Is it only the British that pronounce New Orleans as if it had a Y in it? Like New Or-lee-yuns? It's always bugged me and with BBC Radio 2 mentioning it every hour what with the storm approaching, it's annoying! I can't recall any Americans saying it like that, whatever their accent - it's New Orlins or Nawlins. I can't think of any other American place that the Brits change the way it's pronounced.

On a side note, I hope NO and beyond is as unscathed as possible.

What about MITCH-igan instead of MISH-igan? (State of Michigan.) I hear this from the BBC from time to time. I also think that many TV presenters say the state I'm living in now (Connecticut) strangely, but I can't quite write it down.

I've got used to it, though. Brits over-emphasise the consonants & Americans over-emphasise the vowels, so sometimes they/we both massacre each other's place names.

My mother always pronounced Michigan as MiTchgan used to bug me. You would think that with all the elocution lessons British news readers would be able to pronounce place names correctly.

Just an add on .. can't stand the way Americans pronounce MosCOW and GlassCOW and Edinborough and the other day I heard the Azores pronounced EYzores (AYzores) instead of AAAzores if that makes sense.

Isn't that closer to the French, though, La Nouvelle Orléans? 'New Orleens' sounds less wanky than the others, IMO.

Not anywhere near as bad as Eye-Rack or Eye-Ran, of course

TottenHAM, WEST Ham, BarCLAYS, PreeMEER, Folkswaggon, FOYLE'S War, Noter Dayme, Eyeraq, Eyeran, parmejan.

and Cordon Blue.

Hurricun for hurricane.

Uh-oh, what have we started??

Waiting patiently for the self-righteous "Oh just leave them alone ..." routine

I subscribe to trying to pronounce a place name like the locals would, but sometimes it just comes out funny sounding.

Sunderland

What's the deal with Foyle's War? Is there more than one way to say that??

Foye-Leee; like Doilie, maybe?

No it's my attempt at expressing the emphasis put on the words - we say Foyle's WAR, but they introduce it on Masterpiece, about 3 times each episode, stressing FOYLE's War, why do they have to change it?

Hmm.. just checked in the OED, they give both as alternate pronunciations. here's the etymology, from OED

Etymology: < Spanish huracan, Old Spanish *furacan, Portuguese furacão, from the Carib word given by Oviedo as huracan, by Peter Martyr (as transl. by R. Eden) as furacan. Thence also Italian uracano (Diez), French ouragan, Dutch orkaan, German, Danish, Swedish orkan. The earlier English forms reflect all the varieties of the Spanish and Portuguese, with numerous popular perversions, hurricane being itself one, which became frequent after 1650, and was established from 1688. Earlier use favoured forms in final -ana, -ano, perhaps deduced from the Spanish plural huracanes (but words from Spanish were frequently assumed to end in -o)

Yes now I see what you mean. I think I've gone over to the dark side on the emphasis, or so my sister told me when I last saw her..

Be happy you don't have to hear folks from the UK ask you what Connect-i-cut is like!