To-day the Voice In My Head That Reads Things made a very interesting mispronunciation.

The Wikipedia page for Knot begins:

A knot is an intentional complication in cordage which may be practical or decorative, or both.

The Voice In My Head That Reads Things came to the word cordage and pronounced it “cor-DAHZH”. Yep, as if it were French.

Arbitrage. Découpage. Montage. Corsage. Cordage.

Then I thought, wait, no, that’s just a good old-fashioned perfectly cromulent English word and suffix. “COR-dij”.

Shortage. Reportage. Cordage.

What on earth compelled her to pronounce cordage in a Frenchy way?

Maybe it was that I had previously been steeped in articles about clothes and fashion? And perhaps my mind subconsciously associates fashion with France and with French pronunciations.

Maybe it was that cordage, being a link to another Wikipedia article (Rope), was rendered in blue? Cordage sitting pretty in a different colour than the surrounding text, my mind registered as a keyword, an unfamiliar word, one that warranted an unfamiliar pronunciation.

Maybe it was the phrase intentional complication in cordage? Until I read that phrase I had never thought to describe a knot as an intentional complication in cordage, even though, after the fact, I don’t know how I would describe a knot any differently. (“A knot is, well, it’s a knot! I mean, you know what a knot is, right?”) And this unfamiliar but arresting phrase, technical and erudite and sesquipedalian, primed me for an unfamiliar pronunciation.

I don’t know. But that, folks, is to-day’s example of a very interesting mispronunciation brought to you by the Voice In My Head That Reads Things. An unintentional complication in speakage.