Have You Been Tricked by ‘Misles’? Unraveling the Linguistic Mysteries of Frequently Mispronounced Terms

Back in November 1991, Eric Wolfe shared a post in the Usenet group rec.arts.books about the word misled, which had come up in an earlier discussion. Wolfe had recently discovered that it was the past tense of the verb mislead, pronounced “miss-LED.” However, for nearly two decades, he had mistakenly read it as “MY-zuld,” thinking it was the past tense of a nonexistent verb, misle.

He concluded his admission by asking, “Has anyone else gone through something similar?”

Indeed, they had. One example involved bewilderment over why a certain garment wasn’t referred to as a “cloe”; another focused on the sudden realization that policy wasn’t pronounced “police-y.” A user admitted to believing that mystery novels were rated for quality using the “whod” unit. Others pointed to pop culture nods to the misled confusion, such as its mention in Anne Tyler’s 1985 novel The Accidental Tourist and the BBC’s 1975 TV adaptation of Richard Llewellyn’s How Green Was My Valley.

The discussion quickly shifted to a more relevant Usenet group, alt.usage.english, where misled and similar pronunciation errors became a frequent subject. In June 1997, Donna Richoux proposed labeling them as “misles.” She believed the term was “fittingly tricky to pronounce,” especially since users had shared mispronunciations like “MY-zuld,” “mizzled” (similar to grizzled), and even “miled” (akin to isle). Interestingly, misle already existed as a nonstandard spelling of the verb mizzle, meaning either “to drizzle” or “to confuse, muddle, mystify,” according to the Oxford English Dictionary. However, Richoux’s nominalized version was a fresh take, and it gained traction. 

Breaking It Down

Defining what constitutes a misle remains a topic of discussion. “Like many linguistic terms (such as ‘word’), crafting a precise definition isn’t straightforward,” Beatrice Santorini, a senior fellow in the University of Pennsylvania’s linguistics department, explains to Mytour.

Many frequently mentioned misles share a common trait: the mispronunciation stems from incorrectly dividing the word's components. For example, you might assume awry combines aw- (as in awful and awesome) and -ry (like scary and furry), leading you to mispronounce it as “AWE-ree.” However, it’s actually “a+wry,” resulting in the correct pronunciation “uh-RYE.” Similarly, biopic appears to consist of the prefix bi- and the suffix -opic, prompting the mispronunciation “bye-AH-pic,” akin to myopic. But biopic is a blend of “bio+pic,” short for biographical picture—hence, “BYE-oh-pick.”

At times, the confusion arises more from phonetics than morphology. For instance, spotting the -th- in goatherd might lead you to say “GOATH-erd” before realizing it’s a combination of goat and herd. Similarly, deicer might be pronounced as “DICE-er” instead of “de-ICE-er” because the -ei- resembles words like height and feisty. 

However, the root of the misunderstanding isn’t always obvious. Consider misled, the word that sparked this discussion. Its complexity may stem from our tendency to downplay -led in past-tense verbs such as hassled, titled, and puzzled. Santorini offers another perspective: “I believe the prefix mis being significantly longer than the stem led contributes to the misanalysis,” she explains.

The World of Misles

This isn’t to say that a mispronunciation must involve incorrect word division to qualify as a misle; after all, misle is an informal category without a strict definition. One could argue that any word with ambiguous spelling falls under this umbrella. In that case, terms like boatswain (pronounced “BO-sun”) and colonel (“KER-nul,” similar to kernel), which look nothing like they sound, would fit. Foreign loanwords like rendezvous, often misread as “REN-dez-voos” by younger readers, could also be included. 

The term misles has also been employed as a direct equivalent to book words—terms often mispronounced because they’re usually read before being heard. “In my view, the two concepts are quite distinct,” Santorini notes. “For me, book words are those outside everyday speech, whether misanalyzed or not. Misles, by nature, are misanalyzed but not necessarily obscure. However, it’s likely that book words are more prone to misanalysis.”

Many misles are indeed part of our daily vocabulary: Mother has been misread as “MOTH-er” (implying someone who deals with moths), and apply as “apple-y.” Santorini recently encountered a misle in her native German: “The other day, I misparsed ‘be-inhalt-en’ (to contain) as ‘bein-halten’ (to leg-hold, a non-existent verb), even though the correct verb is quite common.”

If even linguists can fall prey to misles, there’s no shame in being tripped up by one. In fact, it can be quite amusing. Below, explore 10 of our favorite misles, many sourced from a list Richoux created in alt.usage.english back in 2002.

1. Barfly

A barfly—a blend of bar and fly—refers to someone who frequents bars. However, it’s often misread as “BARF-lee” (as if combining barf and ly), which could mistakenly imply something repulsive.

2. Bedraggled

Bedraggled doesn’t mean “bed+raggled.” It’s derived from “be+draggled,” originating from a verb that describes wetting clothing or fabric until it hangs limp and damp, as defined by the Oxford English Dictionary.

3. Codeveloper

Codeveloper is correctly split as “co+developer,” but it’s often misread as “code+veloper”—implying someone who “velops” code, which doesn’t exist.

4. Coworker

Similarly, coworker has been misinterpreted as “cow+orker”—someone who “orks” cows.

5. Draught

Draught appears as though it should rhyme with taught and caught, but it’s actually pronounced just like draft.

6. Epitome

Many readers have discovered the hard way that epitome is pronounced “eh-PIH-tuh-mee,” not “EP-ih-tohm.”

7. Infrared

It’s “infra+red,” not “in+frared,” so the correct pronunciation is “IN-fruh-red.”

8. Sidereal

Sidereal, which means “starlike,” is pronounced “sigh-DEER-ee-ull,” similar to cereal and ethereal. It’s not “side+real.”

9. Underfed

Underfed—meaning “under+fed”—has been misread as “un+derfed,” implying “not derfed,” which isn’t a real term. (Interestingly, derf was once a medieval noun for “trouble” and an adjective meaning “bold” or “audacious.” It also appeared as a fake number in the Nickelodeon show iCarly.)

10. Warplane

It’s a war plane, not a warp lane.

*This article was updated to clarify that sidereal is pronounced “sigh-DEER-ee-ull,” with a long i, not “sid-EER-ee-ull” with a short one.