Likewise. I took a lot of ribbing from my family over my “AG-ull BIS-ku-puds”. I’d only ever seen the words agile and bicuspid.
Likewise, they were convinced I was just making up a famous singer called “Pla-SEE-do”. Only later did they realize that I was just mispronouncing Placido Domingo’s name.
This was the source of the name Seattle Slew, the racehorse who won the Triple Crown in 1977. According to Wikipedia, the owners chose the spelling “slew” to avoid mispronunciations. One of his offspring, Swale, is also named for a marshy area.
Who would bet on a horse named Seattle Slough (pronounced ‘Slow’)? 
I won’t tell you how much money I lost betting for Scott Speed! 
Quoth UDS1: “Slough, the soft or marshy place, is pronounced to rhyme with “how”. A regional variation, rhyming with “slew, through” died out in the 1800s, although it survives to some extent in US and Canadian English, where the word is sometimes spelt slew, sloo or sleugh.”
My grandfather, who was indeed Canadian, pronounced it to rhyme with “slew, through,” so that is how I say it. I never heard him discuss discarded snakeskin, but for me (Southern California English), that is indeed like “sluff.” The English city Slough rhymes with how.
Snake, don’t slough in a Slough slough: sluff… slau… sloo.
No, when we’re interested in being deprecated for our speech we generally rely on the Brits to do it. They seem to enjoy it so much, and they have so little joy in their lives; being inhabitants of that grim, grey island off the coast of Europe.
I don’t do emojis, but I feel like I should indicate no offense to our British neighbors. Two people separated by a common language and all that. I’ve always wanted to visit, as I studied English in school, and being American I don’t get the chance to use it much.
I have never been to, or heard of, Cranberry Slough. But I spent many lovely weekend days at Long John Slough near the Little Red Schoolhouse Nature Center at a forest preserve not far from west 95th Street when I was growing up in Chicago, and it was always pronounced “slew” by all the folks who worked or visited there. Never heard anyone say it any different.
Cranberry Slough actually is quite close to Little Red Schoolhouse, basically a mile due east of it. I think we typically access it off 95th, but we’ve also done a longer walk from 107th. It seems we never intentionally go there, yet somehow end up there if we walk long enough.
So “slew” it is.
Huh, surprised to hear it is that close. Used to walk from Long John to Maple Lake after visiting the schoolhouse center, but I have no recollection of ever taking a detour to Cranberry. I suppose we were creatures of habit! It was either Long John Slough or Morton Arboretum for hikes when I was a kid, pretty much nowhere else. Funny how that works.
There appear to be a slew of sloughs in that area. The only reason we know Cranberry is, like I said, somehow we keep ending up there without intending to go there. We forget where it is, and it’s like some mystical force leads us there every time we’re in the Willow Springs area.
This thread has slowed down.
“Slowed down”?!! It bloody well slewed into a detour! 
My mom was from Saskatchewan; she pronounced “slough” as “slew”.
It’s not a word I encounter in Ontario much; we might call a similar landform a “marsh”, “swale”, “swamp”, or “ahhh get me out of here these mosquitoes and blackflies are eating me alive!!!”.
And I’m not kidding about the bugs. At certain times of the year, they can be intolerable. The mosquitoes merely puncture you; blackflies take chunks out of you.
People who camp in or regularly work outside in the bush own “bug suits”, which are mesh garments that fit loosely over your clothes and head. A hat with a brim keeps the mesh and the bugs away from your face and ears. You tuck the mesh into your boots and gloves. And for Og’s sake don’t wear shorts into the bush…
Back in the '60s there was a local politician on the radio, complaining about all the “derbies floating on the river.” Turns out, he meant “debris.”
And when I was in a college play, someone referred to another character as “Uterus.” Her name was Eurydice.
That’s what I hear, here on the Albertan prairie: “slough” is pronounced “slew.”
It went askew.
I too have lived in Japan and enjoyed the fun both cultures (JPN and USA) have borrowing from each other and mangling the other languages’ pronunciations. Would love to see some examples of what you mentioned.
Looking at this thread, there’s another case that pops up occasionally that I don’t see mentioned: Where you’re yelled at for mispronouncing a word, but turns out both pronunciations are acceptable! As in:
Catenary (ka-TEEN-ah-ree vs CAT-en-ary) - British guy calling it “ka-TEEN-ah-ree” in a recent YT video and commenters saying “oh, so that’s how you say it?” only to find out the CAT… pronunciation is also considered correct.
Mischievous I said it how it looks, 3 syllables, etc. My little sister insisted it was mis-CHEE-vi-ous, which I had heard but couldn’t square with what I see on a page. When I looked it up apparently both ways of saying it were OK.
This is only a result of rabid descriptivism. The same guys who now say literally means figuratively.
The first and only time I’ve spoken “hyperbole” it came out like something even bigger than the superbowl.
I felt rather stupid the first time I said mah-lee in a conversation but I had never heard melee pronounced before…
The Slough of Requirement?
October, 2002: we were visiting relatives in the Midwest during the two weeks surrounding Columbus Day. My sister in Michigan took us out to dinner at one of the few remaining Ground Rounds when some people at a nearby table started discussing the snipers who were prowling the DC area, I can’t remember what they were saying but it bordered on conspiracy theory.
I really wanted to get involved but decided to not embarrass my sister nor my SO.