Say it loud, say it proud...

[fireheart]

The song I've Been Everywhere has been everywhere. I didn't realize it was originally an Australian song having only heard the Hank Snow version. Here are the ones I found.

Heh, I also didn't realise it was an original song from Aussieland. The song has been used as part of a Telstra campaign (Telstra is a phone carrier-they used the song to show how their broadband service was reaching others )

Also, here's a fun fact: while I have a feeling that he chose towns that make sense/fit into the rhythm/sound silly, if you actually take a look at where every town is located, he really hasn't been everywhere.

Out of the towns/places listed, 54 of those are towns/places in NSW, 10 are from Victoria, 26 from Queensland, 2 from the ACT (one of those is shared with NSW) and 1 from SA (that's shared with Vic and Qld) and NT. So really, the song is more like "I've been on the eastern seaboard man, I've been on the eastern seaboard..."

(Also, what makes it about five times funnier is that Oodnadatta IS a South Aussie town, but it's also right in the middle of the desert and a good solid 2-3 DAY travel from most of these towns )

[Gizmo]

i must admit I'm terrible with the 'cesters and 'minsters in the UK. (Bi-cester or Bista as most people say it. Leo-minster or Leminsta again).

Luckily only to the point people scowl at me -not that they misunderstand where I mean!

A friend was coming to us for a party once. Somehow mixed up Andover, Hampshire and Ashford, Kent and got the train going completely the wrong way. Sadly that wasn't unusual for him...

[Jester]

Madison had a mayor we referred to as "Mayor Dave" because no one could pronounce Cieslewicz.

Even the newscasters? Just wondering.

Along the same lines, I had a Latin teacher that everyone simply called Mr. G, as his last name was too hard for most people, especially high schoolers, to pronounce. I was one of the few to consistently get it right. His last name was Galbierczyk. I have met almost no one who could pronounce it correctly upon first glance. It is pronounced GAL-buh-check.

Can I ask you a question? I have an American friend that told me off for pronouncing St Louis with the French pronunciation (Loo-ee). Was she right to tell me off? She said it's pronounced 'St Lewis', and Louis in America is always pronounced Lewis.

This confused me as another American friend came from Louisville, Kentucky (pronounced Loo-ee)

Was she right to tell you off? No. But she was correct when it comes to the facts. The city in Missouri, the Gateway to the West, and the home of the iconic Gateway Arch is indeed pronounced Saint Lewis.

However, you are butchering the pronunciation of Louisville a bit. It is not Lewisville, nor is it Louieville. I know several people from there (worked with three of them at The Bar), and they and everyone else I've ever met from there say it's pronounced Lou-uh-vile.

plenty of Native American names in NJ too... where i've lived in Pequannock and Hopatcong. gotta love it

Not to mention Matawan, Mahwah, Ramapo, Whippany, Hackensack, Hoboken, Totowa, Weehawken, Secaucus, Piscataway, and perhaps my favorite, maybe because I'm a magician--Hohokus. Yes, I lived in New Jersey for a little while.

I had this discussion once with an older co-worker of New Zealand European (aka Pakeha) descent. She insisted on saying all Maori placenames the lazy way, and I asked her why she never pronounced them the way they were supposed to be said. She basically replied that she always had said them like that, and everyone she knew did, and it didn't really matter.

My Eastern friends are often amused when they hear my pronounce words like jalapeño, habanero, or chipotle with the Spanish accent. When they ask me why I say those words like that, I simply say, " because that is how they are pronounced." And while I don't care if other people don't do that, it grates on my nerves something awful when people get really lazy, and butcher the pronunciations of such words, such as pronouncing the j in jalapeño as a j sound and not the h sound it's supposed to be, or pronounce the h in habanero at all. As a Southwesterner and a cook, that just drives me nuts.

[notalwaysright]

Got an eye roll once because of how I said Melbourne. I believe I said it right, don't say the "r", like Mel-bn, not Mel-born. But the girl I was talking to said the same thing, who cares, that's how everyone says it.

Also, it makes me sad when people persistently say something wrong to the point that it becomes standard. Case in point: Sherbet. Now spelling it Sherbert is okay, but it was always Sherbet.

[the lawsmeister]

Got an eye roll once because of how I said Melbourne. I believe I said it right, don't say the "r", like Mel-bn, not Mel-born. But the girl I was talking to said the same thing, who cares, that's how everyone says it.

I've found that a lot of people from Melbourne tend to pronounce it Mal-born

[RootedPhoenix]

There's a city not far from me, Tooele, that constantly trips people up.

It's pronounced Too-wih-luh. I'm not sure of its origin, and the Wikipedia page doesn't seem to know, either.

[Jester]

Forgot in my earlier post to mention my home town, Tempe, Arizona. Seems like a straightforward pronunciation, right? And for the most part it is, but it's the emphasis that screws people up. Most people would say it as TEM-pee. Talk to anyone from there, though, and they'll quickly correct you: it's tem-PEE.

Still easier for most people than Ahwatukee.

[BPFH]

Hmm. Up here we've got Milan, Armada, and Lake Orion, and if you're not local, you'll get them subtly wrong since they look like they ought to follow standard pronunciations, but don't.

[EricKei]

BPFH - Used to live on a street called Orion. You could tell locals from them durn furriners (like those folks from the actual City of New Orleans) based on whether or not they called it by its proper pronunciation, OHR-ee-AWN.

[Kit-Ginevra]

And then there's those you think 'someone is just naming these to torment the emmets with'

Cirencester is properly pronounced 'sister'

and we have near us the wonderful village of Woolfardisworthy...pronounced 'woolsey'

[BPFH]

BPFH - Used to live on a street called Orion. You could tell locals from them durn furriners (like those folks from the actual City of New Orleans) based on whether or not they called it by its proper pronunciation, OHR-ee-AWN.

Okay, you'd get one of them right.

[Argus]

Wikipedia has a page for that sort of thing: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...pronunciations

[gerund]

Wikipedia has a page for that sort of thing: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...pronunciations

They've got "Wagga Wagga" wrong on that page, although the redirect sort of has it right. The locals call it "Wogga" (single word). Everyone else in Australia call it "Wogga Wogga" (same pronunciation but twice).

[XCashier]

They've got "Wagga Wagga" wrong on that page, although the redirect sort of has it right. The locals call it "Wogga" (single word). Everyone else in Australia call it "Wogga Wogga" (same pronunciation but twice).

Is that the sister city of Walla Walla, Washington? Both with a Department of Redundancy Department...

[EricKei]

Walla Walla, Washington

~ The Master Tool Corporation of Walla Walla Washington, a subsidiary of Fly By Night Industries, has entrusted - who? ME! to show YOU! the handiest and the dandiest tool in the whole wide world, and DON'T YA WANNA KNOW HOW IT WORKS?!! ~