By Elena S When I was a kid, I read A LOT of books. In those books were a lot of words. In those words were a lot of meanings that I learned and savored. Building my English vocabulary from reading was so important and precious to me, because it allowed me to express myself more fully in my own storytelling (I may be an English Lit major, but creative writing has always been my first love). And honestly, learning all of these new words was just so fascinating to me – they all looked so different! So many of them had unique letter combinations (like “unique”!) that I wondered about and tucked away in my mind for later reference. I discovered words that said big things, big ideas I’d never known how to share, and words that said little things, little thoughts that had seemed almost too trivial to share. Yet by the very fact of there being language to express these ideas, it told me that nothing was too trivial, nothing was too big and scary that language couldn’t at least try to conceptualize. However, when the perfect occasion arose for me to share these exciting little nuggets of knowledge I’d found aloud, disaster struck. Repeatedly. When I was nine, I learned the word “epitome.” I knew how to spell it, I knew what it meant, and I knew how to use it in context. I was a kid who didn’t really understand pretentious language and was just genuinely eager to share what I’d learned. I carried that word – and many others – with me, ready to use them at the right moment. When that moment came for epitome, I excitedly used it when talking to my fourth grade teacher about the invention of the lightbulb. I used it correctly. I knew exactly what it meant and I hoped so badly that when I said it, I would see that same spark of excitement that I felt reflected in my teacher’s eyes. Instead, she laughed at me. “What?” she said, shaking her head at me in a way that served to teach no lesson except that I should have probably kept my mouth shut. “Did you say epi-tome? That’s not how you say it.” I didn’t bother telling her that that’s stupid, because then why is it spelled that way? How was I supposed to know? Instead, I, a shy kid at the best of times, meekly agreed and didn’t say the word epitome out loud for the next several years, even after I knew how to say it. For too many people, even in a predominantly English-speaking environment, learning English is a process of being shamed for the very act of trying to learn. For people learning English as a second, third (or fourth!) language, there can be additional pronunciation pitfalls, but I think it’s important to understand that there is significant overlap between the common mispronunciations of native and non-native English speakers. Many people experience this. So many people do, in fact, that it (mispronouncing words you learned from reading, not speaking) has a name: Calliope syndrome (pronounced “Calley-ope,” because it’s a cruelly fitting name), or “booklish.” Demystifying the experience of being utterly bewildered by English pronunciation has been something that was deeply cathartic for me, because honestly, it’s lowkey traumatic to be laughed at by a teacher! Especially when, I bet you, that teacher also didn’t innately know how to pronounce epitome, because, get this: English pronunciation is not innate knowledge, and though it often masquerades as a phonetic language, the more words you learn, the faster it becomes clear that this is deeply untrue. English pronunciation is a mess, objectively speaking. The poem “The Chaos” by Gerard Nolst Trenité, published way back in 1920, makes a solid case for its awful, pervasive inconsistencies: If you started making faces halfway through the first stanza, me too.
But the truth of the matter is that as much as English speakers mock each other for mispronunciation, this is a pretty useless, cruel pursuit. We’re all going to keep mispronouncing things. I propose a more constructive, potentially healing alternative: we mock English together. Below is my list of English words that personally make me angry due to their unintuitive, generally nonsensical pronunciations which have haunted me throughout my life, and I strongly encourage you to make a list of your own if any of this post resonates with you.
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January 2024
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