Colonel

[Pumpkin]

Why is colonel pronounced nothing like its spelled?

What are some other words you can think of like this?

Leopard a little bit, but not as much

[WildRaubtier]

Rendezvous.

Also I am super upset this isn't a KFC thread, same principle.

[Madame Adequate]

Because English is a weird crazy language!

Knight.

[Del Murder]

hiccough

[Ayen]

Jan being pronounced as Yawn. WTF?

[Shauna]

Annoying foreigners and their destruction of the English language!

[Rantz]

queue

[Lone Wolf Leonhart]

wednesday
tuscon
ouija board
bologna
february
receipt
asthma

[The Man]

List of names in English with counterintuitive pronunciations - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[Colonel Angus]

http://teachinghistory.org/history-c...istorian/22270

[Lone Wolf Leonhart]

What's up with the u in colour. It literally adds nothing except one more letter to write out.

'Murica.

[blackmage_nuke]

Fatigue

[Big D]

february
asthma

In UK English (UK, Australasia, etc) these are both pronounced as they're spelled.

February = feb-roo-airy
Asthma = ass-thma

It feels really odd to hear Americans talking about their "azzzma", though I'd imagine it's much the same for them when we pronounce words like lieutenant and aluminium differently.

What's up with the u in colour. It literally adds nothing except one more letter to write out.

'Murica.

Now you're just being silly. In UK English again, the 'o' in colour is pronounced differently to the 'ou'. They're different sounds to they've got different spellings. Nothing was "added" to the word, quite the opposite in fact - American English underwent some spelling reforms a couple of centuries ago, simplifying and streamlining the language to make it easier for the average Joe to cope with. This added a whole lot of Zs, but replaced a lot of OUs with Os.

With a lot of really old words like "knight", the odd spelling reflects a way it was actually pronounced back in the depths of time. Sometimes, English kept the spelling from one region and the pronunciation from another - hence why the number 1 is spelled "one", but pronounced like "won" rather than "own".

[Yamaneko]

Seattle

[Mercen-X]

Would, could, should.

Sacagawea.

I think I've heard some people pronounce Wednesday as Wehnessday which does sound better to me that Wendsday.

I don't know if this is a common mispronunciation or if my grandmother is simply dyslexic, but she pronounces rotisserie like "rowshaterry" no matter how often you correct her.

I've never understood why lieutenant is pronounced "leftenant".

wiiji board. Of course, I would technically refer to that as a cultural idiosyncrasy as opposed to a counterintuitive pronunciation. Perhaps for many cultures the same could be said of any word derived thereof and pronounced differently in another.

Knight

Any word spelt with Kn for that matter. Also Gn, gh, ph, th, sh, wh. Of course, I consider the h ones to be misspelled. Wh is pronounced "hw(a)", so "hwy" is it spelt wh? If you hold an h sound and then incorporate an s sound, then you inevitably get "sh" but it's spelt backwards. The same is true for gh which is afaik meant to be pronounced glottally similarly to "h(u)g". You can get a similar reaction with ph/th if you don't make the whole t or p sound. None of this, however, explains how one pronounces knight. I can imagine gnat was originally pronounced ngat, but knight implies consecutive glottal noises which seem just uncomfortable to say. Then there's ch. Shouldn't be a sound at all.

kewl... before they started spelling it that way.

I think the only way February should be properly MIS-pronounced is Febrewery.