How DO they pronounce it?
GO- thee. With a soft th.
There is a street in Torrance, CA, named Calle Mayor. We pronounce it Kalley (rhymes with “alley”) Mayor (rhymes with “Mayor”).
In Indiana there is a city named Terre Haute. I wanted to use the French pronunciation, but since I am a native of Indiana myself I relented and gave the name its common pronunciation of “Terra Hote” (rhymes with “coat”).
:smack: Of course it would be “day”! That was just a brain fart.
I was actually wondering if the oi = wa thing happens before an N or not. I remember that there were some rules that changed in front of N. I guess this isn’t one of them.
When “oi” comes before an “m” or “n” (unless it is followed by a vowel or another “m” or “n”) it is pronounced like a nasal–namely, “wang,” but with the “g” sound suppressed.
And we all remember Count de Monaillle.
It’s good to be the King.
And when e is followed by two m’s, the e is pronounced like an a. E.g., femme is pronounced fahm.
That’s pretty surprising.
Many (Most?) Southwestern cities have a Calle or two. Typically pronounced more or less “KI-yay” (long I sound) which is mostly decent gringo-fied Spanish.
The whole time I lived in SoCal (20+ years) or Phoenix (1+ years) or Vegas (10+ years) I don’t think I ever encountered somebody other than an obvious noob pronouncing Calle as Kalley (rhymes with “alley”).
Are there other Kalleys in Torrance or just the one? Any "KI-yay"s just for variety and to fool the tourists? 
I don’t know offhand; I’ll check my map.
I see an exit sign Langlois 1 mile and I think ‘how am I supposed to say this…’
I found Calle de Andalucía, Calle de Aragon, Calle de Arboles, Calle de Cabrillo, Calle de Madrid, Calle de Primera, Calle de Ricardo, Calle Mayor, Calle Miramar, Calle Rio Street (a pleonasm, actually). That’s ten. All in the same area, part of the city of Torrance near the southern end of Redondo Beach.
See an earlier post in this thread, wherein it’s noted that the native pronunciation of Terre Haute is actually surprisingly close to French. “TAIR-uh” is just fine (yes, the -e is pronounced by many real French, especially in songs, and especially in southern France). The “HOTE” is fine, too, except for the “h” sound.
Or maybe you wanted to pronounce it with a throaty French “r.” Okay, point taken!
@dougie_monty: Next time I’m out there I’ll drive around there and ask folks how they say those streets. Thanks.
Calle Rio Street isn’t a pleonasm; it’s an abortion. Gotta hand it to the developers; illiterate fools the lot of 'em.
I know the French don’t pronounce the “h” sound. But we from Indiana who speak English do pronounce it.
Calle Rio Street IS a pleonasm (redundancy), since “calle” means “street.”
Yeah, it absolutely *is *a pleonasm. As you say.
What I meant was that pleonasm wasn’t nearly a strong enough pejorative for how awful it is. IOW: It’s not just redundant, it’s appalling.
Well, if we’re going that route, how do we feel about that shining example of a pleonasm, “the La Brea Tar Pits”? Me? Meh. It’s fine.
That gets a special pass IMO because of the language changes and because that’s the name of the area which was originally a separate town.
IOW it’s The (Tar Pit City) tar pits. Tar Pit City has a lot of other stuff in it like a park, a library, a school, houses, a fire department, etc. In addition to the namesake tar pit.
We don’t think “La Brea public library” is silly; what does a tar pit need a library for? We just think the city name sounds nice in English and means something else in Spanish.
The town of Huntington Harbor has a harbor in it. When we see the Huntington Harbor library we don’t wonder why the books aren’t all wet. And if somebody referred to the “Huntington Harbor harbor inlet” we’d Be OKish with that.
Yeah. That too. 
There was no confusion in the old country. Webster just created a lot of confusion between countries.
Sure, as soon as you explain why the Japanese say anime instead of animation and hamburgu instead of hamburger. Wasn’t it the Romans who decided a small island in the west part of Europe should be called Britain? How many different names does Christopher Columbus have anyway?