We tried to pronounce the most mispronounced words to celebrate National Dictionary Day
In celebration of National Dictionary Day on October 16, we tried our best to pronounce some of the most commonly mispronounced words in the English language, according to Dictionary.com. Much to our surprise, we got a lot of them dead wrong. Watch the video to see our futile attempts.
Dictionary.com released their list of the 30 most commonly mispronounced words, many of them food-related such as almond, caramel, croissant, espresso, quinoa, sherbet, turmeric and Worcestershire. The list of words was compiled based on the number of times people clicked to hear audio of the word's pronunciation on Dictionary.com.
Most Commonly Mispronounced Words
1. affidavit [af-i-dey-vit]
2. almond [ah-muh nd, am-uh nd]
3. beget [bih-get]
4. cache [kash]
5. caramel [kar-uh-muh l, -mel, kahr-muh l]
6. coupon [koo-pon, kyoo-]
7. croissant [French krwah-sahn; English kruh-sahnt]
8. epitome [ih-pit-uh-mee]
9. espresso [e-spres-oh]
10. et cetera [et set-er-uh, se-truh]
11. facade [fuh-sahd, fa-]
12. fiery [fahyuh r-ee, fahy-uh-ree]
13. genre [zhahn-ruh; French zhahn-ruh]
14. haute [oht]
15. hyperbole [hahy-pur-buh-lee]
16. lambaste [lam-beyst, -bast]
17. mauve [mohv]
18. mischievous [mis-chuh-vuh s]
19. niche [nich]
20. peony [pee-uh-nee]
21. prerogative [pri-rog-uh-tiv, puh-rog-]
22. quinoa [keen-wah, kee-noh-uh]
23. reservoir [rez-er-vwahr, -vwawr, -vawr, rez-uh-]
24. salmon [sam-uh n]
25. sherbet [shur-bit]
26. turmeric [tur-mer-ik]
27. verbiage [vur-bee-ij]
28. Weimaraner [vahy-muh-rah-ner, wahy-, wahy-muh-rey-]
29. whet [hwet, wet]
30. Worcestershire [woo s-ter-sheer, -sher]
National Dictionary Day was founded in honor of Noah Webster (1758-1843), often considered to be the father of the American dictionary. As a spelling reformer, Webster introduced new spellings of words such as "color" instead of "colour" to replace what he felt were unnecessarily complicated British spellings. Webster learned 28 languages and spent 26 years compiling words, definitions, pronunciations and their etymology for his comprehensive dictionary, "An American Dictionary of the English Language."
