The Trouble with a High Reading Level

You’re listening to A Way with Words, the show about language and how we use it. I’m Grant Barrett.

And I’m Martha Barnette. The other day I was having a conversation with a writer friend of mine, a longtime professional writer, and she was talking about how long she misunderstood the word inchote.

Oh. Inchote. I-N-C-H-O-A-T-E.

Yes. Not inchote.

Exactly. It’s inchoate, of course, meaning imperfectly formed or not quite in existence yet. But she was tripped up by that.

How long did she go with the mispronunciation?

Decades, I think.

Wow.

You know, the word for me, the one that caught me and catches a lot of people was hyperbole.

Oh, sure.

I mean, I’d read it. I mean, I was reading above my level, which is kind of how this happens, right? And I didn’t know that it was hyperbole. I kind of understood what it meant from all the context that I’d seen it in. But it was hyperbole for the longest time. And I’m sure I said it aloud and probably was gently corrected by a teacher.

Oh, yeah.

Right.

I have the same experience with Penelope.

Penelope, yeah.

Poor Penelope.

Penelope. It was just the epitome of epitome, right?

Yeah, because there’s not enough indication there that it doesn’t behave like normal English pronunciation.

Yeah, and you’re right about behavior, too. I mean, I have a friend who mispronounces biopic all the time.

Oh, biopic.

She sees it as biopic because it looks like myopic.

Oh, it sounds like biopsy.

Yeah.

Yeah, there we go.

Biopic.

So what I’m betting is that our listeners have had words like that, too. You know, they read for years and years and years. And the thing is, when you learn the new pronunciation, at least in my experience, I still want to go back to the old one. I mean, we were talking about the word piquant. You used it a couple of weeks ago. And I had always heard it pronounced piquant.

And so here at this point of your life, you’re ready to make the change to the proper pronunciation?

Well, I did find that in one dictionary, the Merriam-Webster, it’s the third pronunciation they offer. But, you know, I mean, maybe I hadn’t heard Pequen.

Yes, I did hear Pequen. My mother said Pequen.

Oh, there we go. You get attached to this. Language is really personal.

Well, it’s no hyperbole. If you’ve got a word that you have mispronounced or did mispronounce for a very long time and you’d like to share the embarrassing story about how you found out, call us, 877-929-9673, or tell us in secret an email to words@waywordradio.org.