Iowa And Illinois Have A Really Difficult Time Saying These Two Specific Words

Words are often just really difficult.

We know by now there are a few words that are just tricky for us to pronounce, whether it's because they're long or if they're just an unintuitive combination of words.

A study from Mental Floss looked at Google Trends to come up with words that states are looking up with "how to pronounce..." from August 2024-August 2025. And we in the Midwest ran into a few issues.

Illinois

We'll cut Illinois a break for the word they're struggling most to pronounce. It's giardiniera. Wondering what that even is? It's an Italian pickled-veggie condiment.

In case you're wondering, it's pronounced 'gaar-deen-ee-uh'.

Iowa

Iowa's most difficult word to pronounce really hits home for me since it's the main one I can never pronounce right. It's not an Italian word, I just can't say it right. Ever.

Iron. Iowans are most frequently looking up how to pronounce 'iron'.

Which yes, it's technical pronounciation is 'ai-urn' but that's not how it sounds when I say it so I'm happy to see several of us are in this boat.

The Rest of the Midwest

Those definitely aren't the only two words confusing Midwesterners. Minnesota struggles to say 'lychee' (which is 'lai-chee') while Wisconsin is dealing with 'Chequamegon', which is an actual area in the state.

Indiana has a hard time pronouncing 'caramel' (either way works, be for real), Missouri is stuck on 'pinot noir', Nebraska is figuring out 'Charybdis' (a mythological character, evidently, pronounced 'kr-ib-duhs'), and the Dakotas are dealing with 'jalapeno' and 'wrym'.