And don’t forget the fearless editor Psmith.
I realize this is five years old, but what about “classical music” types?
“Vr” is a very unusual combination in English, and we do the same thing in our pronunciation of “hors d’oeuvres,” too, so it’s not like swapping “v” and “r” is without precedent.
If a Brit says someone is Lester, how do We know that he doesn’t mean Leicester? That’s the one thing I hate in English language, You have to guess all the time! Keep it phonetic ( ignorant Americans are actually doing good job on this… )
I usually think the same, but then again if one has to choose blind date between Tiffany and Theophania… or between John and Ioannes…
( Yes, I know it was 03-08-2007 )
The parents of Karch Kiraly’s volleyball partner, Christopher St. John Smith, known as “Sinjin.”
Note to those of us in the Empire: That’s O Zee.
Which is why it was Shakestaff/Shakestaffe (Shak-es-staf-eh, so he was Canadian, a fact little known)/Shakespear (Shak-es-pair) who wrote Macbeth (properly, MacBeth, dammit) and why we should cover our mouths when we kowghuh.
Actually, Charles Dodgson not only dropped the “g”, he pronounced it Lewis Carroll.
Not to mention the fact that Wodehouse itself is pronounced Woodhouse, and the surname of his much more famous character, Bertie Wooster, is pronounced Wuh-ster (and would more normally be spelled Worcester - don’t get me started on the sauce!).
Well, I’ve come across the surname Vranesh a few times. Although that’s arguably not English to begin with.
As for odd spelling/pronunciation combinations: I heard indirectly of a fambly named Enroughty. Try to guess how THAT is pronounced.DarbyOkay, I’m skeptical about that too.
I’m just saying it’s not without precedent. “Ouvre” is pronounced with the consonants in the right order in English, for example, although “Louvre” usually (in my experience) gets chopped to “Loov.”
I thought is was Street John. Live and learn.
Don’t give them any ideas.
The link is here, but the letter is only viewable as a PDF.
Here’s a somewhat more detailed account, dating from 1903, along with a related Civil War story.
I remember a college professor of mine discussing Arthur St. Clair Arthur St. Clair - Wikipedia, and he claimed the name was pronounced ‘Sinclair.’ Until this thread, that was the first and only time I encountered anyone making that pronounciation claim about the ‘St.’ in a name. If you read the beginning of the Wiki, you’ll see “His parents, unknown to early biographers, were probably William Sinclair…” If you just put in “St. Clair” on the Wiki search, you’ll see this disambiguation: “Saint Clair (also spelled St. Clair, St Clair or even Sinclair, and is sometimes also pronounced that way) may refer to…”
Magdalene college Cambridge (the English one) is pronounced Maudlin.
And, there’s legal precedent, at least in some state in the US, according to something I read, but can’t cite.
Some guy put in his will that his son would inherit his fortune in a trust, but he remained the trust beneficiary only as long as he kept his surname, which was spelled out in the will or trust documents. So, the son keeps the name (say, “McGillicudy”) but pronounces it “smith”. No doubt leading to oddities when checking into hotels, but that’s beside the point. Anyway, the trustees sued, but the judge ruled that a person is allowed to pronounce his or her name however they want, and the pronunciation was not elaborated in the will and/or trust documents.
Might an urban legend. I remember reading this long before I learned how to detect urban legends (and long before the Internet, as well.)
In any case, James Bond was being intentionally snobbish correcting Christopher Walken’s pronunciation of “Saint John Smith” as “Sinjun-SmYthe”. It was part of his cover. Him being a world-famous spy, and all. I mean really, are we challenging the consistency of James Bond films or books? 
Especially when he hangs around with the Queen, and goes parachuting with her!
That sounds awfully similar to the story commasense reported.
Yeah, I noticed that, but the circumstances were different. It’s possible my story was an urban legend loosely based on commasense’s. I wasn’t able to find it on the web, but I didn’t feel like I was doing the best job of searching, either. It’s hard when one doesn’t have any of the particulars.
So, not much of a contribution to the conversation. No ignorance fought.
I’ve never understood why Americans seem to be so mystified by the Favre/Farve pronunciation. To me, “Favre” immediately looks like a French name, which means it will likely be pronounced to rhyme with “Le Havre”, that is, stress on the first syllable, “FAHV”, with “ruh” almost entirely elided on the end. Add on a few generations of lazy English pronunciation, and “FAHV” is almost exactly what I would expect. (There is the added complication of rhoticity or non-rhoticity, but in a British accent, “FAHV” and “FARV” would sound identical.)