Dr. Seuss' silly stories are riddled with made-up, tongue-twisting words that parents love to try to pronounce. But the fact that we've been saying the famed children's author's name completely wrong came as a surprise.

Most of us say it like Dr. Zeus, but that's totally incorrect.

Theodor Geisel is Dr. Seuss' real name and he took his pen name from his middle name, Seuss, which is his mom's maiden name. (He added doctor because his dad always wanted him to practice medicine.)

So how do you pronounce it?

According to the authors of the book "You're Saying It Wrong," Geisel pronounced it "Soice" (rhyming with voice).

One of his friends, Alexander Liang, even created this little poem about how people said Seuss.

"You’re wrong as the deuce

And you shouldn’t rejoice

If you’re calling him Seuss.

He pronounces it Soice (or Zoice)."

Don't be embarrassed, though. "We all know it as Dr. Seuss (Zeus), and it's now become Dr. Seuss (Zeus)," the book's co-author Ross Petras said in an interview on CBC Radio's Day 6. "And that's a case, I think, if you said Dr. Soice people would look at you very oddly. This is a case when the wrong pronunciation becomes the right pronunciation."

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