Hands up if you're guilty of mispronouncing certain words. Hands up, too, if the people around you have been too polite to correct you. Or you've been too polite to correct someone else.

My hands are raised on all counts.

New fad foods trip me up regularly. Until corrected I pronounced quinoa as it was spelt: kwin-oh-a. And I was grateful when a friend told me it was actually pronounced keen-wa. Likewise acai, which came out of my mouth as ack-eye, when it should have been ass-eye. It was only after being corrected I noticed the cedilla sometimes placed under the c, denoting the correct pronunciation.

Years ago, I was too polite to correct a flatmate who pronounced awry as or-ree rather than a-rye. It's with shame I now wonder how much embarrassment I could have saved him.

These are mi

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