Myzled

Excerpt from a letter Dorothy Parker wrote to Seward Collins while she was in New York Presbyterian Hospital. This quote exemplifies Parker's wit and acerbic tone, particularly her exasperation with pretension and affectation: 

“And then there is the nurse who tells me she is afraid she is an incorrigible flirt, but somehow can't help it. She also pronounces ‘picturesque’ picture-skew, and ‘unique’ un-i-kew, and it is amazing how often she manages to introduce these words into her conversation, leading the laughter herself. Also, when she leaves the room she says, ‘see you anon.’ I have not shot her yet. Maybe Monday.” — Dorothy Parker -- 

I was an early and avid reader. Like many who learn words through books rather than conversation, I picked up vocabulary in context and often got the pronunciation wrong. My worst case: I first encountered misled in a book describing deceit and, in my internal monologue, pronounced it “myzled”—by analogy with “sly.”

Years later, hearing someone say misled aloud in a different context—one of innocent mistake—I assumed it was a different word altogether, spelled the same, but less severe in meaning. It took embarrassingly long to realize they were the same word. I think it finally clicked only because I caught someone else making a similar linguistic stumble. So, next time you hear someone mispronounce a word, don’t condescend. Odds are they learned it from reading, likely at a young age, and if they do it often, it probably means they read more than you do. Also, I now intentionally mispronounce words for fun. It made me a top speller. And yes, in our household, misled is still “myzled”—but only when it involves deliberate deception. That distinction stays.