flipper wrote:

On Mon, 01 Nov 2010 08:45:44 -0700, Jim Thompson
wrote:

On Mon, 01 Nov 2010 02:39:57 -0500, flipper wrote:

On Sun, 31 Oct 2010 22:38:42 -0400, "Michael Robinson"
wrote:


"Jim Thompson" wrote in
message ...
Pronunciation Puzzle...

Nevada
^----- where are people getting that what I'd call "harsh-A" sound?

"Nevada" would certainly, I'd think, have Spanish naming origin,
wouldn't you think?

...Jim Thompson
Wiktionary says Nevada comes from Spanish, "snow-covered," so I guess you're
right.
But there are places a-plenty that we Amurrikins don't pronounce correctly.
For example, Ausable Chasm in New York.
People pronounce it "ossa-bull" but it comes from the French Au Sable, which
means sandy and is pronounced Oh-Sobbla (sort of).


My mother said one of the funniest things she ever heard was a
northeastern news broadcaster trying to pronounce Nacogdoches.

Can any of you pronounce "Canyon de Chelly", a prominent location in
Arizona?

You mean the Navajo pronunciation, the Spanish 'translation', or good
ole American?

The problem with pronunciations is "The King's English" itself is a
mongrel language that's compounded 10 fold in American English by
influences from a multitude of Native American tribes and "melting
pot" immigration distorting both sound and spelling.

Take a Navajo word translated by the Spanish who, for some unknown
reason, decided to spell it 'frenchy', and you're bound to have some
confusion since not a single one of those origins conforms to English
which, as mentioned, is already riddled with 'exceptions to the
rules'.


You should hear the touristas mangle 'Kissimmee'.


--
Politicians should only get paid if the budget is balanced, and there is
enough left over to pay them.