Why 'phenonemon' is the most troublesome word in the English language

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It seems that many of us have trouble getting our tongue around the word 'remuneration'.

But there are many more troublesome hurdles in the language.

Figuring speech: Brits won't use words they have difficulty pronouncing (posed by models)

'Phenomenon' is the most mispronounced word, research shows, with its succession of 'm' and 'n' sounds presenting the greatest difficulty.

'Anaesthetist' also causes problems due to the tricky mixture of 'th' and 't' noises.

'Remuneration', which is often heard in its mangled form 'renumeration', came in third in the study of 3,000 Britons.

And the fourth most difficult word to pronounce, according to the poll, was ' statistics'.

However, it may be a case of back to the drawing board for some, who admitted they often struggle with common words like 'February' - which appeared in 12th place in the list.
A spokesman for Spinvox - a voicemail to text message service - which carried out the research, said: 'Many words are difficult to say and when we struggle to pronounce a word correctly it makes us self-conscious about the way we speak.

'There are some real tongue-twisters in the list and it's understandable how many people can get confused when pronouncing certain words.

'We're fascinated by the way people speak as our automatic voice-to-text conversion system has to accurately convert the different ways that people talk - including common mispronunciation.

'This means people can be confident that a written message will be authentic and contain the essence of their voice.'

But researchers also stressed that mispronunciation was no laughing matter for many.

Almost half of those who confessed to frequent errors said they suffered embarrassment as a result.

More than a third even avoided using troublesome words to save face.

But 43 per cent of people admit they often correct mispronunciation in others, and - perhaps encouragingly for the tongue-tied - only a quarter of people think it shows a lack of intelligence.