Me fail english, that's unpossible!

[hells_half_acre]

I just learnt how to spell "succumb." All these years, I have evidently never had to put that word to paper/typing-program. I always pronounced it "surcome"...imagine my surprise when there wasn't an R in it at all!

In all fairness, I hardly pronounce my Rs, so my pronunciation was actually THAT far off.

Did I mention that I have a Masters? (And also that many of my professors thought I should go on to do a PhD?)

Yup, you really do learn something new everyday...sometimes even things you thought you already knew.


 

Comments

[auriliawestlake.livejournal.com]

I may not have a degree (I loathed the whole college-thing and withdrew between my sophomore and junior years), but I like to think I know a thing or two about English - and to this day, I have to double-check that I've spelled 'these' correctly when not using something with a spell-checker. I tend to put the Es together in the middle ('thees' or sometimes 'theese' if I'm really tired). And don't fret too much about the whole pronunciation thing. I've got a whole host of words that I know what they are and how to use/spell them that I'm not real clear on the pronunciation. It comes from learning the vast majority of one's vocabulary solely from reading.

[hells-half-acre.livejournal.com]

It took me until I was around 12 or 13 to figure out how to spell "else"...four letters and I kept having to write them out in a couple of combinations until I found the one that looked right. :-P

It occurred to me this morning, that succumb in the simple past would be succumbed...meanwhile, my whole life I've been treating it as the verb "to come" with a prefix, which means that my whole life I've been saying something along the lines of "surcame" for the simple past!

Obviously, I have never put it in writing before, and it's not a word that I use often...but I'm still surprised no one has ever corrected me. Crazy!

My best friend leant English from reading too. He used to say "Albeit" as "Al-bite" (which, I admit, makes much more sense). Again, not a word that comes up often in conversation.