A "Showerthought" is a simple term used to describe the thoughts that pop into your head while you're doing everyday things like taking a shower, driving, or just daydreaming. The most popular seem to be lighthearted clever little truths, hidden in daily life.
Here are some examples to inspire your own showerthoughts:
If you made it this far, showerthoughts is accepting new mods. This community is generally tame so its not a lot of work, but having a few more mods would help reports get addressed a little sooner.
Whats it like to be a mod? Reports just show up as messages in your Lemmy inbox, and if a different mod has already addressed the report, the message goes away and you never worry about it.
Welcome to the world of Irish names!
We got:
And many more!
We should re-do Romanization. Start over, sound it out, have a big Anglosphere conference to decide on what letters make what noise and stick to it.
One of my friends once called me pedantic, and I got to correct his pronunciation of it - he stressed the first syllable. One of the high points of my life.
Someone is peDANTic, but they themselves are a PEdant. Probably why they made that mistake
Not exactly related to the question, but as a non-native English speaker, whenever I read something related to weights in imperial, e.g., 150 lbs, my mind reads it as 150 lubes.
I know it's pounds, if I would read it out loud, I would say pounds cause I'm not a weirdo (well...). But still, my internal monologue has lbs = lubes
I feel you. My inner voice reads this as "libs".
Elbs
Mine was "daschund". I always thought that was a separate breed from a "doxen".
Even after being educated on how the word is actually pronounced, I still purposefully pronounce it literally "daschund". Fuck 'em - should've spelled it better.
So swaive vs suave or deboner vs debonair? Maybe 'fisticated vs sophisticated? You could be a swaive, deboner, 'fisticated urbane 'burban urbanite.
Personally, I blame the French for the short comings of the English language, just because I randomly can.
I had a roommate in college that pronounced "epitome" like "epi-tohm." He also pronounced "tome" like "toom." Drove me nuts.
For me it isn't "some" word it is "many, many" words.
charcuterie (shar-KOO-terr-ee) (TIL)
potable (POH-tah-bull)
prerogative (preh-ROG-ah-tiv) -- wait, wat? Damn. I say it (pur-OHG-ah-tiv)
preternatural (pree-ter-NAT-chur-al)
remuneration (reh-myoo-ner-AY-shun) -- I'm not admitting how I say it lol
surprise - let's just say I spelled it suprise for ages. sigh
victual (vittle) - wait, that's how you spell it??
Indefatigable (IN-dih-FA-tih-gə-bl) not in-dee-fa-TEEG-able
Primer: \PRIMM-er\ -- small book / short informative piece of writing. (Brits can use long-i for both the paint undercoat and the book).
Mischievous: \MISS-chuh-vuss\ though mis-CHEE-vee-us is a non standard alternate pronunciation.
Interlocutor: \in tuhr LOCK you tore. I had no idea how to pronounce this so I never said it.
I think some "mispronunciations" are down to regional pronunciation. Like, I say miniature as MIN-ih-chure by habit though I'm well aware of how it's spelled and "should" be pronounced. I swear that's how I heard it growing up.
Maybe it isn't regional and it is just me. That would explain some things lol.
And uh, yeah I have a bunch more, some I know but am forgetting at the moment. Undoubtedly I mispronounce many more while having no idea. What must people think of me? Lol
Look, I was on board until you started throwing out made up words like preternatural, victual, and indefatigable, then I knew you were pulling my leg.
I once spoke with a Southerner about favorite books. They recommended a series they called "The Will of Time".
Only later I found out they were talking about The Wheel of Time.
Worcestershire
A "niche" is not a "nitch"
You're a bit too late for trying to complain about that one.
The latter has been the dominant American pronunciation of the word for so long that it now appears as the primary pronunciation guide in American dictionaries.
Both Oxford English Dictionary and Merriam-Webster agree that "nitch" was the correct pronunciation in both British and American English until very recently. You already linked Merriam-Webster, so here's O.E.D:
N.E.D. (1907) gives only the pronunciation (nitʃ) /nɪtʃ/ and the pronunciation /niːʃ/ is apparently not recorded before this date. H. Michaelis & D. Jones Phonetic Dict. Eng. Lang. (1913), and all editions of D. Jones Eng. Pronouncing Dict. up to and including the fourteenth edition (1977) give /nɪtʃ/ as the typical pronunciation and /niːʃ/ as an alternative pronunciation. The fifteenth edition (1991) gives /niːʃ/ in British English and /nɪtʃ/ in U.S. English.
(N.E.D is the original name of the O.E.D. "/nɪtʃ/" is pronounced "nitch" and /niːʃ/ is pronounced "neesh".)
February
I pronounced puddle as poodle up into my thirtys. Maybe I didn't use it too often so it wasn't noticed. My second wife did. Absolutely scundered!
I hear so many people pronounce "cavalry" as "calvary," which is a different word altogether.
A coworker of mine always says chipolte it boils my guts
Insurmountainable - Michael Scott
I made the mistake of pronouncing epitome as "ep-i-tome" for a while.
Hyperbole, not ‘hyper-bowl’ (like superbowl)
Peregrine. It was only last week that I realized it has two r's and doesn't rhyme with penguin.
BEHOLD, T H E P E R E G U I N
I would say you're actually witnessing the very real phenomenon of language-drift. Languages evolve for a billion reasons, but there's no right or wrong state of language.
That's why we distinguish between language, dialect, idiolect, sociolect. Each bearer of language is also a producer of language. Their version is just theirs, in whatever many ways that makes that version unique.
(Check linguistics to better understand this process of language-drifting )
My teacher told me that he'd fail me if I mispronounced "Data" as "Da ta" and not "Dait a". So I always mispronounce it
Is it a dialect training class? Because otherwise that feels like boarderline racism to penalise someone for having a different an accent.
"Da ta" vs "date-ah" is regional. If you're pronouncing it "wrong" move across the pond and suddenly you'll be right.
First time I saw giraffe in a book I thought it was pronounced Grr-Ah-Fee.