The most mis-pronounced words of 2016




It's easy to laugh at coined words from this year like "bad hombre" and "bigly" - but its hard to blame the president elect of the USA when most of us are pronouncing TV shows, the foods we eat - and even the disease we're scared of - all wrong.

In a new survey, commissioned by the language learning app Babbel, the top 10 mis-pronounced words of 2016 may not surprise you.

See also: Funny place names around the world

See also: Is it time to ban slang?

David Bowie set the often sad tone for 2016 when he passed away in January - but still the world pronounced his name wrong (It's Boh-ee, by the way).

And few can pronounce Netflix's hit show Narcos correctly. It's nark-ohs - short for narcotraficante - or drug trafficker in Spanish, according to Babble.

Nomophobia noh-moh-pho-bee-ah - fear of being without your mobile phone.

Super food Quinoa is kee-NOH-ah. Zika, and the the widespread disease - is zee-kuh. And dictionary.com's word of the year needs a user guide: xenophobia, fear or hatred of foreigners or strangers is often mispronounced.

Hopefully 2017's list includes words like affection [uh-fek-shuh n] and globalization [gloh-buh-luh-zey-shuh n].

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