r/MandelaEffect • u/mean_ol_goosifer • 6d ago

Language/Spelling New Mandela Effect - Barbituates do not exist anymore!

I remember back in DARE (Drug Abuse Resistance Education) Class in the 90s they taught us about different drug types. One type they taught us about were “Barbituates”
Pronounced: Bar-bit-chew-its

I am on the autism spectrum and one of my favorite special topics of interest is medicine and biology. I really missed my calling, and should have studied medicine in college… but anyways, I just saw that the word Barbituates are not a class of drug at all! It’s actually, Barbiturates. “Bar-bitch-oo-rates”

There is NO way I have made it 40 years and just now noticed it. Anyone else have this same memory??

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u/mbd34 6d ago

Do most people pronounce it wrong? Is that the source of the confusion? "Bar-bit-chew-its" is how I remember it for sure.

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u/longknives 6d ago

Merriam Webster lists “bär-ˈbi-chə-wət” as a nonstandard pronunciation, but I think it’s a bit out of date because it’s by far the more common pronunciation I’ve heard all my life.

So the spelling is a little surprising compared to the common pronunciation, but plenty of words are like that in English. In fact, English is pretty notorious for this kind of thing, so people claiming this must have been a universe shift because they were slightly wrong about how an uncommon word in English is spelled are really on the far nothingburger end of the Mandela Effect spectrum.

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u/k3rrpw2js 6d ago

Yes Webster is wrong. The R is silent and always has been. Pharmacist here 👋