Words you couldn't...

Post » Tue Mar 04, 2014 4:56 am

Inspired by this thread: http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1491027-words-you-cant/

which is about words you can't pronounce.

Sometimes, it's not a problem of pronounciation, sometimes it's the audience that gets it wrong. Sometimes, even when we spell a word correctly, the person we are talking to simply won't understand it.

I took a trip to Berlin two months ago, and since I'm embarassed by the word "two" because I feel particularly unable to pronounce it how it should, each time I had to buy two instances of something (two doughnuts, two bretzel, etc...) I used the word "couple" (like in: "I'd like a couple of doughnuts"). Surprisingly enough, in spite of the fact that I'm probably the best of the best when it comes to utter the word "couple", nobody seemed to understand. It was like a running gag: me entering a cafèe, ordering "a couple of doughnuts", being ask "a what?", slurring "two doughnuts" and getting my breakfast served. Every single time.

Have you ever been in such a situation (people not understanding a perfecly normal and perfectly pronounced word)??

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Gill Mackin
 
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Post » Mon Mar 03, 2014 11:06 pm

I don't live in a state of impressive literacy. Apparently words with more than two syllables are above the grasp of most of the bumpkins here. I don't rightly recall what word I said, but I remember it began with an e, I think it was 'exponentially', but I got looked at like I was speaking a foreign language. Bear in mind the person was about my age...

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Cool Man Sam
 
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