Ask HN: Words that took you decades to learn you were saying wrong

1 pointdmbche5 comments

I just learned that "chock-full" is not written "chalk-full" which is assumed metaphorically meant it was filled with chalk - since it's powdery, I assumed if it's filled with it there's no room for anything else.

Any other examples? I just enjoy the feeling of learning something this simple.

View on HN

It's the bone-apple-tea problem! This isn't a flex but I read a lot of books when I was young so I saw most phrases and words in books before I heard them or read them in internet posts. But sometimes I had the opposite problem where I knew how some words or phrases were spelled but I pronounced them wrong!

Two that I've seen that made me laugh were "escape goat" for "scapegoat" and "water under the fridge" for "water under the bridge", I use these malaprops intentionally now.

I mean "scapegoat" is a shortening of "escape goat" so probably at some point in history there were grammar pedants complaining about kids these days saying scapegoat instead of escape goat.

> The English scapegoat is a compound of the archaic verb scape, which means "escape," and goat

TIL

Thigh food

Reply on news.ycombinator.com