Are there any words that you pronounce in a way that seems weird to most people?

I'm fluent in both Spanish and English (obv). When speaking English, I'm conflicted on whether I should pronounce Spanish loan words in a shitty English accent like everyone else, or in a proper Spanish accent. So instead I pronounce them as horribly as I can.

Jalapeño is "yah-la-PEEN-oh". Fajita is "fa-JAI-tah". Quesadilla gets "QUAY-sah-dilah"

(As a joke of course)

.ǝdoɹnƎ uᴉ ƃuᴉʌᴉl uɐᴉlɐɹʇsn∀ uɐ ɯɐ ᴉ ʇnq .ǝɯᴉʇ ǝɥʇ ll∀

As an American, it didn't click for me until I visited London for the first time why names like Leicester and Gloucester were pronounced the way they are by Brits. My dumb American brain sees the names as Lei-cester and Glou-cester rather than Leice-ster and Glouce-ster.

Living in Los Angeles as a white person, I refuse to pronounce street and city names that are Spanish the English-speaking way. Knowing Spanish since I was a kid from school and using it on a daily basis, my brain simply doesn’t butcher the pronunciation by default.

It’s caused confusion though for sure. I used to live near a street called La Tijera, but Americans pronounced it almost like Spanish “la tierra” which is a completely different word, and I couldn’t figure out where this street was that everyone was talking about.

I don't personally do this, but many people in my family say the days of the week with "dee". Like "Sundee", "Mondee". I think it's charming, but one of their children said they were weird for saying it that way.

Also, as a programmer, there are some words that programmers use that are abbreviated which I refuse to pronounce the way that others pronounce them because I think it's weird, but virtually everybody pronounces them different to me.

For example, there is a common keyword in programming languages called "enum", and most people I know pronounce it as "EE-num", like it rhymes with "ME dumb". But "enum" is short for "enumeration", so I pronounce it as if it's the first two syllables of "enumeration", like "ee-NUUM". Although I think the normal pronunciation is weird, I don't say anything to people. I just pronounce it the way that I think it should be pronounced. But on multiple occasions, other programmers have called me out for it and asked why I pronounce it "wrong".

There are several other programming terms like this, but they don't immediately come to mind. Enum is the most common example.

Yosemite rhymes with Vegemite. Change my mind.

My wife says I pronounce crayon wrong. The way she says it, it's a single syllable word that is the same as the first syllable of cranberry. I say it as two syllables: cray-on.

Being fully honest, I've started drawing it out and articulating both syllables more because I know she doesn't like it.

I'm German. One day my house was being renovated and they were working with jackhammers to remove parts of the facade. It was incredibly loud and I couldn't bear it. I lived close to university and had recently stopped working in one of the institutes. I knew though that my former colleagues had couches in some of their offices so I thought I'd give them a visit. I walked over to the institute and greeted my Australian former coworker. I explained about the noise in my house and said I was "looking for asylum". Knowing the word "asylum" only from written language, I had no idea it was not actually pronounced "ay suh lum". He asked "you're looking for what?" as he obviously hadn't understood. I repeated "ay suh lum" confidently and he politely said "ah". Not long after, I learned the correct pronunciation of asylum and that memory has haunted me ever since. It's been almost 10 years but I still cringe about it.

US American. I've lived overseas a long time and pronounce the 'h' in 'herbs' because, as Eddie Izzard once said, "it's got a fucking 'h' in it". I don't know when I switched but my mom laughed at me when we had a call recently.

One I only noticed a couple years ago: turmeric (was saying, and still frequently hear) 'toomeric'.

Ever since that IT Crowd episode I can't not pronounce pedestal as "pedal stool".

The mountain range on the eastern side of the U.S. is the 'apple-at'chans'. At least nearly everyone from the southern end of them say it that way (source: I'm from there).

'Apple-ay-shuns' is just as strange as saying 'Nor-folk'. Immediate indicator of you're an outsider.

sometimes I accidentally pronounce "C'est la Vie" as "sest lah vy" even though I know its "say la vee" just because I read it first and it lives in my head as that first wrong pronunciation. confuses the hell out of people and I have to explain my foolery

You know the famous mage from Forgotten Realms? I pronounce their name "EL-ah-min-ster"

Oh, I also have a terrible Boston accent so I nearly caused an HR incident when talking about "hooked horrors" aka "hookt ho-ahs" or as my coworker heard "hooked whores". Horror is the best word to check for a Boston accent with.

Garage.

GraJ

Catch shit for it all the time, but at this point I think it's more like a harmless Easter egg.

My grandma rolls the R in "Three", and it's become a game to get her to say it. She handles it with great humor.

I'm cool to have my own version of that.

It's Helico-Pter not Heli-Copter. It's a greek word from hélikos (screw, spiral, winding) and pterón (wing).

And since I'm fun at parties, I consequently pronounce it with a slight pause before and stress on the P and not a miniscule pause after the I and a slight stress on the O.

Visiting a town in Maine, US, spelled "Calais."

Is it the French pronunciation? English but attempting it with "Kuh-lay?"

Oh, no, that's too much. Ka-liss. Like callous. What.

My wife made fun of me the other day for pronouncing the h in homage. I quickly got my revenge when dictionary.com offered my way as the first pronunciation.

Oh-mage is fancier I will admit.

I pronounce spigot as "spicket" but that's normal where I'm from.

My mom had a couple of weird ones that took me a while to unlearn:

Stipend = "stipp-ind"
Antibiotics = "antee-BEE-otics"

Laypis

The blue stuff you mine in minecraft.

How about Chipotle as chee_potole

I pronounce azure as “uh jzer” with emphasis on the second syllable and most other people say “aa jzer” with emphasis on the first.

Herb with the H. I just have to pronounce it with the H.

Also, Ark-Kansas. Anything else is weird.

Its literally Kansas with an AR

ARK-KANSAS

simple

Bona fide. It's latin, you say it Bow-nah Fee-day.

I cop it from my friends and family for the way I say "baloon"

I say bloon with no a sound.

I think it stems from learning to spell it wrong as a child I never put the a in there to begin with and no one corrected me and by the time I realised it was to late

I also can't pronounce "regularly" to save my damn life.

When I say it i add syllables to the thing I think.

Reg u ar ly

Cape CANNA VERR ALL = Cape Canaveral

Why? Because I can.

"It is called 'baggel'. I lived in New York."

Yes.

I pronounce "roster" like "rooster", because it amuses me.

Baggel for Bagel.

YouChyoob.

I am the odd one out accent-wise, I am a woman with what would be called a Kiwi accent in a place where everyone else speaks with either a neutral American accent or a New England accent and one of the most common first questions people ask me is if I can say "envelope" for them.

Where did you grow up to learn to say south-urn?

I pronounce the Texas Houston the same as the. NYC street

I over-pronounce Wednesday. Like wed-nes-day. Most people say wendsday.

Also apparently I'm weird for pronouncing jewelry correctly. I pronounce it like it is spelled, and what it means. It is personal ornaments often containing jewels. Jewel-ry. Not Joolery.

Same thing with Aunt. It's not Ant. There is a U in there.

I say appree-see-ate for appreciate, and artif-isss-ee-al for artificial.

I still don't know how you pronounce it. Im not sure myself but when my dad had a headache he would say he needed an assburn.

Penalised. Is it from penal colony, or a penalty?

(allegedly both pronunciations are valid, and my experience has been others who were educated with a more British background pronounce it like penal-ized)

I choose to pronounce testicles like Heracles.

Buttons. I don’t say but-ins, I pronounce it like but-tons. Idk why I didn’t do the lazy American thing with that word but I didn’t.

Most of them. I have that good ol autism speech pattern

I pronounce "beautiful" as "be-ee-ah-ou-tee-ful" like it's 6 syllables.

A long time ago I heard a radio (I'm old) caller saying they pronounced it that way to help them spell it, and i got infected. I never had an issue spelling it, it's just so interesting that I can't help myself.

"Horror" and "Water."

("Hor-er" and "woo-tur")

The way Midwestern Americans say "roof" bothers me.

Not me, but a friend of mine pronounces rhinoceros as if it rhymes with dinosaur-us.

Tet-nus

Two immediately come to mind.

First is "Comfortable". I pronounce each part of the word: "COME-for-tuh-bull". Many people give me weird looks and insist on "Comf-turr-bull".

The other is more niche and has to do with League of Legends.

There is a champion whose theme is moonlight. His backstory is that he belongs to a moon cult who opposes a group that is am Order of the Sun type group. This character is an edgelord whose whole thing is darkness and midnight etc etc.

His name is a combination of the Greek "Ap" meaning "furthest from" and "Helios" meaning the sun. His name is Greek for "the one furthest from the sun" in this moon cult.

In Greek, "ph" does not make the "fuh" sound. His name should rightly be pronounced "App-Hee-lee-ose"

But all the casters and developers call him "Uhh-fell-ee-ose" and it drives me absolutely insane.

I'm Dutch. I pronounce the -en at de ends of words, including the n. If you don't know, that's like 10% of all Dutch words

My SO's family all like to pronounce "mauve" in a weird way, so I say it every chance I get to perturb them.

Bala-tro, not Ba-lottro.

I used to pronounce "adjacent" as adjuhsent.

I pronounce dragon as dragòn, if you know what I mean.

Agate. Apparently I pronounce it the British way rather than the American way because I had read the word many times while never having heard it spoken aloud.

So I just realized a few years ago that “join” is one syllable like “coin.” Should make sense, right?

I’d always pronounced it “joy-in.” I still have to consciously change my pronunciation to say it right.

I also learned a couple months ago that I trill the ‘r’ in “three.” I don’t really know how to make the “thr” sound without a slight trill. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Yes but I do this on purpose. Mazda with a flat A like in Aztec. Bag is bayg, measure is maysure. My long Os are longer like Psy saying ope in Gangnam style or like the movie Fargo. Snow is Snew with an Irish accent like Ygritte. There are too many more to recount, about every fourth sentence on average I pronounce a word wrong on purpose, it has become my dialect.

I have two:

I pronounce the d in Wednesday. Like wedns-day.

Vagaries - vag-air-ees. I think this is an Irish thing.

I pronounce milk like melk. Is it wrong, definitely but I’m not gonna change it at this point

I purposely pronouce "download" like dunlaad to annoy my SO.

I say the word pecan differently depending on what I'm talking about. If it's just the pecan itself I say it like pea-con. If it's a pecan pie I say it pea-can. Not sure why. I also live in a place with a bunch of pecan orchards so the word comes up fairly frequently.

I dont have any problems saying Albuquerque but I can't stop calling it "yabba-yerkee"

PIH-cawn instead of PEE-can for pecan. CAR-mel instead of KARA-mel for caramel. AWN-t instead of ANT for aunt. VAH-se instead of VAY-se for vase.

Which ones are right/wrong could probably start another Civil War

escape for me, I tend to say it differently every time I say it. No idea why

I pronounce caramel as "care-uh-mell".
People always say something and I reply with "no, Carmel is a [beach-town in California], I'm talking about caramel".