Oostburg, WI where it’s pronounced Oohst-burg.
Nonlocals call it Ootsburg or Hootsburg or Oatsburg.
Meawhile in Oostburg, Zeeland, NL it’s pronounced Oastburh
C’mon down to Oostburg WI once and enjoy an Oostburger (a hamburger on a hard roll with a bratwurst on it too). En so?
“It has been said” on Wikipedia isn’t a solid enough source for me. I would like to see a contemporary newspaper article or document which states that the change in pronunciation was specifically to differentiate a given American city or town from the German city.
There is a city called Havre in the hill country of central Montana on the Highline named after the French port of Le Havre. The Great Northern Railroad runs through it and it has always been a rail town. The locals pronounce it Have er.
Houston Street in NYC, pronounced house-ton, not hyoo-ston.
Knik in Alaska (river, town, an arm of Cook inlet, etc.). Pronounced k’nick, not ‘nick’.
As someone who grew up in northern Indianapolis, not far from Carmel (where all the rich people live), I came here specifically to say this one.
Lake Orion Michigan. Pronounced Lake Or-an around here. You can tell a new weather man when he gets called out on it.
I can think of several here in MN. Edina is “ee-DYE-na”, not “eh-DEE-na”. And Ely is “EE-lee”, not “EE-lye”.
Virginia:
Norfolk is pronounced “NOR-fick”, not “NOR-folk”, as Elvis did in “Promised Land”. It tweaks Mom’s ears to hear it every time.
Suffolk is likewise pronounced “SUF-fick”.
Emmaus PA; em-AY-us
Mahopac NY; MAYO-pak; mah-hopak (has varied over time)
Scituate RI; skitch-oo-it
Scituate MA; sitch-oo-it
Newark NJ; NEW-urk
Newark DE; NEW-ark
The Bronx NY; duh BRONKS
Baltimore MD; ball-mur (Maryland; mer-lin)
Near Pittsburgh we have Mount Lebanon, which is pronounced differently than Lebanon.
Same here on California’s central coast. Paso Robles (PASS-O-ROBE-ELS) and Avila (AV-A-LA) Beach should make anybody with a semester of high school Spanish under their belt cringe.
Kearney, NE is pronounced “Carney.”
Cairo, NE is pronounced “Karo” (like the corn syrup).
Norfolk, NE is pronounced “Norfork.”
Beatrice, NE is pronounced “Be-atriss.”
Puyallup is the one I came in to mention. I had heard the name long before I saw it spelled (grew up in Oregon), and my sister lived there for a while. I thought it was pronounced “pyu-allup.”
Yreka is “wy-reka” isn’t it? I don’t live there, but that’s what I’ve heard on the radio driving through.
Gotta balance your beef fat and your pork fat. You betchya.
Well, it USED to be pronounced like the city in Germany, and now it isn’t. And the change happened around WWI. I suppose it didn’t have to be a “reaction to anti-German sentiment” - it could have changed so the city didn’t get confused with the other Berlin and attacked. Could be, could be…
eta: The Wikipedia article had cites to support that statement.
The French would be something like “day-TWAH”. But aren’t many towns mispronounced by non-locals because locals have Americanized the town name? Like one of the OP examples:
‘praig’ would be an Americanization and ‘prahg’ more the original pronounciation. Or Milan, Michigan. Not ‘mi-LAHN’, as an Italian might say it, it’s pronounced ‘MY-lin’.
This post confuses me though:
Granted, I only took 3 semesters of French in college, and that was a long time ago, but aren’t those pronunciations pretty close to what the actual French would sound like?
ETA: never mind, I think Gravios in French would be more like ‘grav-WAH’ and the last syllable of Carondolet would of course be ‘lay’ not ‘let’. ‘Day PAIR’ for Des Peres still seems correct, though.
I have family in Orleans, Ontario (pronounced “Ore-LEANS”) which I’m told is pronounced differently from New Orleans (“Nw’ORE-linns”) but I suspect the French might pronounce them both the same.
When I lived in the states, it was rare to come across an American who didn’t pronounce the names of some Canadian cities diffeently that I was used to. I can understand “Toronto” as opposed to the locals’ “TRAH-nah” because of the spelling, but I never quite understood how Americans got “MOHNT-ree-awl” for “MUN-tree-all.”
Staunton, VA. Virginia residents pretend the “u” doesn’t exist.
Chaptico, Md is CHOP-tih-coe
LaPlata, Md is Luh PLAY-tuh
Same with the one in Illinois.
Lived there ten years. Pronounced Lake Oar-ee-un, not Oar-rye-un.