://www.amazon.com/Big-Book-Beastly- ... 061842315X

Informative, with just the right helping of snarkiness and pretension!

[skullturfq]

I am often reaching for this one to settle an argument:

"The Big Book of Beastly Mispronunciations: The Complete Opinionated Guide for the Careful Speaker"
http://www.amazon.com/Big-Book-Beastly- ... 061842315X

Informative, with just the right helping of snarkiness and pretension!

There's an interesting dilemma that arises with a lot of those words. (I guess my point here may have some overlap with Ken's blog post of March 10th.) If you pronounce a word "not correctly enough", you run the risk of sounding ignorant, but if you pronounce a word "too correctly", you run the risk of sounding pretentious. It can be a delicate balancing act, and I'm sure what I do in practice will vary from word to word.

One of the words at the linked page is "cognoscenti". I almost never say this word out loud, but I'm pretty sure that if I do, I would say "cog-no-shent-ee" as opposed to "con-yo-shent-ee". I'm aware that the second option is more true to the Italian pronunciation and hence more historically and etymologically correct, but I can't shake the feeling that people would look at me funny if I pronounced it in "too" Italian of a way.

[SMWinnie]

If you pronounce a word "not correctly enough", you run the risk of sounding ignorant, but if you pronounce a word "too correctly", you run the risk of sounding pretentious.

Good observation. I suppose there's something to be said for not exacerbating the pronunciation tradeoff by choosing an inflection that says, "Tremble before the awesome power of my mighty vocabulary!"

In a related vein, I try to use "ATM" myself and refrain from correcting the hoi polloi when they say "ATM machine."

[jzerocsk]

I'm aware that the second option is more true to the Italian pronunciation and hence more historically and etymologically correct, but I can't shake the feeling that people would look at me funny if I pronounced it in "too" Italian of a way.

Indeed...I knew a girl who did her undergrad in linguistics or Latin or something and was in law school and talked about how she often had to think consciously about mis-pronouncing Latin legal terms (like HAY-bee-us corpus) so that other lawyers did not think she was an idiot.

[Michelle]

There's an interesting dilemma that arises with a lot of those words. (I guess my point here may have some overlap with Ken's blog post of March 10th.) If you pronounce a word "not correctly enough", you run the risk of sounding ignorant, but if you pronounce a word "too correctly", you run the risk of sounding pretentious. It can be a delicate balancing act, and I'm sure what I do in practice will vary from word to word.

I'm studying theatre, and this issue comes up quite a bit for me with the word "Oedipus." It's commonly pronounced "EH-di-pus," but I've had two very old, very brilliant professors (from different institutions) that pronounce it "EE-di-pus."

This makes sense in that we say "EE-no-phile" and not "EH-no-phile" and "a-MEE-ba" instead of "a-MEH-ba," but there is just no way I can say "EE-di-pus" in regular conversation without looking either stuck-up or ignorant. So I limit my "EE-di-pus"-ing to class.

Have any other theatre (or psychology) types run into this before?

[teapot37]

This may make me sound like a dunderhead, but it wasn't until I was in London last year that I figured out that it's called the Tower Bridge because it's right next to the Tower of London.

I was there in May of last year. When did you go?

The end of August. Went to London, Paris, and Stratford. I had tickets to see the RSC production of Hamlet with David Tennant and Patrick Stewart (plus there was a Q&A with the two of them that weekend). I wrote a journal entry about it with pictures if anybody's interested.

[Rex Kramer]

I had tickets to see the RSC production of Hamlet with David Tennant and Patrick Stewart (plus there was a Q&A with the two of them that weekend). I wrote a journal entry about it with pictures if anybody's interested.

Where is that "envy" emoticon?

Rex

[jzerocsk]

This makes sense in that we say "EE-no-phile" and not "EH-no-phile"

Hah! I always said it sort of like "OH-na-file"!

Have any other theatre (or psychology) types run into this before?

I'll cop to being semi-pro theatrical hack but have only ever heard "Ed-ih-puss." Of course the groups I run with don't tend to showcase classics unless they are trying to do a show on the cheap.

[econgator]

This may make me sound like a dunderhead, but it wasn't until I was in London last year that I figured out that it's called the Tower Bridge because it's right next to the Tower of London.

I was there in May of last year. When did you go?

The end of August. Went to London, Paris, and Stratford. I had tickets to see the RSC production of Hamlet with David Tennant and Patrick Stewart (plus there was a Q&A with the two of them that weekend). I wrote a journal entry about it with pictures if anybody's interested.

I was thrilled to get to see Wicked. I would have killed to see the show you did.

Hey, your pictures look almost identical to my pictures.

and aren't Oyster cards great?

[rockgolf]

In a related vein, I try to use "ATM" myself and refrain from correcting the hoi polloi when they say "ATM machine."

I work for a company whose development matrix is based on a document called "The TDF". What does TDF stand for? "THE Delivery Framework". I suggested we simply call it "the DF", but that idea was shot down. Ironically the front page of the document includes the slogan. "Lead. Simplify. Execute flawlessly."

[RingoOSU]

Reminds me of the Dilbert cartoon where Wally says he's working on the TTP project. When asked what TTP stands for he says, The TTP Project.

[grodney]

In a related vein, I try to use "ATM" myself and refrain from correcting the hoi polloi when they say "ATM machine."

I work for a company whose development matrix is based on a document called "The TDF". What does TDF stand for? "THE Delivery Framework". I suggested we simply call it "the DF", but that idea was shot down. Ironically the front page of the document includes the slogan. "Lead. Simplify. Execute flawlessly."

Seems it is called RAS Syndrome:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAS_syndrome

Reminds me of the Dilbert cartoon where Wally says he's working on the TTP project. When asked what TTP stands for he says, The TTP Project.

As referenced on this page of Recursive Acronyms:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recursive_acronym

[j]

This makes sense in that we say "EE-no-phile" and not "EH-no-phile"

Hah! I always said it sort of like "OH-na-file"!

Have any other theatre (or psychology) types run into this before?

I'll cop to being semi-pro theatrical hack but have only ever heard "Ed-ih-puss." Of course the groups I run with don't tend to showcase classics unless they are trying to do a show on the cheap.

In Senior AP English, we had a girl who insisted on pronouncing it "OH-dih-puss." I had a long, difficult conversation with her trying to explain that even though it starts with an "O," it doesn't sound that way. She refused to believe me.

[porpoise spit]

forte
If you say "FORT" then people think you're mispronouncing it.
If you say "FOR-tay" then apparently you're not using its primary pronunciation.

Likert (as in the scale)
Apparently Rensis Likert, the creator of Likert Scales, pronounced his name LICK-urt, not LIE-kurt. But if someone asked, "Hey, can you sample my LICK-urt scale?" they'd probably get slapped.

Also, when did "homage" start getting mispronounced as o-MAHJ?

[kernelm]

http://www.thisamericanlife.org/Radio_E ... sched=1251 Act One of this This American Life ep deals with childhood misconceptions that get carried to adulthood, including "xing".

It wasn't until senior high school English that I realized the word pronounced "epi-toe-mee" was the same as the word I'd always read as "epi-tome", like "epi" + a heavy book.

[porpoise spit]

http://www.thisamericanlife.org/Radio_Episode.aspx?sched=1251 Act One of this This American Life ep deals with childhood misconceptions that get carried to adulthood, including "xing".

It wasn't until senior high school English that I realized the word pronounced "epi-toe-mee" was the same as the word I'd always read as "epi-tome", like "epi" + a heavy book.

For me it was hyperbole. What's more super than the Super Bowl? The Hyper Bowl.

[kernelm]

Now that you mention it, I think I had that problem with "hyperbole" too, but I realized my mistake a lot earlier than with "epitome".