I have come to learn that:

• the word category is stressed on the first syllable (i.e., CAT-uh-GO-ree and not cuh-TEH-guh-REE);

• the word cupboard is pronounced cubberd (i.e., not cup-board—obviously);

• the word country is pronounced like cunt-tree (i.e., not count-tree);

• the words Monday and Sunday are likewise pronounced muhn- and suhn-day (i.e., not mawn- and sawn-day);

• the word fish has two perfectly valid plural forms, each used in different circumstances; i.e.:

  1. two fish when they are of the same kind; and
  2. two fishes when they are different;

• the noun chicken is, in fact, countable (i.e., you cannot, in fact, say ‘two chicken’ – I had also been of the faulty belief that the plural is differentiated through a vowel change, namely -uhn becoming -in—which I will stress that is, as we in the field like to say, horseshit);

• the word crooked has two pronunciations, much like ‘chicken’:

  1. monosyllabic (i.e., like ‘looked’) when it's a verb; and
  2. bisyllabic (i.e., CROOK-idd) when it's an adjective;

• the word vigor is pronounced vigger (i.e., not VYE-gurr);

• the word monk is pronounced munk (i.e., not like ‘bonk’);

• the word iron is apparently—and this may well be deeply disturbing for fellow ESL'ers—seriously—pronounced like ‘I earn’!—and that

• the word vegetable is pronounced vedge-tubble (i.e., not vedge-uh-tubble).