My mom apparently thinks chorizo is Greek–she invariably calls it ko-RISE-oh.
Several years ago, there was an anecdote in Reader’s Digest about a waitress becoming progressively miffed at the Asian guy repeatedly asking, “What’s up, babe?” That is, until her manager explained that the customer wanted wasabi.
You married Les Nessman? :eek:
My little bit of dyslexia caused me to think it was CHOR-zee-oh.
I hear foy-yay most often. And even that sends people into conniptions for being “too pretentious.” It’s like the divide between homage: homij vs. oh-mazhe.
British English sometimes handles French better, but mangles Spanish and some other languages worse than the US. Witness the car companies JAG-ew-ər and nee-saayhn. (æ sound vs. ah).
Also dyslexia related: I originally thought “nostalgia” was no-GLESS-tee-ah.
“NOTER DAME”
I know what a “dame” is, but “noter” isn’t an actual word. Say the whole thing in French, or I’m treating it as gibberish.
The other ones are called chigolohs.
I always spell it “hiccough”. Partly because I am amused at all the different ways “-ough” is pronounced. Of course I also spell out doughnut and through. I love me some oughs.
When my family used to play Trivial Pursuit, we would take turns reading the questions. One time my younger brother, who was all of 10 or 11 at the time, hesitated in the middle of a question and wound up asking us about a dis-CAW-tha-cue.
The word was “discotheque.” 
(We all felt that he’d done an excellent job of sounding it out!)
I often see Walla Walla in my data. I’ve been sorely tempted to change it to Voilà Voilà. I’m also tempted to change Coeur d’Alene to Cordy Lane.
But that would be unprofessional.
Ok… enlighten us who are apparently not such manglers of French. I have no idea what those two words actually are.
As opposed to New Yorkers who insist it is How-stun…
There are a lot of people at my local Highland Games who refer to the “rampart lion,” when they mean the Rampant Lion:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/48/Lionrampant.svg/2000px-Lionrampant.svg.png
I know someone who thinks he’s being somehow anti-“elitist” by saying “gaaaaaawwwwwn-drie” when he means “genre,” “preface” when he means “premise,” stuff like that.
It’s really obnoxious.
I’m gonna guess they’re supposed to be “Beaujolais” and “Louisville.”
Not sure, though. 
Missouri has Versailles, but it is pronounced as ver-SAILS.
Can’t figure out what these are supposed to be/mean.
I’m not sure what context Beaujolais comes up in, wine? I hear “bew-zholay” more often, I think.
So is a street in my yuppie hometown, so I don’t think you can always blame midwesterners/southerners and their “uncultured” ways.
I was just sharing a story with my friend on Saturday about this exact issue.
A person standing in line at the grocery store deli counter ordering Chinese food asked for the General Tuh-say-oh chicken. (Tsao is how the deli menu spelled it; I think it’s supposed to be just Tso.)
Of course, I know I’ve butchered my share of words, so I try to avoid making too much fun of people who get them wrong.
Zuo, if you want to get technical, using current romanization standards.
Yeah, that’s inviting trouble. If they’re friends, a light ribbing is fine.
Years ago, I used to be a groomer. One of our regular dogs was named Quiche. And, yes, the bather called him Quickie.
I can’t remember which large book store chain it was but back in the 90’s, they had this geeky guy on their commercials whose name was Books. :rolleyes: He’d talk about the great bargains they had on national best sellers such as one by the author Michael Crichton. He pronounced the last name just as it looks. The ad ran for several weeks, at least. It wasn’t a gimmick to get people’s attention, as far as I could tell, since Books was their spokesman for several years and he never did that with any other name that I know of. I’ve always wondered how that one managed slipped by.
OK, Dope, help! This thread has brought back a memory and it seems that it is faulty. Before our family went to see a play, we would each take parts and read through it. Before The Importance of Being Earnest, I got to read Gwendolen since that’s my name and she even spells it correctly! Anyhoo, I thought it was TIOBE where the final line (in a scene/act or I thought the whole play) was “Infamous!” Since I was a kid and not familiar, I exclaim “in-FAME-us!” and had to be corrected.
But looking up TIOBE, it’s not the play. Which one is it?
I beg to differ. Compare the American English pronunciation of garage, ballet, massage and café - respectively, “gar-AHZJ”, “ba-LAY”, “mass-AHZJ” and “caf-AY” - to the British English versions - “GAR-ridge”, “BAL-et”, “MAH-sahj” and “caff”.