Newcasters and other public figures are broadly speaking more conscientious about pronouncing words aright than you might be in an offhand conversation with protagonist . So if they ’re all stumbling over a sure name or condition , there ’s a pretty good chance that we are , too .
As an annual custom , Babbel team up with two boob tube captioning governance — The Captioning Group in the U.S. and the British Institute of Verbatim Reporters in the UK — to find out which terminal figure gave the great unwashed on TV the most pause in 2024 .
Half of the U.S. ’s top 10 most mispronounced terms are people ’s name , fromKamala HarristoChappell Roan . The others extend from the pharmaceutical industry ( semaglutide , a key constituent in the weight - personnel casualty drug Ozempic ) all the manner to space ( Speculoos-3b , a freshly discovered exoplanet ) .
So howdoyou say all these toughie ? Some are fairly square : Chappellis pronounced likechapel(as opposed to theChappelleofDave Chappelle ) , andRoanrhymes withphone . Fast - fashion ship’s company Shein goes by “ SHEE - in , ” not “ SHEEN . ” Once you cognize the correct pronunciations , they ’re jolly easy to execute .
But there ’s more gray area with sealed term , sometimes because they do n’t have English parentage . The 2024 Paris Olympics and Paralympics mascot was a Phryge , which in French is “ FREEZH ” ( with the croaky French “ radius ” sound ) . But Babbel has phoneticized it in English as “ FREE - je , ” and the go with sound recording guide sounds more like “ barren - juh . ” The last name of politico Pete Buttigieg is another foxy case : Babbel has “ BOOD - ih - justice , ” where “ BOOD ” rhymes withfood . But Buttigieg himselfsays itwith the clipped “ oo ” ofgood — and he oncedistributedstickers printed with the wordsboot boundary edge .
It ’s not the only time an authorisation complicated the orthoepy conversation . Semaglutideis hypothecate to be pronounced “ sem - uh - GLOO - tide ” ( likeglue ) . But incommercialsfor Wegovy , which manufactures a semaglutide drug , the word is clearly pronounced “ sem - AG - luh - tide , ” with the emphasis on “ AG ” ( likebag ) .
All this to say that it ’s hard to pin down a individual definitive pronunciation for some of the terms below . ( And even in the more square case , your own regional accent will in all probability affect how they voice . ) Also , we tweaked the phonic pronunciations in some entries , which are asterisked .
you could see Babbel ’s full breakdown — admit what overstep the UK leaning — here .
Term
Pronunciation
Kamala Harris
[ KAH - muh - luh HAIR - iss ] *
Barry Keoghan
[ BARE - ee key - Ohio - gin ] * ( with a voiceless “ g ” )
Kooikerhondje
[ COY - ker - HUND - che ]
Pete Buttigieg
[ peet BOOD - ih - evaluator ]
Shein
[ SHEE - in ] *
Speculoos-3b
[ SPEK - yuh - lohss three bee ]
Phryge
[ FREEZH ] *
Semaglutide
[ sem - uh - GLOO - tide ] *
Zendaya
[ zen - DAY - uh ]
Chappell Roan
[ CHAP - uhl ROHN ]
bring out Other Common Mispronunciations :
