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You’re Probably Mispronouncing These Words

Jan. 12, 2013 3:25pm Madeleine Morgenstern

Think you know your way around the English language? Even the best of us can stumble over the proper pronunciation of a word here and there. Mental Floss has highlighted 11 words we’re particularly prone to get wrong.

Here are a few:

Kibosh

Let’s put the kibosh, pronounced “KY-bosh,” on saying this word like “kuh-BOSH.”

Comptroller

This word sounds just like “controller.” If you’re tempted to pronounce that silent (pt), please comptroll yourself!

Cache

Maybe it’s because it’s one letter short of “cachet.” Maybe it’s just more fun to mispronounce. This words sounds just like “cash.”

Chicanery

This word meaning “deception by trickery” is aptly tricky to pronounce. The beginning (ch) sound is “sh,” as in “Chicago.” The French pronounce the word “shih-connery,” which makes it easy to remember the definition. However, Americans love a long (a) and tend to pronounce it “shih-cane-a-ree.” Choose your own adventure.

Banal

You’ll be the butt of the joke if you pronounce this “BAY-nul.” It’s “buh-NAHL.”

Check out the rest at Mental Floss.

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Comments (116)

crackerone
Posted on January 12, 2013 at 6:18pm
President is now pronounced “Dear Leader”.

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- desertspeaks
  Posted on January 12, 2013 at 7:20pm
  since when did the definition of stupid become leader??
  
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- Southernsoul
  Posted on January 12, 2013 at 7:57pm
  Really? I just call him Comrad, or squirrel since he looks a lot like an old cartoon squirrel.
  
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- layosh
  Posted on January 12, 2013 at 8:08pm
  Oh, I thought it was Our Beloved Leader. (OBL)
  
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- 1956
  Posted on January 12, 2013 at 9:00pm
  I just call “that guy” Zachary. His face looks Zachary like his butt.
  
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- YAHSHUARULES
  Posted on January 12, 2013 at 10:31pm
  Trifles. More important is the agenda:
  
  Do you know who the Fabians (with logo of wolf in sheep’s clothing); SDS, Frankfurt School and Willi Munzenberg, Herbert Markusa and Franz Noima; John Dewey, Antonio Gramsci, Mattechine Society, Saul Alinski (who dedicated his book which Obama taught for years in Chicago “Rules for Radicals” to Lucifer) was a disciple of Gramsci used to train at the rifle range with Leon Despres preparing for the revolution to take down America, later became a mentor to Obama and.Committees of Correspondence are? Connect all the dots that allowed Obama to waltz into the White House..
  https://vimeo.com/52009124
  All part of the Agenda to create an America so corrupt it stinks; use public policy to subvert America from inside, infiltrate and influence our culture to break down basic rules of morality driving us in a direction designed to destroy us. . No conspiracy – just verifiable facts! If you don’t know all this you need to find out!
  This is the most comprehensive, best movie I have seen pulling all this together. I have watched it 12X to absorb all that is in it…give it 5 minutes and you won’t be able to walk away
  Watch it. Share it. Arrange a showing in church, groups, clubs, with friends or family. Everyone who loves America needs to see this movie,
  It is free on line for the moment
  https://vimeo.com/52009124
  If America goes down, the free world will go down with it and it will be finished for a very, very long time…
  
  Report this comment
- Obama_In_PeePee_Is_Becks_Art
  Posted on January 13, 2013 at 12:00am
  BARACK HUSSEIN OBAMA
  __________________________________________________
  AKA Barry Obama
  AKA Barry Soetoro
  pronounced BARACK as in “Kenyan born”; HUSSEIN as in “enemy of America”; OBAMA as in “the man who never was”:
  
  [part 1]
  
  “OBAMA’S KENYAN BIRTH RECORDS DISCOVERED IN BRITISH NATIONAL ARCHIVES”
  Wednesday, July 18, 2012
  http://thedailypen.blogspot.com/2012/07/obamas-kenyan-birth-records-discovered.html
  By Dan Crosby of The Daily Pen
  (Updated 7/23/2012)
  KEW, SURREY, GB – The last place anyone would think to look for a birth record of someone claiming to be a “natural born” U.S. citizen is Great Britain. The very inclusion of the Article II eligibility mandate in the U.S. Constitution was explicitly intended by the founding fathers of America to prevent a then British-born enemy usurper from attaining the office of the U.S. presidency and thereby undermining the sovereignty of the newly formed nation.
  …
  Recall, investigative journalists working for Breitbart.com [you know, the boss who mysteriously and suddenly "died"] have already discovered biographical information published by Barack Obama’s literary agent in which he claimed he was born in Kenya.
  …
  
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- Obama_In_PeePee_Is_Becks_Art
  Posted on January 13, 2013 at 12:01am
  [part 2]
  …
  Recall, on August 1, 2009, Dr. Alan Keyes, Pamela Barnett and 42 other plaintiffs filed evidence in a lawsuit challenging Obama eligibility which included a copy of an image of an alleged Kenyan Copy of Certification of Registration of Birth (CCRB). In the hours after the image appeared on the internet, MSNBC and other liberal mainstream, pro-Obama networks went ballistic attempting to debunk the idea that such a docûment exists.
  …
  Several sources show that Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton made a sudden visit to the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office, the British agency which oversees Public Records Archives from colonial protectorates, to speak with the Chief Executive of the Archives in early August of 2009.
  
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- G-WHIZ
  Posted on January 13, 2013 at 9:16am
  Soooo…this is what you get when you let the Fabian/Sociallist-PROGressives RULE YOUR EDUCATION SINCE EARLY 1900′s!!
  
  Report this comment
- ltb
  Posted on January 14, 2013 at 11:03am
  One thing that drove me up the wall about GW Bush is how he pronounced nuclear, “noo kyoo luhr.” Now, I notice a lot of people pronounce it that way. It’s “noo klee uhr.”
  
  Report this comment
lid.smoker
Posted on January 12, 2013 at 6:16pm
http://www.howjsay.com/index.php?word=tartrovinic&submit=Submit

I love the aristocratic British accent on this spoken pronunciation site.

Check out the pronunciation of this word; tarquinius superbus

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Eastinfection
Posted on January 12, 2013 at 5:59pm
Fargin Iceholes screw everything up.

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- pdw
  Posted on January 12, 2013 at 6:18pm
  There was a time when they had people who walked around different areas of the Untied States and listened to how people pronounced words. So when the pronunciation of words changed they would finally change the dictionary.
  
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- TSUNAMI_22
  Posted on January 12, 2013 at 6:20pm
  That’s because they is kollage ejumicated.
  
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- taxpro4u03
  Posted on January 12, 2013 at 7:17pm
  Works for me — > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ei2WhctlRHY
  
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- TSUNAMI_22
  Posted on January 12, 2013 at 8:00pm
  taxpro4u03
  
  Now that’s funny. LMAO
  
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- Al J Zira
  Posted on January 12, 2013 at 8:44pm
  Eastinfection: Please don’t deport me to Sweden. I’m not from there.
  
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- Eastinfection
  Posted on January 12, 2013 at 9:14pm
  lol Al ….
  
  I fargin love Johnny Dangerously.
  
  I wouldn’t hang me on a hook, Johnny..
  My mother hung me on a hook once..
  Once.
  
  Report this comment
- Rowgue
  Posted on January 13, 2013 at 11:55am
  @PDW
  
  How exactly is changing the pronunciation of a word because too many people are too lazy or too stupid to know how to pronounce it correctly supposed to be a good thing? That makes as much sense as people that declare that a word no longer means what it actually means because so many morons think it means something else and insist on using a word they don’t actually understand incorrectly. That’s just catering to the lazy and stupid, that isn’t something people should be pining for.
  
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theninthplanet
Posted on January 12, 2013 at 5:54pm
I here corpsman is difficult.

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- glegakis
  Posted on January 13, 2013 at 11:54am
  here?
  
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- Snafu777
  Posted on January 13, 2013 at 12:39pm
  Nothin too difficult about a corpse, man, but the smell can get a bit disagreeable. lol
  
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RightThinking1
Posted on January 12, 2013 at 5:53pm
Corps vs. corpse…, if you get my drift

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Rob
Posted on January 12, 2013 at 5:48pm
I had a friend show me that the words, “Mary,” “marry” and “merry” are all actually pronounced differently, while I say all three exactly the same. I could hear the diffeence, but I was raised to do them the same.

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SageInWaiting
Posted on January 12, 2013 at 5:43pm
Hey, Missourians, tell everyone the REAL pronunciations of: New Madrid, Nevada, Cairo, and Haiti.

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- Keatonc33
  Posted on January 12, 2013 at 9:35pm
  haha. i live about 10 minutes from missouri, hearing them pronounce creek (crick), shrimp (sremp), and missouri (missurah) are pretty funny!
  
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- Copper Catfish
  Posted on January 13, 2013 at 1:35am
  New MAD-rid, KAY-row, Nuh-VAY-duh, and you misspelled Hayti, which is pronounced HAY-tie. There’s also the Bon Pas Creek in Illinois, pronounced Bump-paw.
  
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- MikesWife
  Posted on January 13, 2013 at 9:08pm
  It’s: New Mu – drid (emphasis on drid, short i); Nu-vay-du (emphasis on vay); Ky -ro (emphasis on Ky) and Hay – tee (emphasis on Hay). Note to KeatonCC3, pronunciation depends on how Missouri is said and sometimes the context! I live in the state of Missurah, when I use the city I will say Joplin, Missouree (city an example), and when discussing my that man loving democratic governor I live in the state of Misery. We aren’t country bumpkins, just independent enough to talk however we “dang well please!”
  
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- SageInWaiting
  Posted on January 14, 2013 at 11:58am
  …and let’s not forget the “greazy/greasy” line running through the state.
  
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americandescartes
Posted on January 12, 2013 at 5:24pm
My pet peeves are when people pronounce FORTE as if it were “fore-tay.” It’s supposed to just be pronounced “fort.” Ditto for CLIQUE, when people pronounce it as “click,” but really it’s supposed to be pronounced “cleek.”

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- wowjustwow
  Posted on January 12, 2013 at 11:28pm
  Along those same lines, I get annoyed at things like RSVP…uh, can’t we ask people to respond without having to resort to French and then abbreviate without using periods (repondez si’l vous plait)?! Drives me nuts! And I love the French language so it’s not about that. Also, there is a restaurant in NYC called S.P.Q.R. — now that should NOT have periods as it is Latin. Again, drives me nuts. Thanks for letting me vent :)
  
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- Kristal99
  Posted on January 13, 2013 at 2:09am
  Do you know how to pronounce pretentious?
  
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- justasurvivor
  Posted on January 13, 2013 at 7:46am
  Silly americandescartes.
  Of course it’s “fore-tay.” It’s not an English word. It’s an Italian word with an Italian ponunciation that Americans sometimes use (as we do with lots of foreign words). It means strong, and in music it means loud. I don’t think you get to have a pet peeve about how Italians pronounce their words.
  
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- Rijkstra
  Posted on January 14, 2013 at 1:31am
  FORTE has more than one origin, French (FORT) and Italian (FORTAY). Both forms are correct because either derivation is correct. In all three languages forte is spelled the same. It is not forté in Italian which doesn’t even have an acute accent.
  
  One of my pet peeves are hyperforeignisms, putting accent marks on words that have none in the source language. Words like latté and habañera for latte and habanera are two examples.
  
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jcldwl
Posted on January 12, 2013 at 5:08pm
Probably is not pronounced prolly or probly
Nuclear is not pronounced nuculer
ask is not pronounced aks
something is not pronounced sumpin
Missouri is not pronounced Missouruh
Please feel free to add to the list.

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- willbedone
  Posted on January 12, 2013 at 5:24pm
  according to my next door neighbor, Missouri is pronounced Miz er e, ask is pronounced ax. and pecan is pronounced pee can
  
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- BookMDanno
  Posted on January 13, 2013 at 1:07pm
  As a newcomer to Missouri, I did a double-take hearing commercials talking about valet parking pronounced ‘valley parking.’ One Chevrolet dealer constantly pronounced it ‘Chevalay’ (no R, apparently), and it’s accepted to hear long time residents pronounce local Hwy 40 as “fahrty.”
  
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Balpit
Posted on January 12, 2013 at 4:46pm
Let’s all go to the Li-bary and look up the correct pronunciations of more words!

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- sillyfreshness
  Posted on January 12, 2013 at 5:16pm
  Schools don’t even teach kids how to write in cursive anymore. Takes away too much valuable time from their leftist, politically correct propaganda and brainwashing of students. All they teach them is how to use a calculator and ipad. If the electricity ever goes out, we will have a generation of morons who won’t know how to add or subtract or write in cursive. It will be just like starting over from 1870. That’s the leftist teacher’s union for ya.
  
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- antiprogressive
  Posted on January 12, 2013 at 6:58pm
  That’s MY favorite.
  Along with Jew-lery.
  
  I hear them both on TV ads a lot.
  Gotta love Public Announcement commercials encouragings kids to come to the Libary
  to learn to read…
  
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- antiprogressive
  Posted on January 12, 2013 at 7:04pm
  And a lot of folks in my town drive BRUICKS…
  
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- wowjustwow
  Posted on January 12, 2013 at 11:31pm
  To sillyfresh…can’t anyone have 5 minutes of fun on this site without someone (YOU) making it dark and political?! I was enjoying the last few entries. Ugh…give it a rest.
  
  Report this comment
Chuck Stein
Posted on January 12, 2013 at 4:33pm
Since “often” is now typically pronounced “Off Ten”, when is everyone going to start pronouncing “soften” as “Soff Ten”?

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avgconservative
Posted on January 12, 2013 at 4:32pm
Lay on the ground prostate. Especially if you prostrate is acting up!

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- wowjustwow
  Posted on January 12, 2013 at 11:33pm
  hahahaha!! Liked that!
  
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SaturdaysWarrior76
Posted on January 12, 2013 at 4:30pm
How about the word: Jalapeno? I hear it’s supposed to be pronounced HALA-PAYNO but just about everyone (including myself!) Can’t help but say HALA-PEENO! But who cares? I love Jalapenos no matter how we say it! :)

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- Kristal99
  Posted on January 13, 2013 at 2:20am
  It’s HALA – PEN – YO.
  
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- cish60
  Posted on January 13, 2013 at 5:50pm
  To Saturdays…
  
  I totally agree. They taste the same going down, no matter how they’re pronounced!
  
  My question to this audience is: So many words in our language are from other languages, so is it correct to pronounce them the way of the original language, or is it really acceptable to ‘Americanize’ these words? So many of the examples in this thread are words from different languages…what is the accepted norm of how to pronounce them?
  
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- avgconservative
  Posted on January 19, 2013 at 8:59am
  Hala-pain-yo
  
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blanco5
Posted on January 12, 2013 at 4:19pm
The film “Idiocracy” nails it BUT only in the timing. It’s not the future, it’s NOW!

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MisterSarcastic
Posted on January 12, 2013 at 4:15pm
I suffer from carpool tunnel syndrome.
My boat floundered on a sandbar.
Old timer’s disease is a turrible thang.
The physical cliff battled was a joke.
May I ax you a question?
Grandpa built a bob wire fence around his pasture.
Mind yo own bidness.
My year end bonus was a blessing in the skies.
I keep my underwear in a chester drawers.
Medical personnel had to perform the hind lick maneuver.
Don’t take life for granite.

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- seek.the.truth
  Posted on January 12, 2013 at 4:52pm
  Funny!
  
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- booger71
  Posted on January 12, 2013 at 4:54pm
  Skeeter
  Mater
  Tater
  
  That is all we need know.
  
  Report this comment
- wowjustwow
  Posted on January 12, 2013 at 11:39pm
  East Coast 1950s…if your car acts up, change the EARL. BEARLING water. Flush the TERLIT.
  
  Report this comment
Anonymous T. Irrelevant
Posted on January 12, 2013 at 4:05pm
Now, all you people who use your voice professionally, such as news or commercials, the words are RE-ALTOR, not REAL-LA-TOR, and JEW-EL-RY, not JULERY.

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stopprintn
Posted on January 12, 2013 at 3:52pm
Using Chicago to prnounce chicanery, that makes sense.

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- stopprintn
  Posted on January 12, 2013 at 4:01pm
  o and its racist
  
  Report this comment
1HonestInjun
Posted on January 12, 2013 at 3:50pm
I’m still working on kinnygarden.

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- wowjustwow
  Posted on January 12, 2013 at 11:41pm
  hahahaha! I’ve heard that and it drives me nuts!
  
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Shasta
Posted on January 12, 2013 at 3:47pm
This is what happens when you bring your kids to the office and leave them alone on the computer for a few minutes.

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- mbean
  Posted on January 12, 2013 at 4:55pm
  Or an English major? and don’t get me started on Grammarians, whomever they are.
  
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Texas Hills Patriot
Posted on January 12, 2013 at 3:40pm
Someone should tell “that guy” that the word ‘to’ is not pronounced with an ‘a’, as in ‘ta’, which he always says.

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- justasurvivor
  Posted on January 12, 2013 at 3:55pm
  Not always. Sometimes that guy says “tuh.”
  
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justasurvivor
Posted on January 12, 2013 at 3:35pm
I’d like the definitive word on FebRuary.

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RickTheLDSRocker
Posted on January 12, 2013 at 3:34pm
I got 4 out of 5.

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Joyzee
Posted on January 12, 2013 at 3:31pm
OH! Yea! Like Obama Pronouncing Taliban like ” Tollie bon “..freak’n spy! yep i said it FBI listening’?..hello investigate the Pres.

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- mbean
  Posted on January 12, 2013 at 5:21pm
  Obama the world citizen is a multi-linguist: Pockistan,was my favorite, plus the infamous Irish accent “is the sun coming out…I can feel it”
  
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- wowjustwow
  Posted on January 12, 2013 at 11:48pm
  That’s different…this IS pronouncing it correctly according to its natives. That’s like finding fault with someone who calls a croissant a (kwa-saunt) instead of (crussont). That is it’s actual pronunciation.
  
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WildschweinJager
Posted on January 12, 2013 at 3:30pm
Next story please. Take a shot of Jack Daniels or something please…………………

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SocialistSlayer
Posted on January 12, 2013 at 3:28pm
Stop being Anal ! At least we speak English !!

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- Too_Far_Gone
  Posted on January 12, 2013 at 3:43pm
  Amen to that !
  
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- TommyGuns
  Posted on January 12, 2013 at 3:52pm
  Would that be pronounced AY NUHL, or AY NAHL?
  
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- kat747
  Posted on January 12, 2013 at 4:31pm
  @Tommyguns
  Good one….but it is much easier to simply use “as-whole”…..more of the audience will understand that word.
  
  Report this comment

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