friday five on saturday

I love words, and reading, and have (it seems, anyway) ALWAYS been a big reader with a big vocabulary. So this friday five is right up my alley!

Five words I learned through reading but had/have no idea how to pronounce:

1. inevitable. I can't even tell you how long I thought this was pronounced with a long I and stress on the "vit"--as in in-eh-VITE-uh-ble. as far as phonetic rules go, that would so be right....but then again, this is English so never mind. I still remember the day my friend Rachel corrected this for me (as we were walking across the softball fields from class at YVC to her car for lunch.) I thought I had won the argument on this until I looked it up in a dictionary later. dang.

2. slough. As in Pilgrim's Progress and the "Slough of Despond." I know it's not the same as "to slough off" but is it "slew" (like the past tense of slay?) or is it something else entirely? (okay, I totally just looked this up and it IS in fact pronounced "sloo"--so there.)

3. azure. You know, like blue? where does the stress even go on this word? and is it a pure z or a zh? weird foreign words. ;-) (so kidding...about the mocking of foreign words, I mean, not about not knowing where the accent is...)

4. gaol. like prison. good thing we don't really talk like that anymore...

5. hmm, I actually can't think of a fifth one. My memory must be fading...or my use of the dictionary.com's pronunciation guide has removed this problem? (I guess I could go look up some of those other words there....or not.) :-)