On: Queen Elizabeth II has died

[hn_throwaway_99]

The Madame de Gaulle story is apocryphal: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/happiness-envy/

[mcbishop → hn_throwaway_99]

Alas. Well, the phone-call story alone makes me a fan of the queen.

[seszett → hn_throwaway_99]

It's in any case unlikely for a French speaker to mispronounce "happiness" as "a penis".

[danuker → seszett]

In French, the initial 'h' is mute. Here is "hospital" in French as an example. See the "Pronunciation" section.

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/h%C3%B4pital

So the occurrence is quite possible.

[seszett → danuker]

Well, I'm actually a French speaker and what makes me say that is the "a" in happiness that is IMO never going to be pronounced by a French speaker the same way as the "a" in "a penis".

The "e" might get pronounced as the "I" in penis by a good enough English speaker, but probably not by a bad English speaker.

I also believe that stress would be totally different, put only on the "a" by a French speaker.

[ehnto → seszett]

Even some English speakers omit the H, 'appiness. Give it a little inflection and you've got yourself a penis. I did watch a French burlesque show that had a comedy bit based in on this very mispronunciation, but that may well have been contrived.

[dissent → seszett]

happiness => 'appinesss => a penis