Aussie and yep, very close. Wuss Tah sheer sauce. If I’ve had a few scotches it may turn into west-are-sheer sauce. :o
LOL 
Then again, this is New England We evidently kept many of the mother country’s pronounciations 
But yeah, I have friends in Oz and whenever I’ve heard them speak via Skype, their pronounciation sounds very similar to mine except for that distinctive Aussie accent.
Small nitpick (and yes, we Brits are weird-verging-on-insane as regards spelling / pronunciation / orthography): the Oxford college mentioned, is Magdalen (no e). Cambridge University has a Magadalene College, with the e – also pronounced 'Maudlin". (All deriving from Saint Mary Magdalen, English pronunciation of whose name was formerly “maudlin” – the pronunciation of the actual saint’s name has changed; but “maudlin” remains as the associated adjective with implications of “over-the-top tearful drama”, and in the names of the institutions of higher education.)
Duly noted! 
The Universities of Oxford and Cambridge have been since forever, enjoying rivalry and sniping at each other and differing from each other, often over mind-bendingly trivial matters. Oxford has The Queen’s College – founded in honour of a particular medieval queen (king’s consort-type) of England. Its Cambridge counterpart is Queens’ College – founded by two (different from the Oxford one) such queens of England. Some Oxford and Cambridge types can get very heated over the specifics of this stuff…
Just noticed: my post #43 – I mis-spelled the Cambridge joint – it’s MAGDALENE. Gaudere’s Law, I think they call this around here.
There are many small towns here in NC with strange pronunciations. Very close by to me we have Chalybeate Springs. It’s “kah-LIB-it" Springs. That may be close to what the OP’s looking for, though it comes up a little short.
But my favorite NC example is probably Conetoe. It’s “con-E-tuh” to the locals. And there’s a town in the same county as Conetoe; it’s Pinetops. If there was any justice in the world it would be pronounced “puh-NEE-tups”, but it’s not.
When I was a wee lad, there was an older neighbor who everyone called Mr. Chop-a-TU-lips. I was more than 40 years old before I got to New Orleans and learned that they were really calling him Tchoupitoulas.
How would you pronounce it, if not “kernal?” Related: the University of Kentucky student newspaper is called the Kernal.
Kentucky submissions (in addition to the aforementioned Ver-sails) —
Garrard County — GARE-ud County
Irvine, Ky. — Ur-vin
Cadiz, Ky. — KAY-deeze
Monticello, Ky. — Monta-sello
Rowan County — Rown County (Rhymes with brown)
“Chalybeate” is a funny one. It crops up in Britain too, in a “health-giving mineral-bearing-natural-waters” context. I long thought – reading Anglophone-phonetically – that it must be “TCHAY-li-beet”. Realised finely, that it was Greek stuff getting in on the act: correctly thus, “kha-LIB-i-ate”. The above “kah-LIB-it”, thus not so far off the mark !
The Schuykill River going through Philadelphia.
SKOO-kill
It’s fun figuring what part of the country (or world) somebody is from by the way they pronounce the name of Alabama’s third largest city.
This was actually a plot point in Heinlein’s The Cat Who Walked Through Walls. If I remember Gwen’s point correctly, if you say it the short way and spell it the short way (TAHL-uh-ver/Tolliver), then you were no-account-white-trash. If you said it the long way and spelled it the long way (Toll-ee-uh-FERR-oh/Taliaferro), you were a carpet bagging damn Yankee. If you said it the short way and spelled it the long way (TAHL-uh-ver/Taliaferro), you were from a good Southern family.
I read somewhere that the family name Featheringstone was pronounced FEERstuhn. Those wacky English.
I’ve lived here most of my adult life but never thought the word had any significance until now. I had always assumed it was an old family name, someone’s farm, etc. Thanks for enlightening me.
Based on this newly-discovered (to me) data, I humbly withdraw my submission.
Seems easy to me. The T in Booker T. Washington is for Taliaferro, pronounced that way–that is, Tolliver. It’s also a not unheard-of surname.
I’m a lifetime UK citizen and resident. Assuming that I’m right – Google seemingly not totally unanimous re which is Alabama’s third-largest city, but going by their seemingly majority-verdict re same: Mobile, by my understanding pronounced “Moh-BEEL”. There’s a rude song, long popular in Britain, concerning said city, in which so-and-so is said to obtain, “in Mobile” (pronunciation as just given). I’m ready to be informed that we have the pronunciation wrong…
phouka beat me to the punch on the Heinlein reference - that stood out to me, because it’s so very true! But in a former life, I was the only local working for a radio station group in Savannah, so it fell upon me to teach the new talent how to pronounce the local place names. It seemed weird to me, but through the years, the single hardest place name to teach? “Altamaha,” a large river in SE Georgia. Everyone wants to pronounce it “al-teh-MAH-HAH,” instead of the correct “ALL-teh-meh-Hah.” (Of course, minds were further blown when variants of the name were thrown in there - like the Gordonia-Alatamaha State Park: “Uh-LAT-eh-meh-hah.”
Other fun ones:
Coosawhatchie (just up the road in South Carolina): The W is silent. “Coose-eh-HATCH-ee”
Cairo, Georgia: “KAY-Roe”
Lafayette, Georgia (made infamous by the crematory operator who let his work pile up a few years ago): “le-FAY-ut.” (And, of course, Lafayette Square in Savannah is pronounced the traditional French way, albeit with a southern accent.)
Nahunta, Georgia: “Nay-HUNT-eh.”
Vienna, Georgia: Usually pronounced the same way we pronounce those cheap little canned sausages - “Vie-EE-nuh.”
Tybee Island - “TIE-bee.” All of the tourists want to know how to get to “ti-bee.”
Et cetera, et cetera.
I’ve never heard Dekalb County, Georgia pronounced with the O sound - always with a short A, mostly with a silent L (but not always.)
I might be mis-reading your pronunciation guide, but I always hear “vuh-DAY-yuh,” not “uh.”
M’nt-GUM-ry, right? Or Moe-BEEL? I don’t know which is second and which is third! (Kind of like how Georgia’s eighth-largest city is “All-BEN-ee.” If you say “ALL-beh-nee,” we know y’all ain’t from around here!)
No, that’s the Alabama way. Outside the state types say it that way sometimes, but not as often as Moh-ble (as in noble) or more gratingly as MOH-beel.
And you’re right also about the population ranking. I assume the other choice is Huntsville?
And I must assume the song you reference is not this one from a while back.
A couple from New Mexico
Pojoaque {poe WAH kee}
Madrid: not pronounced {muh DRID } like the city in Spain, but instead pronounced { MAD-rid } with a strong emphasis on the first syllable and an A like in spam.
There’s a Nevada, Missouri, pronounced Nuh-VAY-duh.
There’s a Miami, Oklahoma pronounced My-YAM-uh.
And the Arkansas River, pronounced Are-KAN-zus.
There is Cheniere, Louisiana
Pronounced Shin’ - E
This one in’t too bad. As a Spanish speaker, my first guess would have been {poe HWAH kay}, so fairly close.
This one’s horrible. It would go perfectly with the Utah ones I offered up way upthread. :smack: