Kamala Harris, Anthony Fauci, Leonardo da Vinci among famous names on 2020’s mispronounced words list

US Vice President-elect Kamala Harris, US health expert Anthony Fauci and Leonardo da Vinci have bagged top positions in the list of most mispronounced words of 2020.

The list, compiled by the US Captioning Company which captions and subtitles real-time events on TV, was released on Wednesday, news agency AP reported.

The list identifies the words that proved most challenging for newsreaders and people on television to pronounce in 2020.

The caption company said it surveyed its members to generate the list, which is now in its fifth year and was commissioned by Babbel, a language-learning app company.

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

Ehresmann breaks down proper pronunciations for the commonly misspoken words of 2020:

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

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 South Korean K-Pop band ‘BTS’, which translates as “a group of bulletproof boys” or “bulletproof boy scouts.”

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

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

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 wildlife park operator ‘Doc’ Antle, who shot to fame in the Netflix documentary series ‘Tiger King.’

1 2 3

Share