this post was submitted on 22 Oct 2025
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I read so many fantasy books growing up thinking "draught" rhymed with "aught", instead of just being another spelling of "draft".
...Up until now, I still thought that. That's... significantly less fantastical, and I think a small part of me just died.
I'm so sorry. I assumed I was the last to know.
Fret not! Hang on to "draut" in your mind with the rest of us early readers. And when you need to say draft, just spell it draft. Meanwhile in the privacy of your own head, you can think, "I'm hot, so I'll take a long refreshing draught of this draft beer whilst I stand in the cool draught from the door. " We'll never tell.
In this drought?
Even worse: dialects of English that use draught don't use it for every sense of the word. A breeze getting into a room is a draught, but your first effort at writing something is still a draft
What about a draft beer?
Draught beer (at least in the UK). The board game chequers/checkers uses draughts too. I think the military calling people up would be a draft, but it would more commonly be referred to as conscription
Another good one: gaol = jail. I kept pronouncing it in my head like "gowl".
Australian, I flat out refused to ever use 'gaol' from the moment I first encountered it in school.
Because prison colony, or ...???
🤣
'Epitome' will forever be epi-tome in my head: 'epi' like in EpiPen and tome as in a big heavy book.
And the 'c' in 'indictment' also always gets pronounced when I read the word to myself.
Interesting, I never had an issue with those but the one that got my growing up was awry. I still want to read it as "aw-ree" like "awful" despite knowing it's actually "ah-rye". I also knew the latter as a spoken word but I guess I didn't question how it was spelled for a long time.
Fun, less useful fact in a similar vein: "Antipode" is pronounced "anti-pode" how you'd expect but the plural "Antipodes" is pronounced "an-ti-po-dees"like A Greek word. I still have no idea why that's the case.
Um...it is aw-ree? It's not like a hard W, but it's there.
It's definitely uh-rye
Nope, check the pronunciations here:
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/awry
Wait, what's epitome supposed to be?
eh-PIT-oh-mee
I also said the other way growing up 🙂
What the fuck.
this language is bullshit
I knew that long ago, but it'll remain drawt in my brain, just because....
Yup. First pronunciation to make it to long-term storage, wins forever!
Like hyperbole, it's always "hyper-bowl" to me
Absolutey! It sounds way better, especially since that "should" be how it's pronounced phonetically, anyhow!
I have one that changed on me in college, but it wasn’t a word I’d come across like, a ton?
Clerestory is not pronounced cle-rest-ory as I’d always thought, but is instead pronounced clear-story, because it’s typically windows and no full floor - clear story to let in light or air. Art history course corrected it and I felt so stupid the correction stuck.
Thanks, as a non native english speaker, TIL that I also pronounced it wrong the whole time...
So… that’s also how you say checkers in parts of Europe and both pronunciations are acceptable.
Tic Tack Toe is also called Naughts and Crosses.
What about "drouth"?
I call this being bookish (pronounced bawkish or boo-kish)