I found out the other night that I have been saying a word wrong

[lost-in-nj]

for years.....well actually since I read it for the first time....
its not that I really say it, but I read it allot...

I did say it on Thanksgiving and my daughter was hysterical....
she said thats not how you pronounce it....
this is how...

well the word is Hyperbole and I pronounced it HYPER-BOIL... an honest mistake?? right?? :shrug: :shrug:
well its pronounced HY-PER-BO-LEE....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperbole

Is there a word you have mispronounced for a really long time???
and how did you say this word...??

thanks

lost

:hi: :hi:

[CaliforniaPeggy]

1. My dear lost...

Aw, sweetie...

Don't feel bad...

We love you just the way you are, you know! :loveya: :hug:


I can't think of any word I've mispronounced for a long time...:shrug:

My family was big on correcting any such mispronunciations!

[SeattleGirl]

2. I also misprounced that word for quite awhile, until I heard someone else

say it. Then I looked it up (yeah, could have done that before, but :shrug: ).

I pronounced it HYPER-BOLL.

Live and learn, right?

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

3. A former neighbor always pronounced the flower "anemone"

as "ANN-a-moan" instead of the correct way, "ann-EM-o-nee." Nobody had the heart to correct her. I wasn't sure about "hegemony" for a long time, thinking the accent was on the first syllable rather than the second, but it's a word you don't frequently use in conversation so I was able to avoid it altogether.

[DS1]

14. i have a co-worker who pronounced gnome as

geh - noam - eee

yes that's a hard g

[Bossy Monkey]

73. Couldn't have been a hardcore Dashiell Hammett fan I don't suppose

There's a character in The Thin Man whom Nick and Nora refer to in just this way. I mean, it just doesn't seem like a word that you'd mispronounce accidentally.

[Whisp]

18. analogy.

a friend pronounced it as ANNA-LOGGY.

[Kali]

62. that is one for me too

hegemony

[CTyankee]

82. right you are on "hegemony."

I thought it was HEDGE EH MOANY. I found out just a few years ago (from a prof in a political science grad course) that it is pronounced HEDGE JEMMINY. But if you actually say it to people they don't know what you're talking about.

[trof]

4. CAT-ass-troaf

The first time I saw 'catastrophe' in print.

[Audio_Al]

90. At age 13, my wife said "ARE-KEE-AY-ICK" in a speech contest.

The teacher and others laughed at her. She was mortified.

The word was "archaeic" -- or the more modern spelling "archaic," meaning "ancient and out of date."

Since then, she swears she has never mispronounced anything.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

5. Just thought of another one: synecdoche.

I was sure it was pronounced "SIN-ek-dosh," but since it's an obscure academic term I never had to say it out loud; but now I know it's pronounced "sin-EK-do-kee" so if I ever do have to use it in a conversation I'm safe. *whew* That was a close one.

[CTyankee]

83. I learned early on about "Antigone." I played her in summer stock when I was

young. I had thought it was pronounced ANTI GONE. But of course I learned fast that it was An TIG onee.

Most of the words we all seem to be having trouble with are of Greek origin.

BTW, how do you pronounce Demeter, as in the Greek goddess of fertility?

[Lautremont]

100. De (as in "demented") Me (as in "you and me") Ter (as in Terwilliger).

[edbermac]

6. I used to mispronounce the phrase 'Grand Prix'

Boy, was I embarrassed. :blush:

[barb162]

34. Actually if you anglicize both words, it's not mispronounced

Paris is not mispronounced if you say pear-is

[edbermac]

61. Uh, I pronounced it as 'PRICKS'

:evilgrin:

[trof]

7. Miz t. has some weird pronunciations.

I think it's her Texas-Cajun upbringing.
I call it 'lazy-mouth'.

cott-tail = cocktail
sheft = chef

[SPKrazy]

8. I grew up being corrected all the time

an english teacher and a journalism teacher for parents

:hug:

I'm sure I still say things wrong sometimes,

:hi:

no biggie

One that comes to mind, is that I used to get scolded for saying "snuck", well now it's an accepted word, but apparently it wasn't then and I was reminded of it all the time.

mispronunciations... well, apparently I say "insurance" wrong for some people i say it like "in- surance", but some people say "in-sur-ance" with the emphasis on the "sur" part ;)

:hug:

[BarenakedLady]

9. Quinoa

It said it like kwin-o-ah and it's keen-wa

[Cabcere]

13. I guess I've been saying that one the wrong way, too!

:hi: Thanks for the info, BnL.

[Gormy Cuss]

39. That's a tough one.

I had the classic experience of asking a clerk at the coop for the keenwa and he said they didn't stock it, until I pointed to the kwin-o-ah bin. :)

[libodem]

10. My mom corrected me on har-bringer

it's har-bin-ger. What a dork that's how I always read it. You know those har-'bringers' of joy, I thought they were bringing.:P

[bigwillq]

11. How did you ever not know that??!?!

:P :)

[DS1]

12. pseudo

pseudo like a suede jacket


suedo


goddamnit

[last_texas_dem]

117. I always read that one wrong

I'm not sure if I ever mispronounced it out loud, but I know I read it as sway-doe for years before hearing it pronounced and realizing that I was reading it incorrectly.

[lost-in-nj]

15. These are GREAT stories!!!!!!!!!!!

I am so glad that I am not the only one......


ppfffffffft


lost
:bounce:

[Xipe Totec]

16. Hy-PER-bo-lee

with the emphasis on the second syllable.

The word I mispronounced for a long time is

Prosciutto

I thought it was - Pro-SQUEE-toe

instead, it's pro-SHOOT-toe.

:blush:

[MnFats]

17. i used to mispronounce "minutia" until this woman I was trying to impress cracked up.

which certainly sucked.

but remember, we have a PRESIDENT who refuses to pronounce "nuclear" correctly.

[Xipe Totec]

19. Which is the wrong, and which is the right pronunciation?

:scared:

[MnFats]

22. Jeesuz! Turns out I can't even SPELL "Minutiae" I'm not even trying to pronounce it..

my brain has locked up...

[Xipe Totec]

24. ROFL!

You know, I didn't even notice the misspelling?

I think I'm two beers and one glass of wine over the edge...


:rofl:

[marzipanni]

75. Don't sweat the small stuff

It depends on if you're talking about one minutia or a bunch of minutiae. ;)

[Maraya1969]

118. Ever since he said it the wrong way I end up questioning myself

when I use the word. I hate that rat bastard.

It is NUU KLEE ER

He says it NUU CUE LAR

[Xipe Totec]

119. A quick way to remember it:

It's NEW-CLEAR, not NEW-KILLER

[datasuspect]

20. george berkeley is pronounced george "bark-lee"

an oxford trained professor corrected my pronunciation.

[GreenPartyVoter]

21. Om-nee-sy-ant Said it in a lit class. Prof corrected me and everyone

else laughed. :blush:

[Xipe Totec]

26. All knowing?

Yes, that would be deliciously ironic!

:rofl:

[Lil Missy]

23. I had a boss that couldn't pronounce "ambulance". And this was a medical related field!

He always pronounced ambulance as "am-blee-ence". Drove everyone insane!

I also have a relative that cannot pronounce "theater". She always says "thee-de-er". But she's never been the brightest bulb on the tree, and is also very uneducated, uninformed, and a hard core Republican. So I've never set my expectations too high with her anyway.

[triguy46]

25. Not me, of course, but wife used to say "Mack-a-ber" for macabre.

[Common Sense Party]

67. I said Macabre much the same way in high school.

Someone corrected me way back then, thankfully.

[datasuspect]

27. when i was a freshman, i found out david hume was pronounced "david home"

[Common Sense Party]

69. Not according to Monty Python, and they're an unassailable source.

David Hume
Could out-consume...

They rhyme.

[Oeditpus Rex]

114. But the next line (if quoting the album version)

is "Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel," and they pronounce it "FRYd-rick." Is that proper?

For that matter, does "Kant" rhyme with "pissant" or is it more like the way Jim Backus said "I cahn't see!" before he got knocked out in the airplane with Buddy Hackett and Mickey Rooney in "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World"?

And what about all the kids who have heads filled with Cartesian dualism? :shrug:

[SPKrazy]

28. sta-stis-tics

kills me

always some politician standing up and saying "we got stastistics that prove us right" :rofl:


that one

makes

me

crazy :crazy:

(short trip)

[Fire Walk With Me]

29. In high school, I called it "Hyper-Bole".

Who among us was born perfect? Learning lasts forever. It would be boring otherwise.

[DarkTirade]

31. I did that one too.

First time I ever saw the word was in the adventure game Space Quest IV, when you're in a time machine. The series is a spoof on various sci-fi, and IV has to do with time travel. Whenever you turn on the time machine, it gives this long spiel about 'time-space shifting and the engine revving up with hyperbolic hyperbole'. Then if you typed in the coordinates right, you go where you want to go. If you didn't, the engine just kinda goes putt-putt and dies. :P

If only we'd had a CD-ROM drive at the time, we could have gotten the version that had a voice-over instead of just text... then I wouldn't have pronounced the word wrong for so damn long.

[jonnyblitz]

30. I assumed "facade" was pronounced FAY KADE when I read it.

when I heard the word pronounced I wasn't aware it was the same word I read when I saw it in print(if that makes sense).

[skygazer]

44. My father made the same assumption

Then went to a cocktail party and used the damn word ALL NIGHT trying to impress everyone. My step-mother finally heard him pontificating to a group and explaining that something or other was "..all a fay-kade.."

Personally, I rather enjoyed hearing about my dad making an idiot of himself. :P

[krispos42]

65. Oh, good, it's not just me then. Fah-kade. Oopsie.

I didn't realize that "chic" rhymed with "greek" until I saw it on a barbeque apron on "Queer Eye".

I also never realized that "hyperbola" and "hyperbole" were two different words until I looked up "hyperbole" one day. And then I went "aaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh".

[yellowdogintexas]

32. reminds me of the waitress who referred to a certain popular rose wine as Mat e ose

pronounced matteose

or a certain popular salad dressing as "wrench"


a certain small square hamburger familiar to the Southeastern states is pronounced krystual

but caramel is carmel

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

35. And now I'm reminded of the waitress who offered us

some vin-AY-gret salad dressing. And another who brought us a "craft" of wine.

[Tektonik]

33. I mispronounced La Jolla the first time I say the name of the city

:( sort of embarrassing when it happens among classmates who were all applying to a bunch of UC's, and UCSD being one of them.

[Digit]

40. I lived in San Diego for a couple of years and did the same thing.

Nobody ever corrected me, people would just smile. :-)

I also mispronounced El Cajon, of course.

[Lethe]

53. i used to mispronounce it because Bugs Bunny did in the cartoons

you know, when he would come up from the moving rabbit hole and be lost on his way to somewhere.....one of the episodes he says La Jolla like it rhymes with "my cola"

anyways i saw that as a kid and pronounced it like for 28 years until i was corrected by someone from San Diego.

:)

[trof]

71. Funny La Jolla story:

One of my daughter's friends was driving to her wedding in La Jolla from L.A.

My daughter gave her directions including "take the La Jolla exit".
About an hour past the time she was to arrive, we got a phone call.

"I'm at the Mexican border. Missed the Lahoya exit somehow. How do I get there from here?"
"How could you miss the exit? There are huge signs."
"Um...how do you spell Lahoya?"
"L-A-J-O-L-L-A"
"Ohhhhhhhhhh."

[Maraya1969]

120. So I suppose she was late to her own wedding? That is too funny!

[lost-in-nj]

36. OMG

this thread is
precious!!!!!!
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/precious#Pronunciation

just in case!!!!!

THANKS DU!!!!!!!!!!

:pals: :pals: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

lost

[spacelady]

37. Scourge - I proclaimed to my overly correct brother that

computers were a SKORJ on mankind. He laughed and said "do you mean SKERJ?" kinda took the wind out of my sails. I still have to think hard before saying it, so I am finding a different word to use.

[SPKrazy]

38. just say they fucked things up

and in the future they became sentient and you saw the damned movie terminator and know what happened :P

skerg

skorg

how about

make up words?

:rofl:


:hug:

:hi: spacelady!!!

[spacelady]

45. Hi Southpawkicker!! That ol' brother of mine can be a bit

of a skerg himself. That's a great idea to make up a word and throw it out there with supreme conflatulence just to stir up some assternicance.

You always make me smile!:)

[SPKrazy]

46. smirkumstantial evidence

:D

:hi:

[yardwork]

41. I can beat that easily. I mispronounce everything. Only recently learned to say "fiery" correctly.

I thought it was "fee-ry" all these years.

[GoddessOfGuinness]

42. My mom picked up some of her mom's Boston accent....

So she listened to the symphony awkestra and order seafood Nawfuck for years until I asked her why she pronounced those words differently from the way they were spelled. She still says Nawfuck. :rofl:

[CreekDog]

43. Any of you people been to Warshington?

I never understood that mispronunciation.

[lost-in-nj]

47. They use

hangkers in Washington...
but thats regional!!!!

yeah.. but when my Mom went out there they kept making her say

coffee...!!!!!!!!!!!!

they knew she was from Jersey!!!!!


lost

[SPKrazy]

48. I say coffee the right way

is there a wrong way to say it?

:shrug:


:rofl:


:hi:

;)

[Common Sense Party]

68. I always thought it was a Midwestern thing.

My Iowa mom still says Warshington and warshing machine.

Then Newt Gingrich showed up saying the same thing, and he's from Georgia, so it can't be that.

[southpaw]

74. When you refer to Warshington...

are you talking about the one located to the east or to the west of ChiCARgo?

[lost-in-nj]

81. Washington State

n/t


lost

[hedgehog]

49. How about that card game, pi- no -k ol

not to be confused with pinochle

[lost-in-nj]

54. nuh-huh

PEE-NUCK-EL

thats it,,,,


lost

[lligrd]

50. Im-PO-Tent

I had only read it for years and never had occasion to use it. The first time I did everybody laughed. I still have to stop and think be for saying it.

[deadparrot]

51. Milk.

For most of my life, I've pronounced it "melk." Regional dialect, I guess, but I've tried to pronounce it correctly (rhyming with "silk") for several years now. Still, it was an adjustment.

[WinkyDink]

59. Me, too! Eastern PA., here! (I used to wonder, as a kid, why the "i" was pronounced as an "e"! DUH!)

[Silver Swan]

52. Don't feel bad

My embarrassing mistake was abyss.

I called it AB-ess.

Even though I knew the correct pronunciation of abysmal.

[huskerlaw]

55. Papyrus...

The store. I saw it for the first time when I was about 16, didn't know it was a paper store.

My comment? "What is a pappy-roos?"

I still call it that, just because it's funny. That, and my family has NEVER let me forget it.

[gmoney]

56. As a kid I saw the word "deny" in a Peanuts strip...

And read it as "denny" I guess because there was a kid in my class named Denny, but that made no sense. Every time I'd see that stupid cartoon, I wouldn't know what the hell it meant.

[gmoney]

57. sort of knew a guy in college whose favorite movie was...

"Ar-MADGE-eh-don Now" -- the well-known Coppola/Marlon Brando film. (This was many years before the Bruce Willis/Ben Affleck epic)

Not only did he mispronounce armageddon wrong, he got the name of the fucking movie wrong.

[WinkyDink]

58. I once said "GY-ro", whereupon my friend laughed and said, "It's 'hyero'!"

[ElizabethDC]

98. Most people seem to pronounce that one wrong

I had a friend who continued to pronounce it GY-ro even after I corrected her. So I've just given up on correcting people on it. :)

[krispos42]

116. it's because the Greeks spell it like "gyroscope"

or gyro (jy-row) for short.



I get thrown off, too... :-)

[Godhumor]

60. I was a social studies teacher who had real trouble with some of the ancient names

Thankfully, an AP certification course teacher gave me a link to a webpage with audio clips of how to promounce every name relevant to AP World History.


I will also never, ever admit to how I originally pronounced lingerie in front of friends when I was a young-un.

[Kali]

63. great thread!

another thing I do is pronounce odd words correctly in my head when reading, but blow it totally trying to speak.

[cuke]

64. omnipotent and impotent

omni-poe-tent and im-poe-tent (sounds like important)

[lligrd]

109. LOL I Forgot Om-nee-PO-tent

I always did, and still do, say both of them wrong.

[pokerfan]

66. Short-lived

The pronunciation (-lvd) is etymologically correct since the compound is derived from the noun life, rather than from the verb live. But the pronunciation (-lvd) is by now so common that it cannot be considered an error. In the most recent survey 43 percent of the Usage Panel preferred (-lvd), 39 percent preferred (-lvd), and 18 percent found both pronunciations equally acceptable.

[I Have A Dream]

70. When I was young (early teens), I mispronounced the word "misled' in my head.

I heard it with a long i and as one syllable. I knew that there was the word misled and what it meant and how it was actually pronounced, but I always read the actual word as another word which meant something similar to the word misled. Luckily, I never actually mispronounced it out loud though.

At some point in my early teens, it dawned on me that the two words were the same word and what the actual pronunciation was. :think:

[Dora]

79. You too!

I have the same mispronunciation. For years "misled" was "miled" in my head. Always dreaded seeing it in text I was supposed to read aloud.

[CTyankee]

85. I still catch myself reading "misled" as "mizzled" and "miniseries" as

"mi NI sery."

[raccoon]

72. Don't feel bad, I used to think it was hyper-bowl.

I used to have a college roommate who pronounced Protestant as "proTEST--ent."

[HuffleClaw]

76. Hermione = Her-me-own

instead of 'her-my-oh-knee', from the Harry Potter books until the proper pronunciation was explained in the fourth book!

[progressoid]

77. Sammich

I have a close adult relative that can't say sandwich. Always come out sammich. Drives me crazy.

[Dora]

78. "misled"

Seeing the word "isle" in "misled" just throws me off.

[Perry Logan]

80. It's pronounced "Throat Warbler Mangrove."

[redqueen]

84. I used to pronounce "forte" the way it's pronounced in music.

When you refer to a strength, and not a style of playing music, it's pronounced fort.



My dad did the same as you with betelgeuse. He pronounced it bet-el-gees. I can't even tell you how much pleasure it gave me to tell him it was actually beetle-juice. :)

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

86. Betelgeuse --

When I was a kid, interested in astronomy, I thought it was pronounced "Bettle-gweezy."

[Courtesy Flush]

87. There's one word I pronounce wrong all the time

"Wrong"

:rofl::rofl::rofl:

[FunkyLeprechaun]

88. Colonel

I used to say it CUH-LO-NEL but I had to read this book in Spanish IV called "No One Writes to the Colonel" (I was 25 when I read it). We had to translate the Spanish edition into English (alright, I cheated a little and bought the English version... my professor didn't know this and often thought I worked very very hard (24/7) to translate it).

We had to fulfill our duties to translate a paragraph of the book, so I said "Cuh-lo-nel" whenever that word came up. My CART (kind of like a captioner with a steno machine) wrote, as an aside, "It's pronounced "kernel" like popcorn kernels."

D-oh!

There's plenty of other words that I've been corrected on. I don't hear them so I say them as they looked. One of them first few words that I used to mispronounce were "debt" (see... you can guess how I pronounced it). I try to use "simple" words in conversation.... whenever I use a very complicated word I trip up on the pronouncement!

[wildeyed]

89. De.vast.ed

Should be dev·as·tat·ed. Just missed a syllable for a while I guess. Hyperboil is way funnier, and more appropriate, in a way, than the correct pronunciation.

[hyphenate]

91. Acidophilus

a-CID-o-PHI-lus is how I pronounced it for years, only to find out it's pronounced a-ci-DOF-il-us.

[redwitch]

92. Isn't cache pronounced like cash?

Because I keep hearing people refer to it as cash-eh (cachet). What's up with that?


In the 7th grade I gave a current events report on the Mafia and mispronounced "indicted" repeatedly. Ooh, that was embarrassing.
:blush:

[CTyankee]

93. Yep. Cachet is pronounced as Cache EH. But "cache" is just "cash".

Like a cache of weapons. A pile of stuff.

Interesting...

[appal_jack]

102. i did that too!

Until around middle school, I thought "indict" (which I pronounced in-dicked) and "indite" were two entirely different words. One morning, some friends and I were reading headlines aloud from a newspaper on the Staten Island Ferry (I commuted to Manhattan for school from 7th - 12th grades, and yes, we were political junkies even back then) and some friendly adult corrected me.

-app

[skyblue]

94. Mozzarella. Capicola. & I eat them both. I've since become more urbane, I hope. nt

[lost-in-nj]

97. I screw these up to...

along with antipasto
lost

[skyblue]

95. Various town names. Chili, NY which is supposedly chai lie and not chill-e

Versailles, (KY?) which is supposedly ver sales and not Ver Sai. (Ya knows your a redneck when...)

Worcester, MA which is Wooster and not Wurster. Rochester which i'm still not sure how to pronounce (Rock chester or Rawchester).

[IcyPeas]

96. reading the TV guide when I was little....

I used to see the word whodunit and thought it was whod-unit. never understood what it meant for years...... :blush:

[Audio_Al]

99. Don't they play a football game there on January 1st?

I'm sure it's the HYPER BOWL!

:sarcasm:

[Lautremont]

101. I keep mispronouncing the word "Bush."

I always thought it was "ass-HO-ll." Turns out it's pronounced "fuh-KIN ass-HO-ll."

[Throd]

103. "but I read it allot..."

Allot? Do you say allot a lot?

[qwertyMike]

104. Pheronome

I used to say pher-ON-uh-me

And I have a degree in Biochemistry (blush)

[Kat45]

105. ebullient

I pronounced it EB-YOU-LENT instead of E-BOUL-E-ENT. My friend couldn't believe I didn't know how to pronounce it and laughed at me. Then, coincidentally, a few months later another friend asked me, "Is that word pronounced e-boul-e-ent? She thought it sounded so weird, had also always thought it was eb-you-lent; I guess someone had corrected her and she was asking me because she still didn't think it sound right (the correct way).

I've always found that there are a lot of words that I read frequently that rarely turn up in conversations. If I'm unsure how to pronounce the word, I won't use it in conversation (until I learn how to pronounce it correctly). I can't look up the pronounciation in the dictionary because I can't fathom what sounds the symbols stand for. I've always loved the word 'hubris' but never used it. I'm glad I found out how to pronounce it because it is very applicable to conversations today that involve bush/cheney--and I use it frequently. Someone upthread mentioned the word 'minutae' (sp), which is another one I didn't know how to pronounce--and worse, didn't realize I didn't know. (That's always the worst.) I learned its pronounciation when I heard Elaine use it on "Seinfeld."

[grasswire]

106. someone I know says "thilthy" and "volleyvoll" ...

...and has a college degree!

[Diamond Dave]

107. A little off-topic, but I had to do it. Spelling....

BTW, you misspelled "a lot". It's pretty common, so you you shouldn't feel bad. "Allot" means apportion or distribute.

[cuke]

108. I went to GD and learned that EVERY word I say is wrong

What makes you so special? :-)

[SoDesuKa]

110. Halley's Comet

Halley's Comet is not Hayley's Comet, it's HAL-lee's Comet. The Brits say HALL-ee's comet, This all came about because of Bill Haley and the Comets.

Does "dour" rhyme with "sour"? I'm told it doesn't. She says it's supposed to rhyme with "moor."

[Mutley]

111. I said "adolescence" wrong until I was seventeen or eighteen years old.

I pronounced it "a-DOLL-sense". I'd heard it pronounced correctly countless times, but for some reason it just didn't click in my head until a friend specifically pointed out to me that I'd been pronouncing it wrong. How embarrassing. :blush:

[kas125]

112. My dad is 78 and lost his hearing at 22

he pronounced all sorts of words wrong that's he's never heard, but only read. Trying to decipher them sometimes is quite a job. Some I can think of offhand were PLAY-key-bow (placebo), MAS-tas-ee-oli (mostoccioli), or a while ago when he told me that I won't believe who's getting out of jail - NO-reeg-a. WHO? You know that drug guy from South America we've got in prison. I was doubly thrilled when Rove resigned because then I wouldn't have to hear him say Rovey all the time, like he did no matter how many times I said it's pronounced Rove. He's cute, but trying to figure out what he's talking about sometimes is tricky.

[Indi Guy]

113. Don't feel bad. Jon Stewart (in an interview with Bill Mahr) said (phonetically)...

..."sangueene"

[Oeditpus Rex]

115. Probably the nastiest thing I ever saw a teacher do

was in sixth grade, when Mrs. Madsen announced to the class that Susan Yednak (upon whom I had my first serious crush) thought "Egypt" was pronounced "EE-ga-putt."

No one heard Susan say it, but Mrs. Madsen took it upon herself to tell us, for some reason.