Listen up, spuds. "Wreck havoc" is not a thing

[Luminous Animal]

199. I was raised pronouncing it that way. My community pronounced it that way.

I never heard it pronounced any other way by any person be it neighbor or educator.

It wasn't until I moved to Los Angeles at age 20 and became involved with an anti-nuke organization that I heard it pronounced correctly. (And I was lightly mocked for pronouncing it incorrectly.)

Being a stutterer... regularly as a child, intermittently as an adult, it was a very difficult pronunciation hurdle for me to overcome. I'd panic every time I had to say it and often found myself stuck on the 'k" sound.

Thirty five years later, I've pert near overcome it but every once in a while I find my brain still directs me to mispronounce it and thus, I employ a tactic that my speech therapist taught me to deal with my stuttering. Slow down and imagine saying the word before you say it.

And even then, at times, it does not work so I excuse myself to go to the bathroom.