This reminds me of middle school – I had been reading far above my grade level for many years, and had transitioned to “adult” novels in 6th grade (meaning books for grown-ups, not erotica). This meant that I read many words that I had never heard. One day, in eighth grade English class, we were reading something out loud (I do not remember what) and I volunteered to read (because I LOVED READING OUT LOUD) and I got to the work epitome. And promptly pronounced it epi-tome, instead of epitamy [sic]. See, in my world, there were two distinct words: epitome, and epitamy. I never questioned why I had never heard anyone say epi-tome, or why I had never seen epitamy in print (I think I was thinking of epiphany), but I was firmly convinced that these were two separate words.
My teacher was kind when she corrected my pronunciation. There’s still a lot of words I’ve only ever read and never spoken, because I’m afraid of saying them incorrectly.
Ooooh, let’s not even start about pronunciation! I am a native Spanish speaker, which means I tend to mangle my English pronunciation, “Spanishfying” words a lot. I am very self conscious about that and a tad embarrassed sometimes when in the company of “proper native speakers” (I say proper because for all intents and purposes, my entire education was in English and I have taken all the related international exams that qualify me as a native speaker; but you know what I mean “proper Anglo” speakers). My self consciousness is such that I have been threatening for the past six months to start a weekly Red Light podcast and I haven’t yet done it because I am afraid people will focus too much on my very odd accent and pronunciation (which includes such things like the “epi-tome” moment you describe).
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