Words you used to pronounce weirdly because you only ever saw them written down.

[Wowbagger]

Rotherhithe

Huddersfield.

Southend.

Not sure what is unusual about the above.  Except that the middle one is almost always pronounced 'Uddy'

Rovrive.

'ooddersfield,

Saaaaaaaaahfend.

[Wowbagger]

That was rather the point. AIUI, it's:

New-car-sle under Lyme, but:

New-cas-sle upon Tyne

You'll have to help out with Emlyn, but knowing the nearest river will always help in determining the pronunciation.

The last one is pronounced Castell Newydd Emlyn. It's on the Teifi.

[lou boutin]

I used to think nomenclature was a French word and pronounced it as such. 

Likewise for me with interlocutor. 

[Auntie Helen]

My old boss called the young wizard in Harry Potter "Her mee own".

A young girl doing a reading at Church for Christmas said Pontius Pilate in the same way as one does Pilates the exercise!

[citoyen]

My old boss called the young wizard in Harry Potter "Her mee own".

Ah, yes, a bit like the classical Greek rape victim whose name I used to think was pronounced Percy-phone.

d.

[David Martin]

They still have to ask me twice where I have been on teh bike - cos I still can't pronounce Kinclaven properly.  Most of the places round here aren't to bad, though I struggled at first with Meigle and Alyth is not a cute scots lass with a lithp.

[drossall]

A young girl doing a reading at Church for Christmas said Pontius Pilate in the same way as one does Pilates the exercise!

It seems to be traditional to give the youngest reader the lesson with Quirinius in it...

[Diver300]

Schlumberger

[Cudzoziemiec]

Cotoneaster, the plant. I used to read it as "cotton easter". Now I know, but I prefer it that way so do it deliberately. 

[Pedaldog.]

Detritus  I always readthink as De-TRITE-us (Heavy on the TRITE). Still do!

[Peter]

The interesting thing about the Newcastles is not so much the pronunciation, but the stress.
The northern town - the second syllable is stressed.
The other two - the first syllable is stressed.

Actually, I suspect it's the Emlyn and the Lyme that are stressed!

[Wobbly John]

My old boss called the young wizard in Harry Potter "Her mee own".

That reminds me of another: Siobhán.

[Eccentrica Gallumbits]

Cotoneaster, the plant. I used to read it as "cotton easter". Now I know, but I prefer it that way so do it deliberately. 

Is it cotone aster?

[drossall]

Detritus  I always readthink as De-TRITE-us (Heavy on the TRITE). Still do!

I've just checked several dictionaries, all of which say that's OK

[Auntie Helen]

Yeah, I say dee-TRITE-us

And I think it's Cotone-ee-asta

[hellymedic]

I think I said DET-reet-us before I met someone who said deeTRITEus.

[Eccentrica Gallumbits]

I say grebbies and eech.

[tiermat]

My old boss called the young wizard in Harry Potter "Her mee own".

That reminds me of another: Siobhán.

That'll be See-o-ban then (according to my FiL, when his nephew was getting married to a lady of that name)

[ian]

My old boss called the young wizard in Harry Potter "Her mee own".

That reminds me of another: Siobhán.

Reminds me: travelling around the US with a Siobhan and Niamh. It was worse in the South, at least up North they got it over with, sub-Mason-Dixon they'd drawl the first phonetic syllable or two and then choke on an indigestible consonant. After about twenty minutes, you'd have slap them hard on the back to get it over with.

I pronounce many things incorrectly, courtesy of learning much from books.

[Peter]

Ian, it gets ever more complicated: the fashion for giving children names parents like the look of is actually changing pronunciation in some cases.  I had a girl in my class who was on the register as Niamh.  So I said, "Hello, Neeve."  She thought I was talking to someone else, as she had been brought up to believe her name was Neem by her non-Irish mother.

[Bledlow]

Misled became 'mizzled'

Myzuld (stress on my)

Can I nominate my in-laws who confused my utterly by talking about a restaurant they wanted to visit called "prezo" (not "pretzo"). I assumed the mental link between Pizza (being peetza not piza) would be strong, but then realised I had, in Music lessons as a young 'un, come across the word "mezzo" in mf and mp and so was aware it was a tz sound.

Anyone remember Ben Abruzzo, one of the first transatlantic balloonists? He corrected anyone who didn't pronounce his surname as "a-bruise-oh".

[Tewdric]

This thread reminds me of an old ISIHAC gag:

Interviewer:

"I hear you're a bit of an orthinologist"

Humph:

"Not so much an orthinologist, more of a word botcher!"

[ian]

Ian, it gets ever more complicated: the fashion for giving children names parents like the look of is actually changing pronunciation in some cases.  I had a girl in my class who was on the register as Niamh.  So I said, "Hello, Neeve."  She thought I was talking to someone else, as she had been brought up to believe her name was Neem by her non-Irish mother.

As per Citoyen's comment earlier, I did once hear a mother in the swimming pool changing room call her daughter 'Percy Phone', which would be – I'm sure – something of a tragedy in the realisation.

[plum]

Back in the days before dietary fibre I used to pronounce roughage as two words, one ending with a hard g and the other beginning with h.

[lou boutin]

Ian, it gets ever more complicated: the fashion for giving children names parents like the look of is actually changing pronunciation in some cases.  I had a girl in my class who was on the register as Niamh.  So I said, "Hello, Neeve."  She thought I was talking to someone else, as she had been brought up to believe her name was Neem by her non-Irish mother.

As per Citoyen's comment earlier, I did once hear a mother in the swimming pool changing room call her daughter 'Percy Phone', which would be – I'm sure – something of a tragedy in the realisation.

Yep, but when you look up the correct pronunciation of things and are faced with 'pronunciation: /pərˈsɛfəniː/' as in the case of Persephone; it is not surprising that we meet interesting characters in supermarkets screeching 'pursey-phoney' get here now'.