Victuals and other odd words

[marcusmarcusrc]

Stimulated by a discussion at chenoameg's WordGames, I wanted to ask people to list words whose spellings are ridiculously different than their pronunciations:

eg.
vict.ual \'vit-*l\
col.o.nel \'k*rn-*l\
Worcestershire sauce (IPA [ˈwʊstə(ɹ)ʃ(ɪ)ə(r)])

EDIT: And how could I forget
boat.swain \'bo-s-*n\
(I learned this one when I was in the Tempest)

I still can't believe that until last week I thought that "victual" and "vittle" were two different words with different pronunciations that just happened to have the same meaning. Like the years I spent assuming that there were two military ranks, colonel and kernel. Only that misconception I corrected in middle school...

Comments

[fanw.livejournal.com]

Well, I was gonna add "waistcoat" but it's there already, so I'll pitch in "forecastle" pronounced "foc'sle". "Wednesday" is not quite so far off, but still isn't spelled "Wendsday".

[marcusmarcusrc.livejournal.com]

Ah, naval terms. (You reminded me of "boatswain"). Heh. And Wednesday is so ingrained in my head that I forget that once upon a time it was non-intuitive. =)

[astra-nomer.livejournal.com]

How about February? Or is it a regional thing where you don't pronounce the first 'r'?

[desireearmfeldt]

I think there are those that pronounce that first R. I'm not one of them. ;)

[fredrickegerman.livejournal.com]

I don't.

Ditto library => lie-berry. Or really, in my case, lie-brie.