Loouuuuuhhhh-ville "say it like your mouth is full of marbles" Kentucky and Nawww-fuhck "did you just say f---?" Virginia, and A-rab Alabama are a few more goodies.

Then there's the U.S. military base, formerly a French Foreign Legion base, in Djibouti called Camp Lemonnier. The proper French pronunciation should be one of the easier ones for most any Anglo, especially since there is an appreciable French/Cajun/Louisianan influence on many U.S. dialects, but I've heard Lemonnier butchered as Lemon-ear, like the citrus fruit and the things on the side of your head, as in "what the $%^* did you just say??"

[laughing] You'ns can tell who-all's not from around heah by hearing how they pronounce Central Texas city names. Manor, Manchaca, Boerne, Elgin. Doesn't matter if it's Spanish, German, Chech, whatever origin, it will get mangled.

The French speak French, the English speak English and we ‘Markins speak ‘Markin. I don’t see the problem.

Since I am responsible for the thread drift, supersonic speeds are expressed as a Mach number based on someone’s last name which was most certainly not Mack.

The pronunciation of proper names shouldn’t change...except for Fay-bee-an!

Don't get me started...And Americans aren't really better! Try and say "entrepreneur" without making me cringe...Or my first name!
But we get some revenge by refusing to speak English with anything but a French accent.

As to aluminium, why don't we just call it alumium, as initially intended

I found the most difficult thing about flying international was understanding communications because of local accents, with most common comments made between the captain and FO being "what'd he say?"

No offense, but the most difficult; French female controllers, and sometimes Brits with a heavy cockney accent. We were trying to get our clearance at Heathrow from a female controller, and we just couldn't understand the name of the SID she was pronouncing. After asking about 3 times she started yelling at us which made her accent even worse until I had to ask for her supervisor; bingo, first try. :-)

On the other hand, flying into places like UAE or Hong Kong you might get a guy with perfect US English. I has to ask one out of curiosity in UAE, and it turns out he was ex PATCO, Hong Kong too.

Edit: I might have more trouble with accents than some others, because I couldn't even watch Downton Abbey.

Since I am responsible for the thread drift, supersonic speeds are expressed as a Mach number based on someone’s last name which was most certainly not Mack.

The pronunciation of proper names shouldn’t change...except for Fay-bee-an!

It's almost as if you wish there existed an alphabet in which the pronounciation of Mach is unambiguous...

And Mexia

And Mexia

Another "truism" about foreign airports seems to be that the closer you get to the airport the worse the english pronunciation becomes. The first local controller, fair to good; second local controller, excellent; tower, what did he/she say?; ground, F me, I got no idea what they said; ramp, good. Not always, but often enough.

Just curious, is this a language/pronunciation thread or one about a high speed aircraft?

Dan

That depends on whether or not you consider Mack 6 to be a high speed.

I've driven a 15 speed Mack, is that fast?

Lancaster, PA is pronounced that way to differentiate it from Lancaster, DE.