Pronunciations you had to unlearn

[Raphael]

For some reason that I don't really understand myself, I only fairly recently realized that the stress in "Chichén Itzá" is on the second syllable of each part. Until then, I had somehow instinctively assumed that the stress was on the first syllable of each part, despite the fact that the accents on the second syllables were staring me right in the face all that time.

[Linguoboy]

For some reason that I don't really understand myself, I only fairly recently realized that the stress in "Chichén Itzá" is on the second syllable of each part. Until then, I had somehow instinctively assumed that the stress was on the first syllable of each part, despite the fact that the accents on the second syllables were staring me right in the face all that time.

It's only relatively recently that I've seen it commonly written with both accents. I grew up with the spelling "Chichen Itza" and trochaic stress.

Tenochtitlan, by contrast, I learned with penultimate stress. I still use that in English and only give it final stress when speaking Spanish.

[Raphael]

Tenochtitlan, by contrast, I learned with penultimate stress. I still use that in English and only give it final stress when speaking Spanish.

When it comes to four-syllable words, I find it very difficult to only stress one syllable - I'm always tempted to alternate stressed and unstressed syllables.

[Travis B.]

Tenochtitlan, by contrast, I learned with penultimate stress. I still use that in English and only give it final stress when speaking Spanish.

When it comes to four-syllable words, I find it very difficult to only stress one syllable - I'm always tempted to alternate stressed and unstressed syllables.

To me at least, I tend to do just that with the exception of word finally, where two unstressed syllables in a row often occur - and while in some cases there is a clear primary stress contrasting with secondary stresses, in other cases which syllable actually has the primary stress is not readily apparent.

[Estav]

A general principle of English stress is that words don’t start with two fully unstressed syllables in a row. But fully unstressed syllables can pile up at the end—generative has three (at least it can for me—I reduce the a, I can flap the t and I don’t feel like the final syllable has to have an unreduced vowel), and you can get even more with unstressed non-stress-moving suffixes like -ness.

It also isn’t that uncommon for a sequence of two fully unstressed syllables to occur word-internally, although elision of one or the other vowel is often possible in that case depending on the context.

[Travis B.]

For me, generative is an example of a word with two unstressed syllables in a row in the middle, preceded and followed by stressed syllables, with the first being primary; I normally do not flap the /t/ in it.

[Linguoboy]

I used to say (and spell) augmentive for augmentative

[Estav]

I used to think augment was augument (like argument but with au instead of ar) and so on for related words.

[dewrad]

I used to say (and spell) augmentive for augmentative

Likewise. I still find myself doing it and have to check myself.

[sasasha]

Tenochtitlan.

I was shocked to learn that that's a /tʃ/. I had always had it peɡɡed as a /k/ for some horrible, Graeco-Roman-centric reason.

[Travis B.]

Tenochtitlan.

I was shocked to learn that that's a /tʃ/. I had always had it peɡɡed as a /k/ for some horrible, Graeco-Roman-centric reason.

I was the same exact way here.

[Raphael]

Very embarrassingly, I really used to think it was /x/. Couldn't control my parochialism, I guess.

[Travis B.]

For me it was a hyperforeignism inspired by the usage of /k/ in pronouncing <ch> in (typically Latinized) Greek, Latin, and German words in English.

[Pabappa]

Yeah same here. I think the cluster /tšt/ is foreign even to Spanish, so even with my high school Spanish background I never considered pronouncing it that way, and I've only ever heard other people pronounce it with /k/. Wiktionary and Wikipedia both disagree with me but Im going to just consider the pronunciation with /k/ to be correct in English because it's not an English placename and we smear phonemes around all the time.

The situation might be similar with the name Puchteca. I played a Nintendo game starrring a wrestler with that name, and all of three of us said /'puk.te.ka/ though I think I might have started out with /puç.te.ka/ due to influence from my then-current conlang.
_____________________

No funny story here, just a few opportunities where there could have been.

As a young boy I came across the word impotent in a book and I knew enough etymology by that time to understand its meaning without looking it up, and in this book, it was used literally, in the sense of "powerless". I figured it would be pronounced /ɪm'pot.ənt/ but I dont think I ever used this word out loud because I would have just said "powerless" or "weak" and I didnt know the other sense until much later.

Later I got a job at RadioShack selling electronic parts and I came across the word impedance. I figured this would be pronounced /'ɪm.pə.dəns/, a near or complete homonym with "impotence", but again if I ever pronounced the word out loud nobody laughed and, before long, I learned to pronounce it correctly.

Still at RadioShack I had a customer come in who wanted help with his pedometer. You all can probably guess how he pronounced it .... and i know he was doing it on purpose because immediately after he said /'pɛ.do.mi.tər/ he said something like "some people might call this a /pɪ'dɔ.mɪ.tər/". (some of these /t/ and /d/ were flapped but Im using phonemic transcription, not phonetic.) So in his case it was deliberate, but it makes me wonder if this is a common mistake among English learners, partiuclarly those who learn Commonwealth English where there is a distinction between paedo- and the less common pedo-. I remember seeing a fitness app called "Accupedo" once which I imagine was develoepd by a non-English speaker.

[Pabappa]

What about "abort"? Does anyone but me sometimes begin with a full vowel ... whether it be /e/, /ei/, or whatever? To me the word begins with /ə/ or /e/ in free variation, unlike all other ab- words that I can think of offhand. I never questioned it until today where i realized it isnt in any of the three dictionaries i go to that have pronunciaitons.

I dont do it with abortion .... "ay-bortion" would just be silly. But I think "ay-bort" sounds fine, and Im wondering if i picked it up from someone else and never realized it was considered nonstandard.

[Linguoboy]

I don't recall ever hearing this before. It strikes me as particularly odd since it violates the derivational stress rules of English. That is, I could kind of understand it for a derived noun, but for a verb.

[Travis B.]

Abort seems no odder to me than align or allow or atone or append or abet, since these are all verbs with disyllabic stems with ultimate stress and reduced vowels in the first syllables and single consonants in the onsets of the second syllable; none of these other verbs seem odd to me. On the other hand /ˈeɪ/bort for me requires not only pronouncing a full vowel but also requires moving the primary stress, which makes pronouncing that seem very odd to me.

[Pabappa]

Okay thanks. Im guessing the pronunciation I used is incorrect and not commonly heard. I may have picked it up from somewhere even so ... perhaps a cartoon where a robot or a computer over-enunciates the words on purpose ... because i know I learned abort as a fancy word for "stop" first, associating it with computers, and only later learned about pregnancy and abortion. I know I always said "Abort, Retry, Ignore" with the full /ei/ vowel, but Im not sure how often I said the name of the dialog out loud and I dont remember ever saying out loud anything like "Okay, Im pressing Abort now" etc.

Still, Im pretty sure sometime or another Ive said this word out loud with the wrong pronunciation in the context of abortion of pregnancy, as Ive spent a lot of time talking about abortion both in person and online.

[jal]

Just saw "stifling" pronounced in a Youtube vid, and was strikken by the fact it doesn't start with "stiff" (as I'd always pronounced it in my head, I don't think I've ever used it).


JAL

[Linguoboy]

Jaysus, all these years I've been pronouncing the Gaelic name of Scotland wrong! I learned it before I learned the epenthesis rules of Irish and never thought to go back and apply them. The first time I heard a Gaelic-speaker say [ˈɑl̪ˠəpə], I was startled, but a moment later I was like, "I guess that's how they do it in Gaelic." Then as I was falling asleep the other night, I was like, "Wait, wouldn't it be the same in Irish?" And damned if I didn't open my copy of TY Irish and find [ˈɑləbə] as clear as day, staring me in the face for over three decades.