Wordplay, how it sounds or what it means

Being married to a woman from Eastern Kentucky and living in the States on and off for 25 years or so, has given rise to innumerable etymological misunderstandings, most of them humorous.

For example, considerable mirth derives from my pronunciation of porn and pawn which are indistinguishable from one another and are therefore homophones (words that are pronounced the same as another but differing in meaning, whether spelled the same way or not). I can barely tell the difference even when I look both up on http://www.dictionary.com/ and listen to their “official” US pronunciation.

The word that gave me the impetus to write this blog entry is charnel and, as importantly, its pronunciation. It is used by Sharon’s family to mean “smells awful” and the dictionary definition is even more yucky: “gruesomely indicative of death or the dead; a charnel smell came from the chest filled with dead men's bones, the sepulchral darkness of the catacombs". Their pronunciation is more like ch’earn and seems to bear little resemblance to its spelling. Thanks to Tom Hall for helping me identify the word.

Early on in our relationship, I learned of Sharon’s Uncle Horace and Aunt Iris tho’ I never met either. However it took me a while to figure out who they were as the Appalachian pronunciations are Uncle Harse and Aunt Arse. The latter would be oh-so-rude in British English.

Talking about a brolly was bad enough but once in a while I used the synonym gamp. Of course they both mean umbrella but I had to admit that the latter would be seldom used in England these days and then only be the older generation and I guess that now includes me! And the original of the word is? Answer below.

When discussing a fellow bike rider some years ago, a group of us decided that he was unquestionably a misogynist. And then the question came up: what is the antonym and the opposite of misogynist? Answers below but with a caveat (thanks to Dave Berry for helping with this one).

Sharon and I argued about the word Calvary (the hill on which the crucifixion took place) and cavalry (soldiers mounted on horseback). She claimed that both words are interchangeable (synonyms) in American English. I argued that they were totally distinct and separate words. The words are often confused in spelling and/or pronunciation. What is the noun that would describe this? Answer below. More importantly, I have to confess that, at the time, we did find an online dictionary that supported her claim. However, more recently, both http://www.dictionary.com/ and http://www.merriam-webster.com/ would put me firmly in the right and I now revert to my original position.

When I was growing up, there was a group of lads (and some grown men but rarely lasses) who, usually on Saturday mornings, pursued the unfathomable passion of train spotting. These individuals typically wore anoraks, a parka-like outer garment. The word anorak then came to mean someone who pursues such an interest to an extent that was incomprehensible to most of the rest of humanity. And I have to confess that the description has been applied to me on two separate occasions; once regarding my infatuation for genealogy and the other for all things-cycling. No doubt somebody will say that this blog entry is pretty anorak in of itself.

Answers:

1) Antonym of misogynist = misandrist (hater of men). Actually is this not a gender-equivalent rather than an antonym? Is there a word for such a gender-equivalent?
2) Opposite of misogynist = philogynist (lover of women)
3) Origin of gamp = after the umbrella of Mrs. Sarah Gamp in Dickens' Martin Chuzzlewit .
4) The mistaken transposition of sounds or syllables = metathesis.