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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. I want to share two corrections, two answers we got wrong in a series of true-false quizzes on the show last week. One was, who gave the longest filibuster in US Senate history? The correct answer would have been Strom Thurmond, who filibustered a civil rights act in 1957 for more than 24 hours. The other one we got wrong was on the pluralization of a certain word. If you're referring to the plural of referendum, more than one referendum, we had a source that we initially went with that said referendums, is the only correct pluralization.

That the more Latin form, referenda is considered archaic and not acceptable anymore, but after a listener complained, and further review, we discovered we were wrong. Merriam-Webster's website, which we will take as definitive, says either one is acceptable, referenda or referendums. The dumbs were us. In that case, we apologize for the errors, which brings us to our end-of-show call-in for today, which is a little bit of language silliness.

Have you ever had that thing happen, where you read a word, dozens, maybe even hundreds of times, maybe in books or even on street signs, and then when you say the word out loud in front of somebody, you find out the version you've been saying in your head is very different than how most people say it or how it's supposed to be said. Like, we're saying the Maj Deegan Expressway, instead of the Major Deegan Expressway. We know somebody who was because you saw the signs, M-A-J Deegan. That's how they save money on printing whole words on many street signs, Maj Deegan.

How about LA Freeway? We know somebody who used to think it was LA Freeway out on the West Coast instead of the LA Freeway. Maybe Duane Reade is another one we heard instead of Duane Reade. We've got everything you need, Duane Reade. Those are some examples from some of my producers, who were stunned when they first heard those words said out loud, so it gave us the idea for this call-in. Have you ever had something similar happen to you? 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692 for this little bit of silliness.

What made us think it might make a call-in is that after one example came out, then those other couple of examples came up, so we're like, "Huh, so this happens." Share your favorite mispronounced word story with us. 212-433-WNYC. You can also tweet @BrianLehrer. Tell us what the word is, how you used to pronounce it, and how you came to find out that other people say it much differently than the idea you had in your head. As your calls are coming in, we asked around the office to see if our WNYC colleagues had any examples of this phenomenon after we first learned that a few of us did, and they did. Let's hear a little montage of those examples.

Brian Lehrer: I thought determined was pronounced deter mind until I was in fourth grade.

Colleague 1: Until I was in college, I had never heard the word epitome said out loud. I only read it in books and I thought it was pronounced epitome.

Colleague 2: I learned as an adult that I pronounced the won a weird way. As in, "Hey, guess what, I won the lottery." That actually people pronounce it won.

Colleague 3: In college, an ex got me to stop saying espresso & gyro and taught me that they were pronounced espresso & gyro. Even though he was condescending about it, I am grateful.

Colleague 4: Just yesterday, I heard one of my IT guys say GIF in referring to a short online video, and now I don't know what to do with it.

Brian Lehrer: I think that one's actually a debate. Do people say GIF or do people say GIF, or are they both acceptable? I don't think we're going to have that debate here, but that was the epitome of honesty, wasn't it, what those colleagues of ours revealed? Callers, as we wait for your calls to come in 212-433-WNYC, what's the epitome of this kind of thing in your life?

We just want to make sure that we say out loud, that the idea behind this, which should be obvious, is not to criticize anyone's accent, but just poke fun at ourselves, whoever we are, in a light-hearted way, by remembering a time when we realized we were saying something quite differently than how are we supposed to say or how most people say it. Whether English is your first language, second, third, sixth, give us a call and we will always welcome examples of words and languages other than English, like the example we played with gyro, not gyro. I'm probably saying it wrong.

Give us a call, 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692, and tell us your mispronounce word. We'll take your calls after this.

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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. To your mispronounce words, Amy in Chelsea, you're on WNYC. Hi, Amy.

Amy: Hi, Brian, long-time listener, first-time caller. I love your show.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you.

Amy: Yes, I was visiting at that time boyfriend and was relating some talent, said the word debacle. He corrected me and said debacle. I said, "No, you're kidding." He said, "No, that's the word." Then my mother-in-law then chimed in and said, "Yes, it's debacle." I felt slightly humiliated.

Brian Lehrer: How did you first get debacle in your head? Do you know?

Amy: Just from reading it. It was a word I had read many times and I had never heard it clearly.

Brian Lehrer: Yes. Amy, thank you very much for starting us off. Alan in Brooklyn, you're on WNYC. You have one, Alan, yes?

Alan: Well, this is at seven years old from when my father-in-law was at NYU Law School. Part of the lecture time he was spending taking notes and part doing a crossword puzzle. A fellow behind him saw a word slowly forming in the boxes, and the last letter was filled in, it didn't make any sense. The guy behind yell out audibly, mo-use. What's the mo-use? M-O-U-S-E. When he realized what it was, they were both sent out of the room for disturbing the class.

Brian Lehrer: mouse, M-O-U-S-E. Thank you, Alan. Cat in Belleville, you're on WNYC. Hi, Cat.

Cat: Hi, Brian. How are you? My word is disciple. I was watching The Da Vinci Code a few weeks ago with the closed captioning on and saw the word disciple and learned as an adult that it was not pronounced disci-qual, as in equal, which is what I learned going to Catholic church growing up, we'd talk about Jesus and their disci-quals and I heard disciples until two weeks ago.

Brian Lehrer: As if it was a QU there instead of P, which as you write it, only means adding that one extra little line, or no, putting the vertical line on the other side. On the right side rather than the left side that makes the PQ. Was that on purpose when you were going to Catholic school? Were they trying to make a point about Jesus being for equality, or was it just a mispronunciation by them?

Cat: I think it was a mishearing on my part.

Brian Lehrer: I mishearing on your part.

Cat: For 35 years, yes, Im afraaid.

Brian Lehrer: Cat, thank you very much. We're all being very honest here. That's good. Nobody should be embarrassed. We're not here to embarrass anybody. Lisa in Forest Hills, you're on WNYC. Hi, Lisa.

Lisa: Hi, Brian. I have several, but the most recent one was I used to think the word, like when you say it's a moot point. I always thought it was mute, M-U-T-E until I spelled it in an email at work, and then a colleague was kind enough to come up to me and say, "You know, it's not mute, it's moot, M-O-O-T." I was embarrassed but also very happy that the guy stopped me from continuing to do that.

Brian Lehrer: Yes, you didn't realize there were two separate words there at all. Lisa, thank you very much. Here's one coming in on Twitter that's interesting. Listener writes, "I used to think straphanger was pronounced stra-finger. Why? If you look at that word, you'll see the PH there. So that sounds like an F in many words, so stra-finger, but of course, it's straphanger." Thank you for that one. Any others that you want to tweet folks? Tweet @BrianLehrer. Katie in Manhattan you're on WNYC. Hi, Katie.

Katie: Hi. I recently got into birding, and on Twitter, I would see a lot of posts about birds at this grove of pine trees that I thought was the pinetum. I was like, "That's a really stupid name." Then I was out birding one day and realized someone mentioned The Pinetum, and I was like, "What, you mean The Pinetum? She said, "No, The Pinetum" I was like, "Oh, that makes a lot more sense to say it that way."

Brian Lehrer: Oh my God, you just [crosstalk] gave me one. I always thought it was pinetum until you just said that.

Katie: [laughs]

Brian Lehrer: I assumed it was [crosstalk] a place where they had pine trees, but I guess --

Katie: That's exactly.

Brian Lehrer: It's not.

Katie: That was my logic too. [laughs]

Brian Lehrer: [laughs] Do you know what pinetum means? What is that word exactly? I don't even know.

Katie: I don't, but my guess it must be some Latin word, to mean the grove of pine trees at the arboretum, but instead of arboretum with trees, it's specifically pine trees. It's pinetum, I guess.

Brian Lehrer: Katie, thank you very much. Thank you so much. We'll look that up. George in Manhattan, you're on WNYC. Hi, George.

George: [inaudible 00:11:12]

Brian Lehrer: George, listen to your phone, not the radio we're on delay. That was a good caller that we had, but I don't think we need to hear her again. So, George, we're going to come back to you. Miriam in Murray Hill, you're on WNYC. Hi, Miriam.

Miriam: Hi, Brian. I'm excited to be on. It's my second time. My partner was moving down from New England, and he's a native English speaker. I was an ESL student when I was younger, so I actually got to correct him for once when he said Houston Street instead of Houston Street, and I haven't forgotten it.

Brian Lehrer: Yes, it's an easy mistake to make. In that case, when you're from one place and the other place pronounces the same spelling differently. Thank you very much. Chris in Larchmont, you're on WNYC. Hi, Chris.

Chris: Hey, Brian. Good afternoon. I fall into the category of one of those really nasty parents who just like to screw up their kids every once in a while with the most seemingly innocuous issues. I convinced my kids years ago, they're now in their 30s, as we were transitioning away from pay toll to automatic tolling. That the words were not E-ZPass, it was E-ZPass. Still to this day years later, they do occasionally bring me back, if you will, some years back.

Brian Lehrer: You're right. Then it becomes a family joke, right?

Chris: Yes. [crosstalk]

Brian Lehrer: Do you have the E-ZPass connected? [laughs] Thank you very much. One more, also transportation related. Amy in Harlem, you're on WNYC. Hi, Amy.

Amy: Hi. Yes, I have a dear friend that refers to the Long Island Railroad as LIR.

Brian Lehrer: [laughter] Thank you very much. We'll end with that. I had no idea we would get so many. We could be going on and on and on with this because the phones keep lighting up as people drop off. Thank you for sharing your humorous mispronunciation.

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