Of course, I was the annoying friendless pedantic second-grader who RAILED against my classmates' pronunciation of "PUH-sketti" and "crown" (for "crayon").

Ahhh, nothing like trying to win friends through pedantry and correction.

And old habits die hard, as we have witnessed here. I really gotta stop my bitchy pedantry.

My boss's dog does not like banana peppers....

Like clapboard, waistcoat

What do you drop from clapboard? I don't think I've ever heard it shortened. And I know I've heard waistcoat pronounced fully quite a lot.

Seeya, Neely!

Des Moines: How does one pronounce it?

Deh Moin

Tchopatoulis.

Isn't that (more or less) "chap-a-tooliss"?

chop-uh-too-liss

To be fair, I don't know how to pronounce Tsawwassen. "tsaww-WAWW-sen" is probably what I'd try.

YTsawwassenMV, but I grew up hearing (and of course saying) it as t'WAHS-sen. It's where they keep the ferries to Vancouver Island, so it was a frequent destination, what with the random assortment of friends and family on the island.

I didn't really notice the spelling and actually think about it until about five years ago, but dropping the first S seems to be slightly more common than dropping the T or pronouncing both.

The side effect of actually being aware of the word is that now all ways of saying it sound wrong.

Try Ecum Secum, and Necum Teuch

Dun Laoghaire

I know!

Isn't that (more or less) "chap-a-tooliss"?

The first time I ate at Commanders Palace, I asked the waiter what I was eating (it was a corporate dinner), and I thought he had some sort of weird impediment, because it sounded like he kept saying "veal chop chop au Tulis", or something. It was actually veal chop Tchoupatoulis.

clabberd = clapboard. I have heard people pronouce it clap-board -- but they were very very wrong.

And of course, Staunton (VA) and Taunton (MA) do NOT rhyme.