I pronounced hyperbole as it is spelled “hyper bowl” for decades and nobody corrected me! It wasn’t until I finally saw someone say it in a TV show that I realized the error of my ways. Now I stumble over the word every time I try to say it because I have decades of habit to overcome. Sometimes when I think I might need to say it, I start mouthing it ahead of time so that I get it right on the first try. There are at least a dozen other words like this for me, and I’m sure dozens more that I’m not even aware of.
Edit: for those of you who have never heard it pronounced, hyperbole is pronounced “high-per-buh-lee”.
Generally it kind of retains the features of the pronunciation of the language it was borrowed from. In this case Greek, which generally pronounces every vowel in a word. Similar to Aphrodite (which one would expect to be pronounced Afro-dight).
I know that doesn’t help much unless you have already built a guide in your head about how words of a certain language are pronounced and can guess what language that word originates from. You might need to consult a dictionary to find out what language it was borrowed from, at which point you’ll also see the pronunciation.
Someone else replied and gave a better phonetic spelling of it. I updated mine too. “Hy-per-buh-lee”.
What’s funny is the first time I heard it, I knew immediately what it was, but I wasn’t sure if that was the correct pronunciation, or if the speaker was being all high-born fancy-pants, so I had to ask my wife. English isn’t even her first language and she knows everything about it. She’s 10x better at speaking and writing English than I am. I do have other talents though! I think…
I pronounced hyperbole as it is spelled “hyper bowl” for decades and nobody corrected me! It wasn’t until I finally saw someone say it in a TV show that I realized the error of my ways. Now I stumble over the word every time I try to say it because I have decades of habit to overcome. Sometimes when I think I might need to say it, I start mouthing it ahead of time so that I get it right on the first try. There are at least a dozen other words like this for me, and I’m sure dozens more that I’m not even aware of.
Edit: for those of you who have never heard it pronounced, hyperbole is pronounced “high-per-buh-lee”.
Generally it kind of retains the features of the pronunciation of the language it was borrowed from. In this case Greek, which generally pronounces every vowel in a word. Similar to Aphrodite (which one would expect to be pronounced Afro-dight).
I know that doesn’t help much unless you have already built a guide in your head about how words of a certain language are pronounced and can guess what language that word originates from. You might need to consult a dictionary to find out what language it was borrowed from, at which point you’ll also see the pronunciation.
This one is particularly annoying because of Hyperbolic, which is pronounced Hy-per-bol-ic. Which just makes Hy-per-bole seem more valid…
Same here. Hyper bowl. Until i heard it on TV.
I just want to suggest that your pronunciation at the end of your message is not quite right still.
Wouldn’t it be closer to say “hi-per-ber-lee”? Or am i still getting it wrong?
Someone else replied and gave a better phonetic spelling of it. I updated mine too. “Hy-per-buh-lee”.
What’s funny is the first time I heard it, I knew immediately what it was, but I wasn’t sure if that was the correct pronunciation, or if the speaker was being all high-born fancy-pants, so I had to ask my wife. English isn’t even her first language and she knows everything about it. She’s 10x better at speaking and writing English than I am. I do have other talents though! I think…
deleted by creator
Hy-per-buh-lee
Yours makes more phonetic sense! I will update mine.
I’m the same vein, epitome.
I still pronounce that wrong in my head when I read it.
I thought Harry Potter’s friend was pronounced her-mee-ohn for the first three books.
The Hyperb Owl, the less known relative of the Superb Owl.