Unintentionally funny mispronunciations.

[Banrion]

There's some Massachusetts ones too:

Worcester (Woosta)
Ayer (Aya)
Haverhill (Haverill)
Reading (Redding not Reeding)
Scituate (Sit-u-it)

And my personal favorite
Andover (ahhhhhndova)

[Discourtesy Clerk]

For the record I don't se why anyone would get bent out of shape over these unless people hear them every day. I for one don't pronounce or hear these words pronounced on a daily basis so I honestly have no idea what the correct pronunciation is.

In the particular chain store where I work, those are brands and names of things we sell very often, therefore I tend to hear this daily. Corporate likes to make things difficult to say, I guess.

[zzapp the witch]

Pheonix, when my late hubby was stationed on Ft. Carson and we were living in Colorado Springs, we got a little lost....and asked for directions to Willamette Street.

What street?
Willamette Street.
I don't think we have a street by that name here.
Well, its right here on the map.
Ooooooh, you mean Will-uh-MET Street!
......
Its ok honey, its named after some place in Oregon, lots of strangers pronounce it wrong. Take the next left to the light....etc.


I've lived in Oregon all my life, cept for a few years in the Army, and Willamette is NOT pronounced Will-uh-MET, its Will-AM-ette, but damned if I could get any of the locals to listen to me.

Also, people who say crick instead of creek, ruff instead of roof, warsh instead of wash, and drawl/drawling instead of draw/drawing drive me nuts, and my mother is guilty of all of these, and she grew up in California!

Also, as Pheonix pointed out, Oregon is NOT Or-eh-GON, its OR-eh-gun. It hasn't gone anywhere. Drill Sergeants hated me for correcting them.

I still remember the hubby's accent: cah=car, cwahfee=coffee, twawk=talk. He did say stuff like "y'all" though, which threw me a bit.

[Chanlin]

Also, as Pheonix pointed out, Oregon is NOT Or-eh-GON, its OR-eh-gun. It hasn't gone anywhere. Drill Sergeants hated me for correcting them.

I'm thinking this one really depends on what region of the country your in. I've lived in the midwest all my life and I've heared it pronounced as

OR - eh - gen, OR - eh - gone, and Or - eh - gun with the most prevalent being the first.

Others that have grated on me Wapokoneta, Ohio (Wap - oh - ka - net - ah) I have heard said as Wap - oh - koh - netter I don't know how many times. THERE IS NO R in the name of the city.

Cincinnati - (sin - sin - at ee) Thats with a long e sound at the end depends on where you are in ohio. In the north it's the long E sound. In the south its ( sin - sin - natta) With a long A sound.

Illinois - the S is silent it is NOT Ill - eh - noise IT IS Ill - eh - noy - this is one i hear at work every day from people that live in Chicago, Illinois no less.

And my grandmother is guilty of saying Warsh instead of wash. *sigh*

I know i'm just as guilty as everyone else but I think its safe to say this thread has offically derailed from the original topic

[tollbaby]

I've lived in Oregon all my life, cept for a few years in the Army, and Willamette is NOT pronounced Will-uh-MET, its Will-AM-ette, but damned if I could get any of the locals to listen to me.

That's because you're not entirely correct In Oregon, maybe it's pronounced WillAMette, but it's a French name, and it's supposed to be pronounced Will-uh-MET just like the person told you

That being said, I've never met an American (and most of my friends are American, so nobody get offended) who could pronounce Montreal or Saskatchewan properly We won't even get started on my last name *sigh*

[wagegoth]

Okay, please, no state bashing. Missouri is not a stupid state. My family is from there, near the Ozarks. Yes, they say warsh, squarsh, etc. and some of them were from BAHL-i-ver (Bolivar) in the western part of the state.

If people who live in Illinois want to pronounce it Illinoise, it's their state, their choice.

I pronouce Missouri as Mi-ZOOR-uh, because it's what my family calls it. *uh for schwa*

I lived in Ne VA (short a) Duh. If you pronounce it NE vah dah we know you're tourists.

Living in California, with all the Spanish and American Indian names, you hear some real butchery. Vallejo is pronounce Vuh LAY oh by the locals, but you'll hear va-YAY-hoh (correct Spanish) or VAL lee joh. Tuolumne is pronounced locally as too-AHL-uh-me. Consumnes is pronounced cuhn SOO meez.

As for customers, I had a woman, obviously in her sixties, who pronounced tricot (TREE-coh, vaguely French) as TRY-caht. What was sad was that she had obviously been purchasing sleepwear in this fabric for years, but no one had informed her of the correct pronunciation.

[Imogene]

I worked with a guy who insisted on calling it "EE You Nasha" OMGWTF. OOh, let's talk about all the interesting ways to pronounce Chocobo while we're at it! The two I hear most often are Cohobo and Cho-coke-bo.

I've heard hundreds of variations of Chocobo: "cho-co-bo", "chock-o-bo", "chalk-a-bo", "coke-o-bo", etc...
No no no, you're pulling the whole damn thing out too long. If you can't say it all in one syllable, don't say it.
/joking
//I think...
Or all the variations of Pocky:
"Pokey?", "Pock-uh", "Pochy", "Pochuh", "Astericks *smack!*"
Yipe.
*eye roll*

[myswtghst]

We have a few customers with interesting names. I'll usually stop myself before butchering a site name, if I can, and just laugh and state "Ooh, that I don't know if I can pronounce!" My current favorite is Tchulahoma. I was proud that I pronounced it right on my first try. (BTW, its CHEW-la-home-a, according to the tech I spoke with).

[Dreamstalker]

In addition to the above-mentioned butcherings of Spanish (living in Santa Fe for college, I heard quite a few especially during tourist season--I was trying to direct a poor lost touristy type and gave them a street crossing...they stared at me for a few seconds, then "Never heard of those streets, but I know there's a Say-rill-ohes and Gode-a-loop around here"...(Cerrillos and Guadalupe) Among other manglings that I gave up trying to decipher.

In the anime realm:
--more butcherings of "Rurouni Kenshin" than I can count. I must have blocked out the specfics of those.

I'm sure I have more, just need to coax my brain into revisiting them.

[BuhMule]

I was helping someone make a hotel res while he was checking into my hotel:

"Yes Sir, and do you want Ontario, California? or Ontario, Canadia?"

(Luckily, he laughed!)

[protege]

Hehehe we have our own screwed-up place names here. If I have to listen to one more local call Pittsburgh "Picksburg" I'm going to have to hit them. Last time I checked, there were no "C's" or "K's" in the name!

Even more fun, we have Duquesne. It's pronouced "Du-Kane." You can always tell the tourists when they ask for "Du Kwess Knee" and can't understand why we laugh at them. Then there "Versailles." It is *not* pronouced like the French palace, OK? It's "Ver-Sales!" As if that wasn't enough we have Chartiers Valley...usually called either "CV" or "Shar-Val" by the locals.

[BookstoreEscapee]

punkin = pumpkin

I call the dog "Punkin"...(he could fit inside one )...sometimes my cats, too.

But, my real name is Moselle (pronounced mo-sell). That's even more fun. Melissa, Michelle, Moseelee, Mosel, Mosher, Mollus, ... you name it, I've been called it.

PW_Elle

I think people try to make things more complicated than they are. I would look at your name and think "Mo-zell" but at least I get all the letters in the right order...

I've gotten Allison once...there is no "S" in my first name...I also got some semblence of my last name that included an "L"...which also does not exist...

Worcester (Woosta)
Reading (Redding not Reeding)

My friend lives near Boston; when she first went up there she said Wor-cester
There's Reading, PA, too.

Once on Jeopardy there was a contestant from Manalapan, NJ (muh-NAL-uh-pan) and Alex said "man-uh-LAP-in"


Oh, and Zapp - my mom says "warsh" - and she grew up in central NJ so she has no excuse

[Jpurple]

My husband, when I was pregnant, insisted on saying 'Briggs and Stratton Contraptions' when he meant 'Braxton-Hicks contractions'

Yeah, he's a little odd.

[MrSunshineState]

Back when I did customer service for a cable company (job from HELL) I always got people that didn't think we explained our charges will enough and wished we had been more pacific.

[ShockQueen]

Do mis-typings from e-mails count too?

I saw one that was supposed to say:
"We apologize for the inconvenience"

Yet it came out:
"We apologize for the incontinence"

My buddy said it wasn't intentional, but hey....after dealing with all these people who sound all bottled up all day, you have to wonder sometimes.