The most mispronounced word in Britain is phenomenon. We're not sure why that topped the list of the twenty most mispronounced words, but there it is. Here's the rest of the list:
2. Anaesthetist (uh-nes-thi-tist)
3. Remuneration (ri-myoo - nuh-reyshun)
4. Statistics (stuh-tis-tiks)
5. Ethnicity (eth-nis-i-tee)
6. Philosophical (fil-uh-sof-i-kuhl)
7. Provocatively (pruh-vok-uh-tiv)
8. Anonymous (uh-non-uh-muhs)
9. Thesaurus (thi-sawr-uhs)
10. Aluminium (al-yuh-min-ee-uhm)
11. Regularly (reg-yuh-ler-lee)
12. February (feb-roo-er-ee)
13. Particularly (per-tik-yuh-ler-lee)
14. Hereditary (huh-red-i-ter-ee)
15. Prioritising (prah-awr-i-tahyz-ing)
16. Pronunciation (pruh-nuhn-see-ey-shuhn)
17. Prejudice (prej-uh-dis)
18. Facilitate (fuh-sil-i-teyt)
19. Hospitable (hos-pi-tuh-buhl)
20. Onomatopoeia (on-uh-mat-uh-pee-uh)
We shall never have to worry about mispronouncing Anaesthetist, because we use the word Anesthesiologist in the U.S. So that's a relief. As for the rest of the words, some of them are a bit puzzling. We certainly get Onomatopoeia, but February? Really? Does it have something to do with the British accent, perhaps? Because just looking at the phonetic spelling of Aluminum shows how very different American and British accents (and spelling) can be. The whole Aluminum/Aluminium dichotomy is explained here for the curious.
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