Teeth-ma released. Dentist praised my extremely healthy teeth, and told me I'd probably never get a cavity.

There's a French show jumper whose first name is Penelope.

But it is actually pronounced: Penny lop.

So confusing.

I am well familiar with "the crick that runs up the holler," AKA, "the creek that runs up the hollow". Shout out, Southwestern Pennsylvania!

Here in Utah there's a town called Eureka. It is not pronounced the way a Greek philosopher in a bath would pronounce it. In Utah, it is "YER-icka." And the town of Hurricane is "HER-eh-kin."

Rare Hartmann's Mountain Zebra born at the Blackpool Zoo.

So adorable and stripey.

I love the fact that California has both the town of Eureka and the town of Yreka, and they are definitely pronounced differently.

But I still don't understand why Oregon has the towns of Bend and North Bend, and North Bend is many miles southwest of Bend.

t scratches head

I think I may possibly have not ever mispronounced anything but some of the place names and St. John (totally Jane Eyre), but that's only because I really am morbidly shy and spent my entire childhood never talking enough to get caught out mispronouncing much of anything.

My grandfather did "warsh" for "wash," for reasons that nobody ever understood as he was a born-and-raised Oakland son of Oakland natives. My poor grandmother embarrassed herself horribly writing a post-wedding thank you note to their East Coast cousins the Warshers but addressing it to the Washers, thinking she was fixing his weird language glitch.

But I still don't understand why Oregon has the towns of Bend and North Bend, and North Bend is many miles southwest of Bend.

Right, and then you've got Key West, which really is to the West but the name actually derives from Cayo Hueso, or Island of the Bones.

Rare Hartmann's Mountain Zebra born at the Blackpool Zoo.

Handsome little guy!

My grandma's from Illinois...she says "warsh" And "pap" for "pop" and "Earika" (Phoenix has the most transplanted Chicagoans outside of Chicago.) So it makes me laugh when in romance novels we all talk like...prospectors or something.) In small towns, maybe.