When I was a kid, and my older siblings were working their way through the Royal Conservatory of Music curriculum, I thought notated music was called “sheep music”. ^[1]

I was reminded of this fact last night, when I was reading Thackeray, and realized that for twenty-odd years I have been hearing “wedding banns” as “wedding bands”. ^[2]

The cause of both of these silly mistakes is the same: I’d never read the word, I’d only heard it spoken.

The opposite problem, pronouncing book-learned words wrong, causes me even more frequent and severe embarrassment.

How is a blissfully-politically-ignorant twenty-something to know that Reuters is pronounced “ROY-tərz” not “ROO-tərz”, because the British news agency was founded by a German baron? By saying “according to ROOTERS […]”, and getting corrected by someone who watches the news, that’s how.

(I was relieved to learn that well-respected generalists, such as Gwern Branwen, have the same problem.)

Even though I’ve been a member of the Tildeverse for 12 years, and type tildes countless times per day, I was recently corrected when I pronounced it “til-DEE”. Crestfallen, I looked it up, and Merriam-Webster agreed that the correct pronunciation was til-DEH. (Wikipedia lists both, which was comforting: my pronunciation wasn’t wrong, per se; just unpopular.)

[ This is exacerbated by my tendency to chunk/pattern match words rather than sounding them out. For many years, I inserted extra letters, so “Balsamic” vinegar became “Balsalamic” vinegar. It sounded similar enough that nobody corrected me. ]

There is further confusion because people often try to “correct me” to the American pronunciation. (I pronounce data “DAH-ta”, which is common in Canada, Ireland, and Scotland, but most people pronounce it “DAY-ta”, so I have to chameleon sometimes.)

There isn’t enough overlap between what I read and what I hear people talk about. I often have been reading about something for years, and writing about it, giving me time to think I know how to pronounce the word. Eventually, it comes up in casual conversation with someone who knows the word, and often it turns out I’m wrong. (Unfortunately, me excitedly telling my friends about things I read on the internet doesn’t help.)

It’s the old my Venn diagram looks like John Lennon’s glasses problem.

Solutions time!

The obvious answers:

1. To address bookworm pronunciation syndrome: use the dictionary audio pronunciation guide, or IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet).
2. To address sheep music syndrome: Look up new words I that learn orally.

These are fairly bad answers. The problem isn’t that I can’t figure out how to pronounce things. It’s that I don’t know when I don’t know how to pronounce a word. It would be way too cumbersome to have to verify the pronunciation of every word I learn.

A slightly better plan:

1. Make a point of using words I learned from books and essays in conversation, to give people a chance to correct me. And maybe even record podcasts of me garburating the English language, to increase the chances of being corrected.
2. Make a point of consuming at least some technical and scientific content via audio and video (ick) rather than reading, so that I can cross-reference pronunciations. As it is, I don’t really listen to podcasts, and other than Khan Academy, rarely listen to lectures. Maybe binging on some 3Blue1Brown would help.
3. Work through a deck of IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) Anki flashcards (this one is the best I’ve found), so that I can get the full benefit from dictionary definitions when I use them.

If you have found a better solution to bookworm pronunciation syndrome, send me an email, or let me know in the comments.