Words

As I was wandering the endless depths of the Internet recently, I fell into a rather deep rabbit hole. For some reasons unknown to me, my YouTube recommendations started popping up videos of famous actors with accents speaking without their accents. While I watched, I started thinking, and it came to my attention that there are a lot of words in the English language that people pronounce differently. So I decided to scour my knowledge of words to break down some words that are pronounced differently.

Pronunciation. The word we will be using a lot today. I’ve heard it pronounced two ways: pro-nun-cia-tion and pro-nown-cia-tion.

Data. Personally, I pronounce it like day-ta, but I know so many people who pronounce it like dah-tah.

Pajama. There’s two main ways to say this; puh-jah-muh, and puh-ja-ma.

Syrup. Do you say it like sear-up, or sir-up? I can say that I pronounce it like sear-up. Envelope. Others I know will say on-ve-lope, but I always say en-ve-lope.

Caramel. Perhaps the word that irritates me the most. I’ve always said care-a-mel, but lately I’ve heard a lot of people say it like car-muhl, and for some reason, I just don’t like it when people pronounce it like that.

Aunt. A classic word with two pronunciations. How do you pronounce it: awnt or ant?

Pecan. Pee-can or puh-cawn?

Coupon. Everyone loves coupons, but how do you say it? Do you pronounce it like kyoo-pawn or coo-pawn?

Route. Another classic mix-up. Is it r-ow-te or root?

I think I’ve made my point here clear. There are many words out there that are spoken differently by everyone. And honestly, that’s kind of the beauty of languages. Everyone has their own interpretation, and everyone’s language is unique. So, how is your pronunciation different from everyone else’s?