(Which, of course, you had assumed for awhile must have had some weird spelling.)
I only have two examples:
I just learned today that (the anglicization at least of) the composer Shostakovich is exactly how it sounds like it’s spelled – certainly there had to be some random c’s or z’s in there?
Same thing with the English placename Surbiton – surely, as an English place name, there had to be a few silent "shire"s or "ing"s there, or, to be more serious, I was sure that either the “u” or the “i”, or both, were really "e"s, but it also is indeed spelled the way it sounds to my ears.
The h’s aren’t random: in English, the “h” is used regularly as part of two-letter combinations such as “ch”, “sh” and “th”, since English doesn’t have a single letter for those sounds.
I agree that there are two o sounds, though here it follows a regular pattern (short vowel before double consonant “st”; long vowel before single consonant “v”). (And, of course, there are plenty of exceptions to the rule).
The letter “k” is used to transliterate Cyrillic “к” because “k” has only one normal sound in English, while “c” has two different sounds depending on the following vowel.
Joking about the misworded OP aside, I surprised by how many folks are completely baffled when they come across places here with native american names. You can sound most of them out and be more or less correct. Androscoggin, Monadnock, Massabesic, Pemigewasset, Winnipesaukee, Pocasset, Scituate…
Triage - the process whereby nurses go through a quick check with patients before handing them over to a doctor - is pronounced try-idge, like a normal English word, despite my brain telling me it should be tree-azh, as if it were French.
Er, a couple of other folks have already chimed in, but I’ll third the
When I trained as an EMT, it was definitely pronounced TREE-ahj. And on MAS*H also. Arguably the acCENT shoulda been on the secOND syllABle or at least both stressed similarly but it’s definitely not Try-age.
Of course, there’s a French word triage, and there’s an English word triage. The most common pronunciation of the English word is similar to that of the French word.
But, what’s the English pronunciation of Paris? Or, France? Or petit four, or connoisseur, or omelette? Aren’t these all French words that should (?) be pronounced the same in English as in French?
