None too shabby. I take back my giggle.
Co-QUIT-lam. Precisely as it appears, IMHO, but confusing to the nekkid eye, apparently.
Here in Georgia we have a few anomalies:
Albany is pronounced “All-BENNY”
Monroe is pronounced “MON-roe”
Cairo is pronounced “KAY-ro” (That’s where Kayro syrup is made)
DeKalb County is pronounced “de-CAB”
And the main east-west route from Atlanta out toward Emory and Stone Mountain is called Ponce de Leon, pronounced “Pons duh LEE-ahn.” You know, Leon - like Leon Spinks.
My favorite, though, is Athens, Illinois, pronounced “A-thens” (with a long “A”).
[hijack]
Buhgh-daad
Quht-uhr
Juh-laa-laa-baad
Uhf-ghaa-nihs-taan
2 pet peeves:
Ee-ron - the Farsi way
Ee-raan - the non-Farsi way
Aay-ran (why did you run?) - the hick way
'Ih-raaq or Ih-raaq - the right way
Aay-rok (no, you don’t rock) - the wrong way
[/hijack]
WRS - pronounced “His Magnificent Excellency”
Whakatane…Fuc-a-ta-neigh
Gotta love those Maori place names and the endless fun with tourists.
OOPS
WeRSauron, is it true that the Q’s in names from those areas, are pronounced differently from the K’s? Because I kept hearing people on the news media (in the United States) pronounce Qatar as “cutter” and I thought, that can’t be right.
More Washington state names:
Puyallup-pronounced pyoo-yawl-up
Sequim-prounounced sqwim
We definitely know who doesn’t live here when they say pewy-aloop or Pwalup.
In Tennessee, there is a town named Milan. It is pronounced MY-l’n.
Used to drive me frigging up the wall.
There is a town named Boliver. It is named after that great hero, Simon Bolivar, of whom there is a statue in the town square. It is pronounced by the locals: BOLL-uh-vr.
A local who worked in my office went to Alaska on a vacation. Raved about it. Loved it. Mentioned that there were sure a lot of towns in Alaska named after Tennessee. I said maybe they were both named after towns in other places, like Milan. She gave me a long look, then blinked: where’s Milan named after?
I’m not sure about Jodi, but in the western part of the state we pronounce that as, shuh-HAY-lis. It’s actually mentioned in a Marcy Playground song, too. This, from the lady who lives in Yakima… YEAH-cuh-maw. 
The “q” is, indeed, pronounced differently in Arabic than in English. It’s further down the throat than “k.”
However, “cutter” is much better than whatever its Americanized/Anglicized version might be.
WRS - with a silent “q”
Okay, I looked it up.
This AP site says it’s chuh-HAY’-lis.
On the other hand, this personal site says it’s sha-HAY-lis.
I forgot about that one!
BTW: I have a cousin in Puyallup.
Seguin, Texas really ought to rhyme with Penguin, but it doesn’t. It’s apparently pronounced “Suh-GEEN.” I learned this from a Charlie Robison song.
Howyadoin,
Let’s not forget the Nantucket village of Siasconset, pronounced “Sconset”…
Or Leominster, MA, pronounced “Lemminster”…
-Rav
P.S. There was a great song years ago called “I Saw Godzilla Eat Up Tuckwilla”, which mentioned a whole slew of weird Washington place names…