Are you sure Squirrel is purely an American word?
Or am I reading that wrong. 
Haha! That’s too cute. Do you try to come up with conversations that revolve around squirrels just to hear him try to say it? I would.
I almost forgot my husband’s lack of power. He has “parr” instead. And this morning, he’ll probably take a “sharr” (shower).
Hrm.
What I actually meant was that words for things that don’t exist here, but do in the US, should be pronounced properly. :smack:
(I might actually have told the story here about my very good friend who, seconded from her company to it’s American office, was nearly arrested in a Minnesota park because she was on her knees, in very expensive business attired, trying to catch a squirrel. Because she’d never seen one before. Also, she’s still angry that chipmunks have tails, because Chip and Dale very clearly do not, and Americans are very mean to lie like that.)
Great OP!
I can already tell that all throughout the day today, “Erlach! Erlach! Don’t be shteeupit!” is going to pop into my head and I will laugh like an insane person at inappropriate times.
What about the grouchy old Black chicks? We need love too!
I want to use this too: Erlach! Erlach! Don’t be shteeupit!
Saying it aloud is fun!
Thanks, OP, for clearing up the mystery about “Star of the County Down”! I always took it to be “two bird feet” – you know, the young lady has cute little feet, like a warbler’s.
Mrs. Map has never pronounced a final-syllable “r” in her life – the English where she comes from is non-rhotic as is gets. Whenever I fail to understand something she says, I’ll back up and repeat what she said in my mind, inserting “r’s” here and there until I find a combination which makes sense.
Yes, and just to further clear things up, she also has “nut brown hair.” You know…not HERR.
Does Mrs. Map use the leftover r’s somewhere else? That’s what Bostonians do. They’re very conservative that way.
Black women? Hello! 
Now I have an indescribable picture in my head, composed 50% of self-mumbling crazoids on the streetcar, 50% of an old apartment superintendant I once had, and 50% of bad comedy from TV.
Chip and dale most certainly do have tails!
I’m in Québec, and so was assigned a francophone Québecois man. While his English is very very good (most people never notice an accent, and even I often forget that it’s not his first language), some words give him trouble.
He can never remember which is the correct word to use “Opera” or “Oprah”, which, as you can imagine, has led to some very weird sentences.
He gives a french twist to “spaghetti” so that it comes out sounding something like “spah-getty”.
I can’t remember any other ones offhand, though. Whenever I laugh at him, he just says “I’m French!”, as if that’s an excuse 
It is.
This explains about 60% of Canadian politics since the Quiet Revolution. 
Yanks FYI can’t pronounce cottage. “An Irish cahttage”. My Missus is from Ohio so I have lots of fun making fun of 'merkin accents. Galway is pronounced “Gaulway” and Donegal is “Dunnygaul”.
Nope, she saves them up, gives them to me in a big bag for Christmas, and I use them all up at the Christmas dinner table, telling pirate jokes to the family until they ask me to please stop.
Here’s a fun accents thread I started a few months back that some of you might be interested in.
You were assigned 3 irish guys.
Oh no FAIR!
All I got was a 1st generation German-American who, hysterically, cannot for the life of him do a german accent. But, our 10 year old sprog can, and do so, brilliantly. ( Courtesy of his mother’s taunt-zee-Germans ways. vhat?
I think I need to move to Boston. Or Ireland or Scotland or somewhere where the accents are sofuckingcool!
Knitwit Your husband is a major Hottie! Two years with an irishman is like 10 in the real world. 
Part of my problem is that Irish (Gaelic) spellings are so insane in my world. I’m still working on “Chuckie Are Law.” And why the heck does my sister-in-law, Chivon, spell her name Siobhan?
My friend is of Chinese-Malaysian/Irish extraction and called Siobhán. Abroad it is often take as an Asian name and pronounced stuff like “Sy-ob-han”. Some Irish spellings are indeed difficult to pronounce but Galway ain’t one of them.
Don’t I know it! I’m exhausted from all the Guinness and jigs.
Because they cheat at Scrabble?
You mean Gallimh? Looks hard to pronounce to me.
Photo cite? (Please?)
Oops, sorry, hon…