A recent report identified the words Ohio residents most commonly struggle to pronounce, as well as the most mispronounced words in each state.
Unscramblerer.com, an online tool for spelling games such as Scrabble, analyzed Google search data from January through October. The company reviewed searches containing phrases like “how do you pronounce” and “how to pronounce” to determine the most mispronounced word in each state.
In Ohio, the study found that “paczki” is the word residents have the most difficulty pronouncing. Paczki, pronounced POONCH-kee, is a traditional Polish doughnut. The same word was also named the most mispronounced in Indiana, Michigan and Wisconsin.
Nationally, “gyro” was the most mispronounced word, according to the report, with 312,000 searches. The top 10 mispronounced words in the United States and their pronunciations are:
1. Gyro (312,000 searches) – YEE-roh
2. Worcestershire sauce (300,000 searches) – WUSS-ter-sheer
3. Acai (192,000 searches) – ah-SIGH-ee
4. Qatar (180,000 searches) – KAH-tar
5. Dachshund (156,000 searches) – DAKS-hund
6. Niche (142,000 searches) – NEESH
7. Aoife (84,000 searches) – EE-fah
8. Charcuterie (72,000 searches) – shar-KOO-tuh-ree
9. Paczki (36,000 searches) – POONCH-kee
10. Primeval (26,000 searches) – pry-MEE-vul
According to the University of Oxford, English spelling matches pronunciation about 75 percent of the time. Unscramblerer.com also cited a Cambridge University survey indicating that more than 60 percent of English speakers regularly mispronounce at least one word.