Name: Açaí.
Age: First imported to western countries from South America as freeze-dried pulp in the 1990s.
Appearance: A small, dark-purple berry, or a purée made from them, commonly used in smoothies.
It has bits coming off it. Sorry?
There’s a sort of chin whisker hanging from the “c” and something weird is going on with the dot over the “i”. Those are accents, designed to help you pronounce the word correctly.
They’re no help to me. That could explain why açaí is the most mispronounced word in the UK, often rendered in speech as “ack-eye” or “ah-sigh”.
How should I be saying it? “Ah-sigh-ee”.
Seriously? Açaí is just the tip of the iceberg. It tops a new list of 20 commonly mispronounced words.
What are some others? Quinoa came fourth; gnocchi came fifth; chipotle was seventh.
Are you sure this isn’t a list of Britain’s least-ordered menu items? Not all the words on the list are foods. Segue, often mispronounced “seeg” instead of “segway”, was second. Worcestershire came sixth.
What? Knowing how to pronounce Worcestershire is the only advantage Britons have over the rest of the world. Those days are over.
Who came up with this list? It’s from a recent poll of 2,000 people commissioned by Škoda.
Why would a Czech car company care how I pronounce chipotle? I think it is trying to make a point because Škoda is often mispronounced as “scoder” rather than “shkoda”. And, obviously, it’s a publicity thing.
Does Škoda think it’s good publicity to humiliate a country? Beneath the confusion over imported foodstuffs and the never-ending debate about how to say gif, it does seem that an identity crisis is unfolding.
What do you mean? People in Britain have forgotten that some of their peculiar pronunciations make English a nightmare for foreigners.
Can you give me an example? The word colonel came 15th in the poll. Some British people think it’s pronounced as it is spelt, when it should be pronounced “kernel”, which isn’t how it is spelt.
Ludicrous. Likewise, some of those polled mistakenly pronounced “squirrel” as a single-syllable word to rhyme with “girl”, instead of a two-syllable word that doesn’t rhyme with anything.
I’m sure we can find something it rhymes with. Good luck with your search.
I have one more, slightly embarrassing question … It’s pronounced “chi-poht-lay”.
Do say: “There once was a man from Wirral/ who woke up in bed with a squirrel …”
Don’t say: “Do you have any blueberries?”
