See? And I always thought it was pronounced “bruh-ther” 
Mangetout. Forget the pronounciation, it can’t even be decided whether it’s one word or two.
I think the French did it just to mess with us
I tried to teach my friends this for years and eventually gave up. Now it’s just a running joke between us. We all had a good laugh when this commercial started airing.
I’m not sure. 
For me, translating a sound into English is not a strong point. The American English version rhymes with rim. The corporation is trying to get people to pronounce it correctly, but that’s just not going to happen with that word.
Austin has a street Guadalupe which they pronounce: gwa-da-loop. It’s a hard one for me me because I feel silly not pronouncing it “right”.
Some time ago I heard some narrator on TV expound on the pronunciation of Nestlé. A turn-of-the-20th-century London movie showed a horse-drawn omnibus with a Nestlé ad on it.
He said that at that time in England, everyone pronounced it as nessle.
I wondered then (and now) whether that was true.
Our resident expert expounds:
Damn, you are right about the French pronunciation. I guess I am too far removed from French class to remember the rules properly. The English phonetic guide from Webster’s does have the middle syllable as more of an “uh” though: may·on·naise | [\ˈmā-ə-ˌnāz, ˌmā-ə-ˈ](http://media.merriam-webster.com/soundc11/m/mayonn01.wav)
The database mySQL was originally named after the Swedish programmer’s daughter My. Her name is pronounced somewhere between the English words Me and Mew.
That being said, everyone pronounces it like the English word My now.
You can “defend against” a pass, but if you merely “defend” it, you’re either doing what you can to see it reaches its intended target unmolested, or you are trying to justify the decision to throw it.
Since, in sports, offense and defense are generally considered together, it is natural, for the sake of clarity, to stress the syllable that distinguishes them from each other.
William Safire, who was born Safir and pronounced his name as in Morley’s Safer, wrote that since his name was so frequently mispronounced, he changed the spelling so as not to feel compelled to constantly correct.
New Berlin, Whatever State It Is In, is often listed with places like Cairo, Illinois and Peru, Indiana among American cities we pronounce differently from their European namesakes but every German I have ever met has pronounced Germany’s capital BER-lin.
Having missed the edit window, let me acknowledge that the famous Peru is neither a city nor in Europe.
But I am in time this time to add that the famous Cairo isn’t in Europe, either. Who knew there were so many other continents out there?
It’s pronounced, “Peachtree”.
runs and hides:p
On behalf of many generations of English Montrealers: In English, the first syllable of our city’s name is pronounced **Mun ** (rhymes with gun), not Mon (rhymes with gone). Thank you from the bottom of our hearts. Love, English Mun-tree-ALL
I (Dutch) keep trying to get people to not pronounce Van Gogh as Van Gof. Yes, I do understand that the correct Dutch “g” sound is difficult for many, but I wish it would be anglicized to Van Gogue, which is much closer. The F makes no sense at all. But often when I say it the right way, people don’t understand who I am on about - so yes, I probably have given up and said Van Gofff just to make myself understood.
I really, really hate this one.
Gene Rayburn, on Match Game, used to pronounce it ‘van Gokhhhh’, dragging it out for the comedy and (I assume) to illustrate it’s not ‘van Go’.
Huh. I always made fun of my wife for pronouncing it “Van Go” like most Americans do, and it turns out I was totally wrong too. I thought all Gs were softened in Dutch, as in Gullit.
I prefer “Van Go” to “Van Gof” - I just don’t see where the F sounds comes from. But you’re actually right, the “g” is the same as in Gullit. But everyone gets that wrong too, there they make that an “h”. The “Gogue” I posited is not an accurate transcription of the Dutch sound - just a more logical way to anglicize it.
The F comes from standard British pronunciation, I expect, as in draught (draft) or rough (ruff). Maybe someone heard Gogggghhhh and heard a bit of an F in there thought it meant the Dutch pronunciation was the same, and it stuck?
If I hear Samhain pronounced “Sam-hain” one more time, I’m going to barf. Even genius Spencer Reid did this on an episode of Criminal minds.
It’s “so-ween.”
Lots of words and names that traditionally had a silent L now usually have the L pronounced, including almond, alms, Polk.
Speaking of presidents, the C in John Quincy Adams’ middle name was traditionally pronounced as a ‘z’, not an ‘s’.
I believe vagaries was traditionally pronounced va-GARE-eez, not VAY-guh-reez.
Gala was GAY-la, not GAH-lah.
Linux is pronounced by its creator something like LEE-nooks, but I usually hear it pronounced LIN-icks.