The Most Mispronounced Words of 2020 in America

Fauci, Kamala … Da Vinci?

America’s leading infectious disease expert Anthony Fauci and his incoming Vice President Kamala Harris join Renaissance master Leonardo da Vinci at the top of this year’s list of most mispronounced words, as per compiled by the US Captioning Company, including captioning and captioning events in real time on television and in court.

The list released Wednesday identifies the words that were found to be the most challenging for news readers and people on television to pronounce this year.

The captioning company said it surveyed its members to generate the list, which is now in its fifth year and commissioned by Babbel, a language learning apps company headquartered in Berlin and New York.

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Todd Ehresmann, a senior linguist at Babbel, said the list unsurprisingly reflects a year dominated by presidential politics and the coronavirus pandemic.

“All of these have added some new phrases to our national vocabulary, which may take some practice,” he said.

Here’s how Ehresmann broke down the proper pronunciations for commonly mispronounced words:

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 the South Korean K-Pop band ‘BTS’, which translates to “a bulletproof boy group” or “boy scouts to Bullet proof”.

Giannis Antetokounmpo (YON-nis AHN-de-doh-KOON-boh): Greek basketball player who plays for the Milwaukee Bucks and was named the ‘Most Valuable Player’ in the NBA this year.

Isias (ees-ah-EE-ahs): The name given to a powerful hurricane that caused significant damage to the East Coast and the Caribbean this summer.

Kamala Harris: Vice President-Elect. The Associated Press has reported that Harris’s name is pronounced “KAH’-mah-lah,” or, as he explains in his biography, “‘comma-la’, like the punctuation mark.”

Leonardo da Vinci (lee-oh-NAR-doe dah-VIN-chee): the Italian painter, architect and engineer who created the ‘Mona Lisa’. A mispronunciation of his name was the subject of a viral meme on social media this year.

Mahamayavi Bhagavan Antle (mu-HAH-muh-yaw-vee bag-AH-wahn ANT-uhl): the full name of the wildlife park operator ‘Doc’ Antle, who rose to fame in the Netflix documentary series’ Tiger King ‘.

Nevada (nev-ADD-ah): Las Vegas family home that played a central role in the presidential election.

X Æ A-Xii (EX-aye-eye): the name given by business magnate Elon Musk and musician Grimes to their first child born in May. The pronunciation is according to Grimes.

Yosemite (YOH-sem-it-ee) – The famous national park in California’s Sierra Nevada Mountains, was notably mispronounced by President Trump in August.