REVEALED: THE TOP 20 WORDS AUSSIES CANNOT PRONOUNCE
- Brian Westlake
- 4 hours ago
- 2 min read
Australia loves a good linguistic dog’s breakfast, and the latest data proves we are absolutely committed to mispronouncing our way through life.
Word nerds at Unscramblerer.com dug through Google trends to find the words Aussies search most when they realise they’ve been saying something wrong for years.
Some of these are tricky. Some are cultural. Some are just plain embarrassing. And yes, croissant is on the list, because, of course, it is.
The top 20 words we mangle the most
Niamh (NEEV).
Aoife (ee-fuh).
Dachshund (daks-und).
Saoirse (SER-sha).
Croissant (kwah-son).
Caoimhe (KEE-vuh).
Açaí (assa-ee).
Charcuterie (shar-koo-tuh-ree).
Worcestershire sauce (wuss-tuh-shuh sauce).
Paella (pie-ELL-uh).
Spaghetti (spuh-get-ee).
Gyro (YEE-roh).
Schedule (shed-yool).
Cacao (kuh-kow).
Oisin (uh-SHEEN).
Qatar (kuh-tar).
Clodagh (KLOE-duh).
Niche (neesh).
Adelaide (AD-uh-layd).
Gout gout (GOWT GOWT).
Regional specialities: each State has its kryptonite
Queensland’s biggest struggle is Worcestershire sauce, which is honestly fair.WA cannot cope with acai. Tasmania trips over Launceston. Victoria cannot nail a croissant.NSW is confused by Niamh.
ACT stumbles over dulce de leche. South Australia gets caught on Adelaide. NT wrestles with cacao.
If nothing else, this list proves accents and food obsessions vary wildly once you cross a border.
Why do we keep stuffing it up
A spokesperson from Unscramblerer.com summed it up neatly: "Our research about the most searched for mispronunciations gives a fascinating insight into Australia's culture.
"Exposure to new words through media, music, pop culture and social platforms drives curiosity.
"People often look up pronunciations if there is a gap between how a word or name is spelt and how it sounds."
English is famously chaotic, which doesn’t help. As they note, Oxford research shows that spelling matches pronunciation only about 75 per cent of the time.
At the same time, a Cambridge linguistics survey found that more than 60 per cent of English speakers regularly mispronounce at least one common word.
Add in a dash of embarrassment-avoidance and a sprinkle of curiosity, and you get the perfect recipe for frantic pronunciation searches.
How the research worked
Unscramblerer.com analysed search data from January 1 to November 14, 2025, digging into Google Trends queries such as "How do you pronounce", "pronunciations of", and "How to pronounce".
They then used Ahrefs to compile 100 variants of pronunciation-based searches, ranging from croissant pronunciation to how to pronounce jalapeno.
The result is an oddly comforting snapshot of our collective verbal chaos.
If you’ve mispronounced one of these words, don’t worry.
The rest of the country is right there with you, saying kwah-sont with confidence.
