Search icon

Life

07th Apr 2015

The 10 words that people find the hardest to pronounce have been revealed

We're not surprised by number one

Paul Moore

We’re not surprised by number one.

Did you ever have an English teacher that used to stop you whilst reading a passage of text because they desperately wanted to correct your pronunciation and grammar?

Looking back, Mr O’Hara did improve my vernacular and verbal dexterity to such a point where I now speak English really, really….good.

Ralph Wiggum may find it unpossible to fail English but the people at Reddit have proven that he’s not the only one.

Redditorsrsrsrsrsrrsrsrs have created a message thread to identify the 10 words that people have the most difficulty pronouncing and here they are:

10 – Rural

These people have obviously never been to the countryside.

Cows
9 – Otorhinolaryngologist

JOE runs to grab our dictionary. Apparently, it’s the study and treatment of diseases of the ear, nose, and throat.

We knew that already.

*Cough, cough*

Maybe we should see someone that’s proficient in Otorhinolaryngology about our cough?

Pronounced: ‘oto-rhino-laryng-ologist’

manflue

8 – Colonel

How can people fail to honour those brave men, Sanders, Kurtz and Klink?

kfcgot
7 – Penguin

JOE hero Rinkydink Curdlesnoot, Blubberbutt Cummerbund Benedict Cumberbatch won’t be feeling like such a weirdo now.

6 – Sixth

Rumour has it, that Bruce Willis film about the kid who sees dead people was going to be renamed the ‘Five Senses Plus One’ due to the “difficulty” of this word.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0J34QnVhYNU

5 – Isthmus

Jonathan Ross must really hate those narrow strips of land that connect two larger areas.

Pronounced: ‘Is-mus’

Ross

4 – Anemone

No, it’s not the new celebrity ‘en vogue’ name but rather a genus of about 120 species of flowering plants in the family Ranunculaceae, native to the temperate zones.

We didn’t just Wikipedia that.

16983_ROIFlowers_Group
3 – Squirrel

Ah now, surely they’re just having a laugh at this stage? Have they not seen Up?

2 – Choir

These people must have never attended their local mass. Heathens.

church1

1 – Worcestershire

Everyone knows someone who really struggles to say this word.

In this scenario, do all of the following.

1) Ask them if they want some Worcestershire sauce on their sandwich. 2) Watch them struggle to say it. 3) Witness the utter resignation at this inability to pronounce the word.

On second thoughts, they’ll probably just ask for some brown sauce.

H.T – The ladies at Her

LISTEN: You Must Be Jokin’ podcast – listen to the latest episode now!