It’s understandable, especially when running 24 hour news, that there’s a set way of tackling pronunciation issues…Jean Charles de Menezes was one notable example, where various Spanish pronunciations were used at first. Having a reference volume makes perfect sense, especially for places & people who are potential news stories.
::channelling Jan Leeming:: “un-DAB-uh-ningee si-TOH-lee”?
I actually had an ongoing argument with a work colleague over whether there really was a prominent African nationalist with that euphonious name, or whether it was merely something I had half-remembered from a Not the Nine O’Clock News sketch. Perhaps he was thinking of Winston Kodogo, fictional victim of the heavy-handed policing of Constable Savage.
That said, do any British or English-speaking broadcasters pronounce “Pinochet” correctly? It seems like the correct pronunciation goes so much against our expectations that they stick to the more “Spanish-sounding” one.
I enjoy the BBC World Service announcers’ pronunciation of “law”, which involves the addition of one or more "r"s, as in:
“lawr” or
“lawrr”
Especially cute when the announcer babes do it.
It’s the law (lawr) of Conservation of R’s - all those R’s following vowels that we omit have to go somewhere, so we slide them in before other vowels.
Psst - Wodin is a relatively lesser known name for the same god.
What’s the difference between one ‘r’ and two?
That is what Mangetout was saying, that Wodin is merely another name for the top banana amongst Norse gods.
I listen to BBC Radio, watch BBC news on the telly and am surrounded by Brits (And Aussies and Kiwis). By now, the pronunciations of my native US sound odd to me.
Sorry, misunderstood. I thought that he was questioning the god in question.
I’m a middle school teacher and I pronounce Wednesday - Wed-nez-dey and February - Feb-roo-err-ee, to help the kids learn to spell these words. These pronunciations have bled over into my everyday speech.
And, yes, believe it or not the vast majority of my students did not learn how to spell these commonly occurring words in elementary school. I’m not really a stickler for spelling, but not knowing how to spell the months of the year by age 13 is really sad. The first spelling diagnostic I gave this year was simple - spell the days of the week and months of the year. Of my eighth graders, fewer than five percent scored 100%, almost none of them capitalized, and sadly, several students did not even know the names of all the months.
I just went off on a tangent. When is Christmas break?
That one had never occured to me. I don’t think the typical British pronunciation is the Manuel-esque option, but rather an interpretation of it as thought it were French, the ‘-chet’ ending in particular lending itself to this.
Satyr-day - when you get randy like a goat? 
Si
After all my years listening to the BBC and British rockers and Elvis Costello, I still cannot get over how some Brits say ‘figger’. “He’s a fine figger of a man…” in the words of Elvis Costello, and I have to choke back laughter. The BBC airs this pronunciation, although I can’t recall if newsreaders say it or the kinds of people newsreaders interview.
Saturday = Sat’day up here.
How else would you pronounce figure? “Figger” is the only way I could think of saying it (unless you say “fig u r” or some other variant).
Another annoying affectation the BBC seem to have is the pronunciation of “restaurant”. They pronounce it as the French, with no “t” sound at the end. This is incredibly grating, to my ears.
The Anglo-Saxon form of the name preserved the initial /w/ in Woden whereas Odin is the Scandinavian form. Compare Danish ord for word and orm for worm. Ormsby in England, a remnant of 9th-century Viking colonization (the Danelaw), is literally ‘Worm’s Village’ in Old Norse.
Conversely, Woolston in Southampton apparently comes from ‘Olaf’s town’
Chez nous we say ‘Pinochez’.
Is that wrong?
Hmm, I hadn’t come across this one either. It appears that the surname “Pinochet” is of French origin, but in Chile it is generally pronounced “Pino-CHET”, or possibly “Pino-CHE” (as in Guevara). But definitely with a hard “ch” not a soft “sh”, which stands to reason when you think of Spanish pronounciation.
There’s a long discussion on the Wiki talk page.
Well, it’s like mouse and mice. If you’re posh enough to have more than one house, you have hice. 