Typical “not today” but whatever. I am 21, to start this post off. Not a big adult, but an adult nonetheless. I’ve been through high school, and no one has told me until now that I’m saying it wrong.
For background, as a child I was mostly raised by my mother. I had a father with a strenuous 9 to 5, with a stay at home mom. I’m autistic, and was pretty slow to speaking or proper annunciation.
Apparently when I was about four I learnt the word “Episode”. However, I would constantly say “Efisode”. My mom thought it was so cute, she decided to never correct me. So she would say it back to me and continued to do so through my teenage years. However, this was also re-enforced by my father’s accent, who also says a very soft “p” that Almost sounds like an “f”.
Fast forward to preschool/primary school and I was incredibly high achieving in English. I was 10 years ahead in reading and joining high school level writing contests at nine years old. This meant I never really questioned my own English in comparison to my peers, because I knew I was ahead of the curve at least on paper.
My best friend (20) moved in with me shortly before my mom moved out and started doing the switch between mom and dad’s house to help me support my little brother in the new living arrangement. We were at mom’s and we were trying to figure out where we were at on One Piece (of course). I said I was on “Efisode 207” while he, as far as I remembered, was on “Efisode 199”.
He went quiet, then looked at me almost bemused. He goes, “What did you say?”
I repeated myself, as my friend doesn’t have great hearing so I assumed it was that, and he just smiles at me and pointedly says “EPisodes.”
I didn’t catch what point he was making, so I said “Efisodes.”
He grins at me. “Efisodes?”
I suddenly feel very meek, and say in a little voice. “Efisodes?”
He starts explaining that its “EPisodes”, and I start saying “Isn’t it pronounced like “E-phi-sodes?””
Because English is so incredibly disrespectful as a language, I never questioned “p” being pronounced as “f” or “ph”. There are stupid words like “through” that have made the idea of the word Episode being pronounced with an F, or PH, not even worth a blink.
I am now very upset (not really) and I said my parents also said Efisode, and so does my older brother, so how does that come across? My best friend started doubting himself if my whole family really says it.
Well, my mom walks in, and my best friend brings up our dilemma. She starts laughing. Full on laughing. She tells me that she intentionally reinforced it, and that she thought it was way too cute to correct.
So in the past years of me regularly using this word not only in the context of casual conversations of TV shows, but also in the context of psychological situations (i.e. “I’m having a bad mental health Efisode) NO ONE has corrected me.
Turns out my older brother has not said efisode, I just misheard him. I went and told him about all of this and he laughed, kind of endearingly, and said I was just a “silly boy”.
TL:DR: mom told me episode was pronounced “efisode” and no one corrected me
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Similar experience with “heart attack” and mishearing it as “hard attack”. I just thought your internal organs hardened or something when I was young.
I’m just here to say I love your characterisation of English being ‘incredibly disrespectful as a language’. I don’t care if you pronounce words wrong (lots of us do) because this more than makes up for it.
Don’t sweat it. I know 50+ year olds who pronounce “picture” as “pitcher”
I just found out this week that it’s “Snuffleupagus.” My entire life I thought it was “Snuffleuffagus” and I’m waaaay into adulting. I have a kid of my own who just started with Sesame Street and this is how I found out.
Feels weird man. Feels real weird.
Man, that’s crazy. Time to cut contacts with your Ma
You didn’t fuck up, she should have corrected you.
My husband, who is a very intelligent man, says “heighTH” instead of “heighT”. I have given him shit for it.
I have since noticed other people saying it that way, including my math professor and I sometimes wonder if I’m losing my mind.
>Because English is so incredibly disrespectful as a language
You know what, fair.
Don’t be upset, people mispronounced things all the time! At least it was caught by a good friend, which should be someone you can trust to be gracious about it.
The phrase moot point seems to be a favourite one at my workplace. I hear it used at least once a week, sometimes several. Before I had started working here, I had only ever read the phrase, and only heard it used by a handful of people, all saying it as moot.
So when I heard someone say a “mute point” the first time I was amused and thought it was just a mispronouncuation. Then every person who ever said the phrase says it the same way, and I started seriously doubting myself. I went home and looked up pronunciation videos to make sure I wasn’t crazy.
So far, I’ve heard at least 6 people ranging from 27 to 63 using mute instead. None of them have any relation outside work, so it isn’t a family thing. I get weird looks when I pronounce it correctly. I don’t know if they all heard one coworker say it and have never seen it spelled, so they assumed they were right, but it’s interesting.
it doesn’t sound like anything else, so it’s fine and people most likely take it as an accent thing
Do you even know how many adult people say “across” as “acrossed?”
An absurd number. It is one of my “pet peeve” words now. At least your pronunciation error is cute.
I have something very similar to this. As a kid, I said “oak meal” instead of oatmeal. It made sense to me. It was like little pieces of bark. And my parents thought it was so cute they never corrected me. When I was about 14 and at a friend’s house for breakfast, I learned the truth.
My little brother used to say “Calipitter” instead of “Caterpillar” and honestly I thought it was the cutest thing. We didn’t correct him for a really long time but eventually we had to lol.
We all puck up sometimes
I can’t believe I read that whole Effing thing!
I’m curious about what your dad’s native language is that he pronounces “p” like “f.” never heard that before and I’m a language nerd so it intrigued me.
also an ex of mine didnt pronounce the g in “strength.” he said “strenth.”
Imagine my chagrin when I hear that a few of my friends have a penchant for mispronouncing certain words
I have a friend and his entire family calls pronounces pizza with a k (Peak-SA). Meanwhile everywhere else pronounces it “peet-sa”
We hear and see what we want, literally. For instance, our eyes are only really capturing a measly 5% of basically what is directly ahead of us, everything else is our brains “filling in” the rest based on memory and logic.
It’s a pretty cool little example of how our brains work for us and against at times with no real harm done. (I assume from your light-hearted tone)
It’s fine. I pronounced the word “outfit” as “alfit” for the longest time lol you’d be surprised how often people mispronounce words. At least you went that far in life before someone noticing & making fun of you for it lol I’d consider that a win
It’s Tupperware, babe
“Today I pucked up”
She purposely trained OP wrong as a joke.
you were out here living your best efisode life and everyone just let it happen 😭 honestly kinda iconic, like a personal dialect your mom invented outta love
I know someone who says “filim” for film. It took me a minute to understand what he was trying to say, but once I figured it out, I let it go. No need to make a correction; that’s just how he pronounces it.
You’re ok, op. We all have things we struggle to pronounce but as long as we’re able to get our point across, it’s no biggie.
My mom did crap like this also. So infuriating.
I will never say biopic, it will always be biopic to me
I was in my 30’s when I realized “misled” was not pronounced with a long “I” as in “my – zilled.” Thankfully, I don’t think I ever said it out loud, only read it that way on my head. Still do sometimes.
It’s cute when they’re little. My now 8 year old said “bean beans” instead of “green beans” until recently. I figured he was old enough to correct, but the days of “bean beans” will always live fondly in our memories!
(He also calls sand fleas “sea piggies”….we all do now and I don’t plan to correct that one lol)
A minor variant of Grimm’s Law. A p to f shift.
dog eat dog world = doggy dog world
> Mental Health Efisode
Holy shit dude I’m wheezing, it’s like your brain giving one of those cutesy “oopsie whoopsie, our server made a error :(” screens
Me with fetal position. I always called it “beetle position”
I knew a guy who always pronounced ‘desk’ as ‘dest’…I pronounce it that way when I want to bug someone 😁
Your parents are massive assholes.
That’s on your mom there. TYMFU I suppose!
My elder stepdaughter’s dad made jello once while my partner was still with him, and he says the jello needs to “solace” in the fridge. My partner, who has a bachelor’s in english with a distinction in victorian/Shakespearean lit, says, “you mean solidify?” To which he retorts that he’s going to keep saying “solaced.” Real keeper, right?
Anyway, you weren’t stubborn and listened to your friend. You did not fu. Your mom did something that made you embarrass yourself your whole life and you didn’t even realize it.
My mom and brothers used to mock me for how I said sweater. I once asked after church if I could take my sweater off and my mom went, “only if you say it correctly.” I told her I didn’t understand her and she replied, “you’re saying shweater.” I knew I wasn’t saying shweater then and to this day I have no clue what she was getting at.
Haha, sounds like an islander accent. My parents speak the same way and now I’m wondering, are either of your parents Islanders of some sort?
e-PIS-o-dee, Greek style
Grown ass man asking for a prencil. I give him a pen and go to work. He starts yelling prencil over and over again and pointing at a display pretzel he wanted me to cook one for him. Like I was his teacher I broke the word down for him. “Pret zel, there’s no N in that word!”
I had a professor that was soooo funny he would pronounce coup de etat as “coop-day-eee-tat.” I didn’t know it was wrong for a looooong time.
I had someone in my life write “spinnage” on our grocery list. And a different person write “affucadoh”
My brother, not an unintelligent fellow, thought the “g” in “argue” was silent into his early twenties. As in “let’s not are-you about it.” I think everyone has at least one word or saying that they eventually discover they’ve been pronouncing wrong all of their lives.
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A glass of skin milk will settle your nerbs.
As a kid, I used to say “forch of July” instead of “fourth of July.” I have no idea why, but same thing—I wasn’t corrected. We still say it as a joke (I’m 27).
I say Hi-Bread instead of Hi-brid and I always mispronounce words because sometimes I don’t know what I’m actually saying. People look at me weird and sometimes correct me. I just say oh ok… ¯_(ツ)_/¯
I have a coworker that seemed to think eleventeen was an alternate way to say eleven. I’m guessing there was some kind of ‘eleven going on thirteen’ sort of stuff in his childhood.
Probably wouldn’t have been a big problem if Windows 10 wasn’t going end of life and we were all moving to Windows Eleventeen.
I still say lab-top rather than laptop without realizing it. My ex would ask what I said and I would double down on lab-top. Now I’m single and can say it whenever. I may even add efisode to my repertoire!
in fourth grade, i was asked to read aloud and pronounced ‘fiery’ as ‘fee-airy’. I’m still pissed it isn’t spelled ‘firey’
“Eth-real” instead of the proper “eth-ear-ee-ul” for me. Also Worcester v “Wouster”. I was in my twenties before I found out they were the same.
I thought alzheimer’s was actually called old timers disease until I was a teenager.
I would be mortified as well, but here is something funny your story made me think of.
Honestly my 7 year old thinks a suitcase is a “soupcase” and I am never going to correct her.
I could never figure out what making Ends Meat was, what kind of Meat are you making, and from what ends?