I'm always amused by some mispronunciations that stray farther away from the original than necessary.
replyMy favorite is probably crepe, which Americans pronounce like an almost diphthong-y craype (or crape like grape I guess) when crep (like step) would do just fine and be closer to the original.
But as a native French and basically-native American speaker, I also couldn't really care less about it, or about things like Americans pronouncing the t in croissant, or French people being unable to say the.
The plural is what gets me though crepes (just sounds weird as krehps vs krayps).
replyI kinda get it, but you can say step and stehps, not stayps, so why not krehps?
replyI say it the American way when I speak English anyway because that's just how it is. :)
I’ve always said that one key difference between British English and American English is that a British speaker will intentionally mispronounce a foreign word, while an American will attempt to pronounce it correctly but get it wrong anyway.
reply>America is at least as guilty of mispronouncing non-english words it's just natural drift.
replySee also: Cairo, IL or Versailles, KY...
Is the Illinois one the same pronunciation as "KAY-ro", Georgia?
replyNotre Dame, IN
replyOr Wilkes-Barre, PA
replyOr Montpelier, VT!
replyDelhi, Ca -> Del-High
replyFontainebleau State Park -> Fountain Blue State Park
These were two off the ones that really stood out from my travels.
Or Pueblo, Salida and Buena Vista CO
replyBirmingham, AL
replyCalais, ME
replyApparently, workers on the Gemini space program pronounced it "Jeh-mih-nee" back then. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Gemini#Pronunciation
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