I certainly hear “man-ayze” most commonly. I would think the correct pronunciation would be closer to “may-uh-nayze,” given that it uses the French nasal sound.
Odd, my Central and South American friends pronounce it BIM-boh, with a closed “O.” It was the same for the Bimbo commercials I heard while living in Buenos Aires.
Similarly, I’ve never heard gringo pronounced “GREEN-goh.” Always “GRIN-goh.” And I’ve heard this plenty of times, being a “gringo feo” according to my Salvadoran ex-girlfriend and her sisters.
Missouri also has a Versailles pronounced ver-SAYLES. And not far away is Auxvasse pronounced AWKS-vass.
When the Germans moved in in force in the late 19th century displacing the previous French settlers they seemed to take especial delight in butchering all the names they could. There are many many more I could cite.
Indiana, too. Indiana also has a town called Vevay, pronounced VEE-vee.
For the record, I have never in my life heard anyone say “man-ayze.”
I’m in Barcelona on vacation and asked the Peruvian lady who works at the place I’m staying and she pronounces it somewhere between “BIM-boh” and " BEEM-bo," maybe 2/3 of the way towards “BIM-boh.” But it definitely didn’t rhyme with beam or scheme.
Just watch Chris Matthews for a week. He’ll bring it up, multiple times.
I don’t get how people get “SHIV-a-lay” out of Chevrolet but a good many do.
Of course, next year we’ll get people talking about “electorial votes”
That’s pretty much the standard west coast pronunciation. There might by a tiny vestige of an “uh” in the middle but for most folks it’s almost indistinguishable.
This may be peculiar to Hoosierland, but saying ‘prent-zel’ for ‘pret-zel’ was quite common where I grew up.
Siri is forcing me to mispronounce many of the local (Albuquerque) place names. She just cant grok the double-L sounds like a Y thing, bless her heart. Must be from Amarillo.
Once when I was driving through California’s central valley, I heard an NPR story where a spokesman kept talking about ‘ammins’. It took me a while to figure out what he was talking about. I found out later that ‘ammin’ is a common pronunciation in some areas, but in 40 years of being a California native, I had never heard it pronounced that way. And I haven’t since.
You may well have heard what some other people hear as that, though. Some of the complaints in this thread, I’m sure, are rooted in people accustomed to fuller enunciations not hearing all the sounds that are actually present in more compressed versions.
Of…?
Sorry. ‘Almond’.
Heh. Thanks.
Except that in French a double consonant doesn’t indicate a nasal sound, but a flat preceding vowel, and in this case, it’d be closer to the “o” in the English “on”, but hardly voiced, given the stress on the final syllable. The French would say it more like My-on-ezz, but I don’t see anything wrong in anglicising the vowels a bit for use in English-speaking countries.
So, for me, the same thing applies to Lidl. You should hear the variations we have for Lido.
[QUOTE
Mayonnaise is another one where, at least in the U.S., an “incorrect” pronunciation - “man-ayze” - is driving out the proper “may-on-ayze”. Likewise “chok-lit” is more common than “chok-o-lat”.[/QUOTE]
Are you 104 years old? Or from France? I’ve never heard anyone in the US say “chok-o-lat” or “may-on-ayze”.
I am neither 104 years old, nor French. Nevertheless…
Which is why once you get to Des Moines, we can direct you north to Nevada (nah-VAY-dah), Iowa and Madrid (MAD-rid), Iowa 
Or you could head back east via Marseilles (mar-sales), IL and Terre Haute (Terra Hawt), IN.
Neither. But that’s how I say both, and I’m not the only one. My guide to pronouncing mayonnaise is to remember that it ultimately derives from the Balearic Island port of Mahon.
Although “chocolate” is probably closer to “chok-uh-l’t”, lest you think that I meant “chok-oh-lat”. I was trying to capture the pronunciation without using IPA.