Tongue Twisters: Commonly Mispronounced Words 

New Dictionary.com Data Shows Food & Grammar Words Trip People Up the Most

OAKLAND, Calif., August 17, 2016 – “She sells seashells by the seashore” is surely a slippery sentence for anyone to say. But there are a number of words American use regularly that also seem to trip us up. Today Dictionary.com, the leading online and mobile English-language resource, released a list of 30 commonly mispronounced words, setting the record straight on the correct pronunciations for words from affidavit to Weimaraner.

Making foodies everywhere cringe, food-related words showed to be most commonly mispronounced. Nine words including almond, caramel, croissant, espresso, quinoa, salmon, sherbet, turmeric, and Worcestershire made the list. Words often heard in classrooms and conference rooms were another trend on the list, with epitome, et cetera, genre, hyperbole, niche, and verbiage managing to confuse even the most verbose students and adults.

“At some point or another we’ve all had AutoCorrect’s help in our written communication, but there are no red squiggly lines that magically appear when we mispronounce a word,” said Liz McMillan, CEO of Dictionary.com. “In addition to getting definitions and synonyms from our site, users can also make sure they are on top of their game when it comes to correct pronunciation.”

The full list of the top commonly mispronounced words is below, along with phonetic pronunciations; audio pronunciations can be found for each word at Dictionary.com.

• affidavit [af-i-dey-vit]
• almond [ah-muh nd, am-uh nd]
• beget [bih-get]
• cache [kash]
• caramel [kar-uh-muh l, -mel, kahr-muh l]
• coupon [koo-pon, kyoo-]
• croissant [French krwah-sahn; English kruh-sahnt]
• epitome [ih-pit-uh-mee]
• espresso [e-spres-oh]
• et cetera [et set-er-uh, se-truh]
• façade [fuh-sahd, fa-]
• fiery [fahyuh r-ee, fahy-uh-ree]
• genre [zhahn-ruh; French zhahn-ruh]
• haute [oht]
• hyperbole [hahy-pur-buh-lee]
• lambaste [lam-beyst, -bast]
• mauve [mohv]
• mischievous [mis-chuh-vuh s]
• ·niche [nich]
• peony [pee-uh-nee]
• prerogative [pri-rog-uh-tiv, puh-rog-]
• quinoa [keen-wah, kee-noh-uh]
• reservoir [rez-er-vwahr, -vwawr, -vawr, rez-uh-]
• salmon [sam-uh n]
• sherbet [shur-bit]
• turmeric [tur-mer-ik]
• ·verbiage [vur-bee-ij]
• Weimaraner [vahy-muh-rah-ner, wahy-, wahy-muh-rey-]
• whet [hwet, wet]
• Worcestershire [woo s-ter-sheer, -sher]

About Dictionary.com

Dictionary.com is the world's leading, definitive online and mobile resource dedicated to helping people master the art of language. We provide tens of millions of global monthly users with reliable access to millions of definitions, synonyms, audio pronunciations, example sentences, translations and spelling help through our services at Dictionary.com and Thesaurus.com. Our leading mobile applications for reference and education have been downloaded more than 100 million times. Dictionary.com is an operating business of IAC (NASDAQ: IAC) and part of IAC Publishing, IAC's premium collection of digital publishing brands.