I thought of my THEater mistake as soon as I posted it. There's no problem with emphasis, but rather that the a is pronounced like the a in lake instead of the a in about.

My husband has a (very southern) habit of putting the accent on the first syllable of words like GUItar, THANKSgiving, and THEater. It seems to me like this happens when words seem "special" or foreign in some way, but I can't think of specific examples. Someone else mentioned "INsura...