I no espeaky eengleech...

I’d bet Merriam Webster was quite the prankster. I mean, seriously…there are words in the English language that just sound…well, funny. It’s not that they’re hard to say, or hard to read or spell. It’s that they don’t sound like what they mean. (at least to me...and clearly I should not be used as a gauge for anything, much less the English language)

Take “pundit” for example. (a source of opinion; a critic) If I didn’t know any better, I’d think “pundit” meant something completely different. Used in a sentence I might say, “That Britney Spears is such a big, fat pundit!”

And the list goes on. Following are a few words that I pulled from today’s news headlines.

Uranium – “Did you see the uranium on that girl?”

Penalize – “I don’t penalize on the first date.” (I suppose this could work either way)

Postpartum – “My blind date was so postpartum that I had to fake a seizure to get away.”

Crescendo – “I love crescendo but it gives me gas.”

Gnostic – “I tried to pull off the new leggings trend but they looked gnostic on me so I put on my fat-jeans instead.”

Quintet – “I thought I had a quintet infection but it turned out to be cramps.”