One of my pet peeves is the mangling of proper names by locals, as in the goobers who live in Thoreau, New Mexico, who insist on pronouncing it as "Threw." I kid you not.
Daily Whip Out: "Henry David Thoreau Is Not Amused"
Of course the residents of Thoreau are not alone. In Los Angeles, locals pronounce the suburb of Los Feliz as Los Fee-lez. And in the French named town of Dubois, Idaho (pronounced Du-b'wah) the locals have mangled that to Doo-boyce. In Texas there are dozens of mangled town names with the most prominent being San Jacinto (which they give the Anglo-bend of San Jah-ceento) not to mention Amarillo which the locals give a rendering that rhymes with brillo, as in, they used a brillo pad to scrub off the Spanish. The moral to all of this is pretty simple:
"In the land of pronunciation, idiots rule."
—BBB
Funny, good post.
ReplyDeleteSteve in Germany