Words are import as they are often used to communicate to one another to explain a thought. There are many commonly mispronounced words. So how many words are in the English language? And the answer to that is a little more complicated than one would think.
There are many words that are derived from other languages like karaoke (Japanese) and paparazzi (Italian) that are commonly used in the English language. The official count would be difficult as there are some words that have different variations of itself like sing. We have the infinitive tense, “sing”, past tent, “sang” and present participle “singing.” All of these words are their own word but also a form of one word. Which do we count it as?
We couldn’t think of a world without words as they help us in so many different ways. We use words when we are typing, calling, signing and texting. Words help us understand street signs while driving. They also help us when we are cooking to understand how much of an ingredient to use. Point being is, words are a necessity to everyday life but there are cases where we can use symbols or gestures to get our point across.
Words are unique in their own way as many words look one way but when pronounced sound another way. Example, the word live is a homophone. It can be pronounced live or LIVE. Don’t get us started on Apthongs which are letters that are silent in words. Examples of that would be Aisle, it’s pronounced (il), silent s. Or for the word Knight, pronounced (nit), silent k. Or the word wrinkle, pronounced (rin-kel), silent w.
Marriam-Webster Dictionary, released a “More Commonly Mispronounced Words” article back in October and we thought it would be fun to unpack the words that many of us are mispronouncing on a regular basis! You can view the main list here. Enjoy.
