There was a 1980 hit song by a group called the Barracudas called Summer Fun, from an album I happen to own; in fact, a mail-order customer at FantaCo sent it to me in gratitude. The introduction to the song comes from an ad c. 1967; the storyline was that a Plymouth car dealer couldn’t say the word Barracuda, problematic because the hot Plymouth car that year was supposedly the Barracuda. (The whole ad can be heard, after the 27-second mark, here.
What reminded me of this was the fact that I was working on a reference question last month and realized I could not say the word ‘aesthetician’, though I can say the root word ‘aesthetic’; it’s the two middle syllables. Arthur noted on a podcast that he cannot say ‘vitiligo’, a condition I have.
On the other hand, some words that I just LOVE to say. They tend to be French or Italian, and often end in a vowel, such as Rigoletto or Giovanni. But last month at work, I was really getting off saying the Japanese word ‘yakitori’, which means skewered chicken.
Also, there are a number of words I could say, but never having seen them in print, I was shocked to find that they were spelled THAT way. Two that come to mind are ‘epitome’ or ‘facetious’.
What words do you have difficulty pronouncing?
What words do you love pronouncing?
What words surprised you by how they were spelled?
When I look at the word Friend, it always looks like Fri- End to me. O f course there are names of writers I have mispronounced like Camus, which for years I said Ca-MUS. I Love the sounds of a lot of words like Superanuated.
I still have a hard time saying insurance. I don’t know why, but it sounds very odd when I say it. There are others that I have a hard time saying, but don’t come to mind.
I like saying the French version of terrible, mostly because a Canadian brewer in Quebec named one of their beers Terrible. (The beer is in fact incredible.) Most of the other things I like to say are the French Canadian hockey players’ names.
I can’t think of any words that I was surprised how they were spelled, but do know that I have come across a few over time.