The queen of Hawaii was Irish too. Lilly O’Killarney.
I have a relative in New York from Ireland. Coney Ireland.
[Moderating]
Please refrain from political commentary in GQ. We have other forums for that.
Colibri
General Questions Moderator
The majority of people still pronounce them the old way, though, surely? I remember there was a fad a few years ago where everyone started saying Nikee instead of Nike, everyone quickly found the new pronunciations idiotic and switched back.
You get a weird mix of British/Irish pronunciations around Manchester and Liverpool, probably due to all the Irish who moved here. Breheney’s a good example - some pronounce it “Breeny”, others “Bree henny”, same with the Gallagher surname.
Speaking of Cheney, I pronounce the VP’s name like ‘chain-ee’. (Lots of German in high school, so I tend to default to that pronunciation of vowels.) The city in Washington is pronounced ‘chee-nee’. (And I’ve discovered that ‘yack-i-muh’ is pronounced ‘yack-i-mah’.)
In Ireland it’d most likely be pronounced “BRE-h’nee”.
I understand that due to the influence of Asian immigrants, the local pronunciation of “Yakima” is changing from ['j&k@m@] (YAK-uh-muh) to [ja’kima] (ya-KEE-mah).
Mmm, not from my experience, don’t know whether that’s a regional difference. I can’t imagine anyone going to the Nike store in Oxford Street and saying they’re going to ‘Nike (as in bike) Town’ rather than ‘Nikee Town’.
Actually, that’s how we pronounce it.
My bad. Won’t happen again. If I remember. :smack:
Yes, for decades we said “Marathon” and “Opal Fruits”, but then we were corrected to the correct pronunciation of “Snickers” and “Starburst” respectively. 
Anyway, to continue this mild debate, I’m watching From the Earth to the Moon at the moment, and Tom Hanks just pronounced “Werner von Braun” as “wwerner vahn brown” with a particularly noticeable soft W, rather than “verner fon braohn”. I stand by my assertion that one only notices the shoehorning of unfamiliar words into the speaker’s own accent, when one is from a milieu that is outside that accent.
Ha, then you haven’t caught up yet! We’ve been reprogrammed to pronounce Adidas the original German way. Maybe it’s part of some grand EU directive.
Despite the location, I’m British (Yorkshire), and I don’t remember ever hearing Nike pronounced anything other than Nigh-kee. Addidas was always ADD-i-das too, but I have converted to a-Dee-das since coming to the US as that is the norm in (this part of) the US.
I’m confused – the only way I’ve ever heard Dick Cheney’s name pronounced, in real life or on TV, is “chain-ee.” (Rhymes with “rainy.”) Is that not correct?
For my two pence worth, round my part of the UK most people would say Nike like Bike. Saying Nigh-KEE would be seen as trying to sound like an American and most people will laugh at you.
And we call it AD-de-das.
That’s the only way I’ve heard his name pronounced. But I’ve only ever heard the name of the city pronounced ‘chee-nee’.
American pronunciations that I hate include Anheuser-Busch and Löwenbräu.
Where’s that?
He and his family pronounce it CHEE-nee.
Huh. I guess I’ve never heard him pronounce his own name. Bizarre!
Weird. Not like Americans pronounce it quite like the ancient Greek (nee-kay) but pronouncing the e at the end is at least closer.
You know, I was this close to making a pretentious comment about how “Nighkee” is how it’s said in Greek, then it occurred to me to ask before making an ass of myself, and here you come with an answer! 
I seem to recall Mark Lamarr calling out on a Baywatch actor he was interviewing for constantly pronouncing his character as Map Brody.
If you watched the show you knew his character was Matt Brody, and with the American accent you just went with the flow.
It was only when Lamarr asked him to repeatedly say the characters name that you realised how alien it was.