Misremembered spelling/pronunciation

[cntrational]

What words do you remember being spelt one way, but then realized is spelt another way much later, despite regularly seeing the correct spelling?

I've always known a local soda brand as "Thumbs-Up", but I noticed when I was a teen that it really was "Thums-Up", and had always been.

There's the famous one about how Berenstein Bears is actually Berenstain Bears, which leads to some great internet humor.

[Znex]

Well I suppose our brains all have an auto-correct installed, which tends towards the typologically common spellings and pronunciations according to our language.

As for me, I can't think of any at the moment. Berenstain Bears is really weird though.

[Khemehekis]

"Larnyx" and "pharnyx" are really "larynx" and "pharynx".

"Ophthamologist" is really "ophthalmologist".

[Prinsessa]

I thought tongue was spelled <tounge> forever, until just a few years ago.

[Adarain]

I must say treatsies are much cuter than treatises.

[Thrice Xandvii]

"Larnyx" and "pharnyx" are really "larynx" and "pharynx".

Weird, I would have never mixed those up! But I think that's because I pronounce them both with a clear -/ɪŋks/ ending.

[cntrational]

I thought tongue was spelled <tounge> forever, until just a few years ago.

It makes more sense if you know that <-nge> is /ndʒ/ in native English spelling.

[CMunk]

I thought tongue was spelled <tounge> forever, until just a few years ago.

It makes more sense if you know that <-nge> is /ndʒ/ in native English spelling.

I'm with the princess on this one. Tongue makes me think /tʌŋg(ə)/. Tounge seems to be an obsolete spelling too, so I for one will go on spelling it like that.

I also have a problem with the spelling of the Danish word bold /bʌlˀd̥/ "ball". The problem is the clearly pronounced d where in other words it is not pronounced finally after a liquid: ild /ilˀ/ "fire", and /anˀ/ "duck". So when I first learned to spell, I wanted /bʌlˀd̥/ to be spelled boldt. As it turns out, that /d̥/ was never there historically, and is a result of some sort of hypercorrection or overcompensation.

[clawgrip]

"Liaison" gave me trouble for a long time, because I would never remember to include the second i. Remembering that it comes from French fixed it for me, though.

[Salmoneus]

I used to struggle with bureaucracy, because I kept wanting to spell it beginning with beau-, like 'beautiful', or at least with 'beu-'. I also struggle with some -ent/-ant and -ence/-ance spellings.

But since I learnt most words from reading rather than hearing, its much more common for me to expect 'wrong' pronunciations. For instance, I expect 'satiety' and 'siddle' to be pronounced how they damn well ought to be pronounced. And as I kid I had quite a few metatheses, some of which still try to creep up on me: /In@rEks@bl/ for 'inexorable', for instance, /EmnIti/ for 'enmity', etc.

[alynnidalar]

"Liaison" gave me trouble for a long time, because I would never remember to include the second i. Remembering that it comes from French fixed it for me, though.

TIL liaison has a second i... let's see how quickly I can forget it again.

[cntrational]

@CMunk: [ŋg] doesn't exist word-finally in English dialects, except for some where /ŋ/ is not a phoneme. Maybe loans have, but I feel it would be nativized.

[Prinsessa]

I thought tongue was spelled <tounge> forever, until just a few years ago.

It makes more sense if you know that <-nge> is /ndʒ/ in native English spelling.

I'm with the princess on this one. Tongue makes me think /tʌŋg(ə)/. Tounge seems to be an obsolete spelling too, so I for one will go on spelling it like that.

I also have a problem with the spelling of the Danish word bold /bʌlˀd̥/ "ball". The problem is the clearly pronounced d where in other words it is not pronounced finally after a liquid: ild /ilˀ/ "fire", and /anˀ/ "duck". So when I first learned to spell, I wanted /bʌlˀd̥/ to be spelled boldt. As it turns out, that /d̥/ was never there historically, and is a result of some sort of hypercorrection or overcompensation.

Isn't it the opposite? That <bold> is in fact irregularly spelled and should be *<bolt>, and the t~d was always there etymologically? Cf. Icelandic bolti and Faroese bóltur with the same meaning. A better question is why Swedish, Norwegian and English lack the -t.

[HoskhMatriarch]

I thought tongue was spelled <tounge> forever, until just a few years ago.

It makes more sense if you know that <-nge> is /ndʒ/ in native English spelling.

I'm with the princess on this one. Tongue makes me think /tʌŋg(ə)/. Tounge seems to be an obsolete spelling too, so I for one will go on spelling it like that.

I also have a problem with the spelling of the Danish word bold /bʌlˀd̥/ "ball". The problem is the clearly pronounced d where in other words it is not pronounced finally after a liquid: ild /ilˀ/ "fire", and /anˀ/ "duck". So when I first learned to spell, I wanted /bʌlˀd̥/ to be spelled boldt. As it turns out, that /d̥/ was never there historically, and is a result of some sort of hypercorrection or overcompensation.

Isn't it the opposite? That <bold> is in fact irregularly spelled and should be *<bolt>, and the t~d was always there etymologically? Cf. Icelandic bolti and Faroese bóltur with the same meaning. A better question is why Swedish, Norwegian and English lack the -t.

German also lacks the -t. It actually appears that there are different etymologies for Ball/ball in West Germanic than for bolti/bóltur/bold in Icelandic, Faroese and Danish, but I don't know about the other North Germanic languages. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/ball

[Ephraim]

Icelandic bolti and Faroese bóltur are apparently related to English bolt and Swedish bult, from Proto-Germanic *bultaz. Old Norse had both bolti and boltr.
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Appendix ... nic/bultaz

Swedish boll and English ball are from PG *balluz. Swedish ball (usually extended to balle), which can refer to either the penis, the testicles (especially in the plural, compare English balls), or (in Southern Sweden) to the buttocks, is etymologically identical to boll. I think there was an Early Old Norse form *bɔllʀ which split in Swedish with one form preserving the u-umlaut and the meaning ‘spherical object’, and one form losing the umlaut and preserving the reference to some body part. Old Icelandic had a form bǫllr which I think meant both ‘spherical object’ and some part of the male genitals (I'm unclear as to the exact meaning, it's not given by Zoëga or Cleasby/Vigfusson), among other things. It's preserved in Icelandic as böllur but the meaning of ‘spherical object’ seems to be obsolete.
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Appendix ... nic/balluz
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/b%C3%B6llur

[Khemehekis]

For instance, I expect 'satiety' and 'siddle' to be pronounced how they damn well ought to be pronounced.

I'm not familiar with "siddle". What's it mean?

[Khemehekis]

"Larnyx" and "pharnyx" are really "larynx" and "pharynx".

Weird, I would have never mixed those up! But I think that's because I prounce them both with a clear -/ɪŋks/ ending.

Well, I saw them in print before hearing them pronounced properly. I didn't notice the Y's really came before the N's.

[Thrice Xandvii]

As for spelling issues? I can still not ever get "receive" spelled correctly the first time most of the time. (I think my issue is that I overthink it and end up reverting back to the wrong spelling since I know that I never spell it correctly.) And words that end in -ent or -ant mess me up a lot too. However, I always spell "glacier" correctly.

Apparently "siddle" isn't a word, but "sidle" is: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/sidle

[Egerius]

For me, distinguishing <weather> and <whether> was a kind of a mystery... until I heard of the (mostly historical) phoneme /ʍ/ which occurred in words spelled with <wh->. Subsequently, I adopted /ʍ/ for my formal RP register (inconsistently, ATM).

[Adarain]

For me, distinguishing <weather> and <whether> was a kind of a mystery... until I heard of the (mostly historical) phoneme /ʍ/ which occurred in words spelled with <wh->. Subsequently, I adopted /ʍ/ for my formal RP register (inconsistently, ATM).

I've also adopted /ʍ/, I like the sound of it. I don't always consistently do it, but at least when interjecting "what?!", I do :P I also tend to use some overly formal words like hence in normal speech, because it's short and does what I need it to do.