The most mispronounced words of 2025

From the election of Zohran Mamdani to the intrigue surrounding the jewel heist at the Louvre keeping up with this years news also left some Americans struggling with pronunciations Thats put both the name of New York Citys incoming mayor and the famed Paris museum on a list of the most mispronounced words in 2025The languagelearning company Babbel and closedcaptioning company The Captioning Group on Thursday released a list of the words that news anchors politicians and other public figures in the US struggled with the most this year giving an overview of the people and topics that had Americans talkingAs Mamdani made his political rise the democratic socialists name was often mangled When he takes office in January the 34yearold will become the citys first Muslim mayor first born in Africa and first of South Asian heritage Babbel said his name which should be pronounced zohRAHN mamDAHnee was most commonly mispronounced when people swapped the M and N in his last nameMamdani has said he doesnt mind if someone tries to pronounce his name correctly and misses but that some mispronounce it intentionally During one mayoral race debate he chided former New York Gov Andrew Cuomos pronunciation of his name telling his opponent The name is Mamdani MAMDANIThe theft of Frances crown jewels from the Louvre in October had many people mispronouncing the name of the worlds mostvisited museum Babbel says the correct pronunciation is LOOVruh with a very soft pronunciation on the ruh which can be a challenge for English speakersA lot of these words come from different languages and so we have to adapt to a sound that weve never made before said Esteban Touma a linguistic and cultural expert at BabbelOther words and names on the list includeAcetaminophen the active ingredient in Tylenol is pronounced uhSEEtuhMIHnuhfen President Donald Trump gave comedians plenty of material when he stumbled over the word as he implored pregnant women to avoid taking the painkiller despite inconclusive evidence about whether too much could be linked to autismAlex Murdaugh the prominent South Carolina attorney who was sentenced to life in prison for the 2021 fatal shootings of his wife and son is pronounced ALick MURdock This year the case was dramatised in a series on HuluMounjaro pronounced mownJAHROH is part of a wave of diabetes and obesity medications that soared in popularity because of the weight people have lost while taking the injectionsSeveral words on the US list including Louvre and Mounjaro also made the list for the UK which was compiled by Babbel and the British Institute of Verbatim Reporters an organisation for subtitling professionals Storm Eowyn which battered Ireland Northern Ireland and Scotland in January put that name on the UK list Babbel says the correct pronunciation is ayOHwin said with a threebeat patternThroughout the year captioners note words that come up over and over as difficult to pronounce spell or are newly emerging Linguists at Babbel also track new pronunciation challenges they seeIn a pronunciation surprise of the year actor Denzel Washington told latenight talk show host Jimmy Kimmel that he was named after his father and their first names are actually pronounced DENzul But he said that became confusing so his mother decided to pronounce her sons name DenZELLEThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever