We have a lot of placenames that have that effect on people up here in the PNW.

And also in Michigan!

Potawatomi. Pequaming. Keweenaw. Ishpeming. Muskallonge. Naubinway. Michiumackinac. Ypsilanti. Cheboygan. Wequetonsing. Meauwataka. Dowagiac. Shiawassee. Tecumseh.

Potawatomi is almost as fun to say as Titicaca.

I'm thinking of that old M's commercial, before my time but it's on the Edgar farewell DVD, where he's teaching the rookies how to speak Seattle: "I took my geoduck to Puyallup."

Hee!

Susan, wasn't Sequim making some grumbles about dropping the "e" so that people would start saying the name of the town correctly? (I can say it--Squim, FWIW--I just can't ever remember how to spell it unless I think "see-quim", which, err, is actually kinda vulgar, now that I think about it.)

Katie! My sistah in viola-playing! How much do we hate pizzicato? Almost as much as we hate whole notes.

Ah, yes, pizzicato. "Ow. Ow. Ow. Okay, boring, and also, ow!"

I still distinctly remember this thing--good Lord, I think I even remember the name, it was "Festique"--that I played in middle school where the violas repeated the same measure something like fifty-seven times. I can still hum it, fourteen years later.

Aha! X-post with Sue!

boatswain = bosn

This sounds like bo as in tae bo, and then the S-N is just two consonants smashed together, where the S sounds more like a Z than an S. Bo-zn.

Okay, you will never actually use this word outside of historical novels about the navy, but it is a neat word nonetheless.

I love it. Almost as much as I love the English penchant for inserting an invisible F into "lieutenant". It is so very Greek-sounding and counterintuitive.

Heh. I've reached the point where I use the English pronunciation for my fictional characters of that rank, but the American one for my nephew in the National Guard. It's just so fun to say. Lef-tenant, lef-tenant, lef-tenant.

Potawatomi is almost as fun to say as Titicaca.

NOTHING is more fun than saying "Titicaca."

There are the Illinois towns of Cairo and Marseilles. Out-of-staters can always be spotted by how they say these two--not pronounced like they are in Europe, of course, but "CAY-ro" and "Mar-SAILS," instead.

(I can say it--Squim, FWIW--I just can't ever remember how to spell it unless I think "see-quim", which, err, is actually kinda vulgar, now that I think about it.)

Heh. Now I'll think of it that way, and giggle like a 12-year-old. Before I'd just thought, "sequin with an M."

Alabama is short on pronunciation traps. Sylacauga is the only one I can think of off the top of my head. We have lots of long N.A. place names, but most of them have intuitive pronunciations--nothing tricky about Tuscaloosa or Tallapoosa.

I know!

Gold star for Sue.

The 'weskit' thing isn't snotty. Is it just an older pronunciation? I know people with titles who happily say waistcoat.

I first learned the mysterious pronunciation of 'colonel' whilst playing Cluedo as a kid. And then took great joy in mocking all the kids who pronounced it wrongly when I played with them. Good times.

Okay, you will never actually use this word outside of historical novels about the navy, but it is a neat word nonetheless.

You must not have any family what works on ships, else you'd hear it lots.