My subscription to Life expired, but I still have a subscription to Mad.

Monday, March 12, 2007

some things I know are wrong

I learned something new today: the pronunciation of the word "zine."

I dunno about you, but I learn how to pronounce new words by osmosis. I never look up a new word in a dictionary to learn how to pronounce it, instead I hang around and wait for someone else to use the word, then I file their pronunciation in that great filing system just north of my mouth.

I probably learned the word "zine" 40 to 45 years ago. Back then, I assumed it was pronounced with a long I and rhymed with "sign." I just learned today that the I in "zine" is pronounced as a long E, like the word "magazine" without the "maga." Which makes sense since a zine is basically a type of magazine.

Evidently, I have been hanging around with the wrong crowd for 45 years because I have never heard "zine" pronounced correctly. Or maybe I did, but didn't recognize it because the correct pronunciation was so foreign from my incorrect pronunciation of the word.

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