When travelling from London to Wales, I had to show the guy in Euston Station my guidebook so I could get to the right place. He seemed to think this was pretty reasonable. I went to Aberystwyth. It’s actually pronounced pretty much the way it’s spelled (Aberistwith), but all of those consonants in a row really threw me.
My parents have a picture of my dad standing in front of a sign in Yucatán pointing to a town called “Xcalactdzonot”. (I think it’s it, anyway.) We figure that’s pronounced “shkalaktzonut.” The Mayan “x” is pronounced like an English “sh”. You can go snorkeling at Xel-Ha and there’s some faux Mayan theme park called Xcaret (“Nature’s Secret Paradise!”).
I’ve been there! We paid a Mayan driver to carry us over in a van with a cooler of Coronas. On the way, he tried to teach us how to pronounce it. We kept saying “Shell HA” with an arabic-sounding throaty H. He would shake his head and repeat it. To us, it sounded just like what we’d said. We never did get it right, or figure out what we were doing wrong. For years after, the exclamation “Shell HA!” was an inside joke.
It wouldn’t surprise me. After all, “Chicaguh Tribune” is a famous upper-Midwesternism, even if I consider Ohio only borderline midwest, what with being in the Eastern time zone.
I once got in a polite e-mail argument with Charles Harrington Elster, who cohosts an NPR radio program on language from the campus of San Diego State University, over his pronunciation of Campanile Drive in SDSU’s address as cam-pa-neel. He argued that you have to pronounce words following local custom and he even used Cairo as an example. I argued that most Cairoians, or whatever they’re called, probably know of Cairo, Egypt and are intentionally distinguishing their town with a different pronunciation. SDSU students, on the other hand, are in general a bunch of trogolodytes that don’t even know campanile is an English word, much less how it’s pronounced.
I also asked him to stop using Charles as a first name.
Two from North East England (using # to represent that pesky schwa thing):
Ponteland – often pronounced PONTY-land by those not in the know, it should be Pon-TEE-l#nd.
Cambois – I know it looks french (it probably is) but it’s known to those who live thereabouts as CAMM-#ss.
And if there are any BBC announcers or presenters reading this: it’s nice that you’ve noticed that we pronounce Newcastle as Ny#-CA-ss#ll, but honestly, you don’t have to. That’s just the way we talk. You sound silly saying it – you never get it right, and we can practically hear the patronising quotation marks clicking into place on either side every time you try. Go back to saying NEW-caah-s#l. We will know where you mean.
Milan = MY-lun
Peru = PEE-roo
Versailles = ver-SALES
Terre Haute = TARE-uh HOAT (rhymes with coat)
Those are the only ones I can think of right now. Although I’m sure the residents of Mexico, IN and Russia, IN have figured out some god-awful way to pronounce their hometowns, I’ve never heard them personally.
I can vouch for the nor’-fork pronunciation of Norfolk. I grew up about 8 miles from there in **Brasher Falls ** (pronounced bray’-zier falls, NOT brash’-er).
When I was living in North Carolina, I always thought the pronunciation of the town of Bahama ba-HAY’-muh was amusing.
Living in New York’s capital district, I’m always amused when people pronounce the Al in Albany, as though they were saying the name Al, instead of pronouncing it “Awl”. (I’m not sure if my phonetics are correct there, but I hope I got my point across.) I always wonder if, when they learned their state capitals, they were taught that or if they just weren’t paying attention.
There’s a town here named Colonie that’s pronounced col-uh-NEE’. When I first moved here, I called Cohoes, *KOE’-hoes * instead of kuh-HOES’.
Having lived various places between north of Dayton and Middletown, I don’t think I’ve heard anyone pronounce Ohio or Miami that way, so I’d have to agree with you there. On the other hand, I don’t know of many locals who really enunciate the “t” in “Dayton”; you can generally tell someone is unfamiliar with the place if he pronounces all the letters fully.
I think there’s a little town called Russia somewhere in Shelby County that is pronounced “Rooshie.”
When I lived in Texas, I knew of a town called Mexia (pronounced muh-HAY-uh). Now I live in Alabama, and here, there’s a little town called Mexia (pronounced MEX-ee-uh).
Also in Texas–Refugio. You pronounce that re-FYOO-rio.
In Mississippi, there’s Gautier–you say it go-SHAY.
Someone already beat me to buh-LUX-ee. Close to that is “that sleepy little town of Pascagoula.” I don’t think most people say that wrong (it’s pass-kuh-GOO-luh), but I once heard of someone saying it puh-SCAG-yoo-luh. You know, I try not to make fun of people, but sometimes you just can’t help laughing!
I’ve found this to be the case for a number of two-syllable British place and proper names, particularly with a “w” in the middle:
Benwick = “Bennick”
Berwick = “Barrick”
Warwick = “Warrick”
Cheswick = “Chissick”
Norwich = “Norrich”
Nothing to do with the above, but an UK/US pronunciation difference I’ve always found interesting: In southern England, there is a village and castle named Arundel – “Air-un-dell,” with the accent on the final syllable and the middle one almost swallowed. While, here in Maryland, we have an Anne Arundel county – “Ah-RUN-dl,” with the accent very heavily on the middle syllable and the last one swallowed.
