FOW-chee, CAW-ma-la. dah-VIN-chee?
America's preeminent infectious disease expert, Anthony Fauci, and its incoming vice president, Kamala Harris, join the Renaissance master himself, Leonardo da Vinci, atop this year's list of most mispronounced words, as compiled by the U.S. Captioning Company, which captions and subtitles real-time events on TV and in courtrooms.
The list released Wednesday identifies the words that proved most challenging for people on television to pronounce this year. The caption company said it surveyed its members to generate the list and was commissioned by Babbel, a language-learning app company.
Todd Ehresmann, a senior linguist at Babbel, said the list, unsurprisingly, reflects a year dominated by politics and the pandemic. "All of these have added some new phrases to our national vocabulary, which may take some practice," he said. Here's how he broke down the proper pronunciations:
Anthony Fauci (AN-thon-nee FOW-chee): Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
Bangtan Sonyeondan (PUNG-tahn SOH-nyun-dahn): The full name of South Korean K-pop band BTS, which translates as "a group of bulletproof boys" or "bulletproof boy scouts."
Giannis Antetokounmpo (YON-nis AHN-de-doh-KOON-boh): Greek basketball player who plays for the Milwaukee Bucks and was named the NBA's Most Valuable Player this year.
Isaias (ees-ah-EE-ahs): Name of powerful hurricane that damaged the East Coast and Caribbean this summer.
