The origin of the problem
English is famously difficult to spell. It asks us to accept the inconsistencies of the language. The state of English spelling is partly due to the mongrel nature of the language (it’s essentially a product of Anglo-Saxon aka Old English, Latin, Old Norse, and Anglo-French), and partly a consequence of longevity; English is more than a thousand years old and languages are inherently vulnerable to the vagaries of time.
One result of the confusing nature of English spelling is that it affects pronunciation: when a word’s spelling doesn’t relate in an obvious way to the way it’s pronounced, the word is apt to be pronounced incorrectly.
This is a list of some words that frequently get mispronounced—because English is hard.
Ragout
Pronunciation: \ra-GOO\
In culinary contexts, ragout refers to a stew of well-seasoned meat and vegetables cooked in a thick sauce; in other contexts it’s a general term for a mixture or mélange. In any context, it’s pronounced \ra-GOO\, despite the fact that it looks like a mashup of the words rag and out.
Colonel
Pronunciation: \KER-nul\
The lack of agreement between spelling and pronunciation in this word (defined as “a military officer who ranks above a major”) can be blamed on unhelpful, intentions. The French took the word colonnello from Italian—it comes from the word for “column,” and it referred to the leader of a column of soldiers—but the French altered the spelling to coronel.
Primer
Pronunciation: \PRIMM-er\
There are two primers: the older word, meaning “a small book” or, more broadly, “a short informative piece of writing,” is pronounced \PRIMM-er\, while the word meaning “an initial coat of paint” is pronounced \PRY-mer. In British English, both words are pronounced with the long “i” sound (\EYE).
Victuals
Pronunciation: \VIT-ulz\
Victuals means “supplies of food” or “provisions,” and comes from the Latin word victualis meaning “of nourishment.” It went through French before it came into English, and the pronunciation was presumably established based on the French spelling vitaille before the spelling was changed to better reflect the Latin root of the word.
Solder
Pronunciation: \SAH-der\
The silent “l” in solder (“a metal or metallic alloy used when melted to join metallic surfaces”) isn’t completely exotic: other, more common words like salmon, calm, walk, should, and calf also typically have one. But since solder is encountered less frequently than these (and is perhaps spoken more frequently than it is written), it’s a tricky one.
Viscount
Pronunciation: \VYE-kownt\
A viscount is a member of the peerage in Great Britain ranking below an earl and above a baron. Etymologically speaking, a viscount is a “vice-count” or inferior count. A count, in case you’re wondering, is “a European nobleman whose rank corresponds to that of a British earl.”
Awry
Pronunciation: \uh-RYE\
If something is awry, it’s amiss or askew—that is, it’s off the correct or expected course (“our plans went awry”), or it’s in a turned or twisted position or direction (“my tie was all awry”). Awry comes from an Old English word meaning “to turn.”
Preternatural
Pronunciation: \pree-ter-NATCH-uh-rul\ play
Preternatural means “extraordinary” (“a preternatural ability”) or “inexplicable by other means” (a synonym of “psychic”). It comes from the Medieval Latin word praeternaturalis, formed from the Latin words praeter naturam, meaning “beyond nature.” In a sense, preternatural is a fancy way of saying “supernatural.”
Unlike more common words like president, present, and pressure, preternatural is pronounced with a long “e” sound (\EE) in the first syllable.
Etcetera
Pronunciation: \et-SET-uh-ruh\
There is no other word in the English language that begins with \et-set\, which is why lots of people pronounce etcetera like it’s part of the except-excess-exciting team—that is, they pronounce it as though it were spelled “ecsetera” or “excetera.” Our dictionary includes this alternate pronunciation but it labels it as “nonstandard” because people who go about disapproving of such things widely disapprove of it.
Antennae
Pronunciation: \an-TEN-ee\
People don’t have trouble with the singular form of this word, antenna, but the plural form antennae doesn’t look like a regular English word, which makes it tricky.
Here’s the secret: the “ae” in antennae says /ee/, just like the “ae” in algae and Caesar. The antennae plural of antenna is typically limited to the slender movable sensory organs on the heads of insects and crustaceans (also on myriapods like centipedes and millipedes), or to something that’s reminiscent of those—(“a candidate’s political antennae”). The type of antenna on a building or car, used to radiate or receive radio waves, has a more typical plural form, antennas.
Merriam Webster