Hearing Americans pronounce the French loanword 'niche' as 'nitch' instead of 'neesh' is cringe-inducing.
English pronunciation is just kind of a mess (especially in the US). It is one of the few languages where highly educated mature people are regularly unsure of how to pronounce a word in their own language or where there is no agreed upon 'non-dialect'/standard pronunciation.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglosphere#/media/File:Anglos...
Which is worse, being unable to correctly pronounce a word (but still being close enough to be understandable) or being completely unable to write a word?
One that still gets me personally is "hyperbole"--I know how it's pronounced but when I read it, I still say "hyper-bowl" in my head more often than not. I don't think I've ever made the mistake while reading out loud to someone yet, but it will likely happen some day and when it does I will feel very stupid.
Well, here you go: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/niche#did-you-kno...
> I still say "hyper-bowl" in my head more often than not.
Same. This is where diacritics would fix the problem: Hyperbolé. Although hyperbolee would also work, of course.