Reterdeen Staff
English they say is not our language. But the truth is that it actually is, seeing as it is our official language. And still we hear people speak colloquial English all the time and hide under the cover of “English no be my language”.
However, you find that there are some words that even the most widely learned people end up mispronouncing. Whether it’s because we were brought up with these wrong pronunciations or we made them up ourselves; it is safe to say that we all are guilty of mispronouncing certain English words. I took a look around and decided to gather some of these frequently mispronounced words. Here are my top 10:
- Et cetera
Be honest with yourself, you have always pronounced this word as “ex cetera” right? Well, don’t worry, you are not alone. Most people in Nigeria do it, even me. Some people even pronounce it as “ek cetera”. Its allowed. Just be aware that it’s pronounced correctly as “et cetera”.
- Library
Even some librarians make this mistake – especially those secondary school librarians – Hian! Most of us forget to pronounce the first ‘r’ in this word. We tend to pronounce it as “Libary”, which isn’t exactly right you know.
- Comfortable
This word is pronounced correctly just as it is spelt, comf-or-t-able. Not comf-ter-ble as most pronounce it – especially Lagos Island people and other butty children. And no, I’m not beefing.
- Silicone
Yeah, this word is mostly pronounced like its distant cousin, ‘silicon’ with the –con rhyming with lawn. However, this word is different and the –cone here should actually sound like flown.
- February
Another ‘r’ problem. We Nigerians tend to forget the first ‘r’ in February too. We just say “febuary” most times and that is so not correct.
- Pronunciation
Thanks to the verb, pronounce, most of us tend to say this word as “pro-noun-see-aye-shun”. This is quite wrong though, as the correct way to say the word is “pro-nun-see-aye-shun”.
- Figure
This word is pronounced as “Fig-yer” and not “fig-er” as most of us do. It is a universal pronunciation problem sha so don’t feel too bad about it.
- Cache
The correct English pronunciation of this word isn’t “cash-ay” as many think. Even the computer experts sometimes make this mistake. The word “cache” is simply pronounced as “cash”
So there are my top 8 mispronounced words. Do you have any one to share with us? Kindly leave us a comment below. Thanks for reading!
DON’T FORGET TO SUBSCRIBE WITH YOUR EMAIL BELOW AND GET MORE OF THIS EVERYDAY
Comments