Not so well said

There are countless words I learned from books long before I encountered them in spoken discussion. I don't know how many times I've heard someone use a word and thought, Oh -- so that's how you say it. I am a recovered chronic mispronouncer of "cadaver" and "ad infinitum," "libido" and "Anna Karenina," "rhetoric" and "Zsa Zsa Gabor," to list just a few off the top of my head.

It usually isn't the most difficult or unique words that throw me off. Those I tend to look up. The ones that trip me up are words, particularly proper nouns, that seem simple enough to sound out. I usually give it my best shot, assume I nailed it and move on with life.

Granted, this doesn't happen all that often anymore. But I still hesitate before saying "enclave" because for so long I mispronounced it in my head. Six years of French so thoroughly threw me off on "formidable" that I didn't fully recover until after college. And until the board game "Guesstures" came out I could never remember whether the "g" in "gesture" was hard or soft.

I know I'm not the only smart person who occasionally sounds stupid. I remember one of my college roommates -- a definite non-dummy who's now in law school at Campbell University -- pronouncing "facade" as "fa-KADE" at a small dinner party. And just last week, when we were playing Trivial Pursuit, I had to convince all the other players that I was saying "posthumous" correctly. It was nice to be on the right side for once.

I thought this, from Wikipedia, was interesting:

"Children who read a great deal often produce spelling pronunciations, since they have no way of knowing, other than the spelling, how the rare words they encounter are correctly pronounced. Thoughtful parents usually try to correct such children's errors gently. But as this can never extend to every instance, and there are many words which one reads far more often than one hears, what is a spelling pronunciation in one generation often becomes standard in the next.
Well-read second-language learners are likewise vulnerable to producing spelling pronunciations."

This post is dedicated to Stephen K.