this post was submitted on 04 Sep 2023
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I'm picking "Colonel" needs to be respelled to match how it's pronounced.

Try to pick a word no one else has picked. What word are you respelling?

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[โ€“] [email protected] 23 points 10 months ago (11 children)

Since Queue has already been posted: Quay. Now spelled Kee.

[โ€“] [email protected] 20 points 10 months ago (1 children)

You and I pronounce 'quay' very differently.

[โ€“] [email protected] 7 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

How do you pronounce it? I had some American tourists ask me for directions to the "kway" before. Only time I've ever heard a different pronunciation.

[โ€“] [email protected] 5 points 10 months ago (4 children)

I've always heard it pronounced kway... Is that wrong?

[โ€“] [email protected] 7 points 10 months ago

I can't say really. Where I live (Ireland) it's definitely pronounced "kee" but where you live "kway" might be correct. Fascinating stuff!

[โ€“] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago (1 children)

That's wrong, even in the US.

[โ€“] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago (1 children)

It's pronounced kway in a Pavement song.

[โ€“] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago

It's pronounced "kaye" in a Pogues song, but songs aren't a good indication of pronunciation...poetic license reigns.

Hell, "reigns" is another candidate word.

[โ€“] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago

In my dictionary spelling is [ki:] so like "kee"

[โ€“] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago

Quay is one of those words like bowline or boatswain that's commonly mispronounced because people see it in writing without hearing it said. Bowline "properly" rhymes with pin, and boatswain sounds like bosun.

A similar thing happened to solder in Britain, where it originally had a silent l as a nod to its Latin etymology, but some people started pronouncing it.

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