To pronounce this street correctly

I live near a village called Mildenhall (not the Suffolk place). It’s pronounced Mynal.

Grrr, I'm so with you there!

Febyooary
Wensday
Marshmellows

It's hugely infuriating when a word is so commonly mispronounced that anybody pronouncing it properly is thought to be thick!

Yes. The Connaught Hotel is pronounced in England without the hard 'ch' sound an Irish person would naturally give it. In the UK I go with the local pronunciation, though it is counter intuitive to me.

Yes…’Louie’ in the song but it’s called St ‘Lewis’

I would say the real pronunciation is the local one. Use that, except when on the phone to people who only need to type it onto a form. In that case you could say it the American way to make it easier for them to understand and spell.

We do this with our surname.

I’d say the local way is the “correct” way here. Place name pronunciation varies a lot. I grew up near Erith. Locally it is said ear-ith. It always annoyed me when newsreaders pronounced it er-eth. Similarly Wrotham (locally it is root-um but non-locals usually say wroth-am).

My son was at school with a member of the Pepys, as in Samuel, family - they too pronounced it Peppys - to add to the confusion!

I love the way it is with a beautiful village in the Peak District.

There's longstanding controversy as to whether it should be spelled Youlgrave or Youlgreave - with even official bodies not being able to unanimously make their minds up.

There are something like 30 different recorded spellings of the village name... yet the locals usually refer to it as Pommy

Assuming the place was named in the decades after 1066, who knows how on earth Beaulieu would have been pronounced by the french then?

My parents stay near Newmilns (New-Mills) close to Strathaven (Stray-ven)

We were puzzled why a victorian row of houses was named after a caribbean island - turned out land they were on came from local dignitary who last and highest job was being governor of said island.

We have people correct us on DH family surname - it's orgin is mangle irish - but it's taken on pronunciation of old english family that's now died out - someone married someone from area landed english family was in - and there are two villages name north and south with same name - and locals in area of villages say it same as we do.

@IfYouPutASausageInItItsNotAViennetta

I have been asked so many times why I say February weirdly. 😑

A difficult one but I’d use the local pronunciation even though Illi nwa sounds wrong to me.

I had this dilemma with Maryland chocolate chip cookies. Presumably the brand is based on the American location but people here say Mary land rather than pronounce it like an American and say “Marilyn”

England is full of place names pronounced very differently to how it’s spelled. I would pretend that this is one of those cases.

Fenwick - Fen-ick
Drongan - Drungan

and my favourite

Catrine - Cottern (I can’t even properly write that phonetically!)

I have a local one. The name is spelt Bevere. Many a time I've been asked where B vere is.
It's pronounced by the locals as Bev-er-ree

Belvoir Castle always makes me laugh.

Try Chideock, Puncknowle, Eype or Rampisham 😂

Do as the locals do, as that’s “correct” locally. I live near Holywell beach, pronounced Hollywell, obviously (not obviously).

If it's Arkansas, I'd say YANBU to pronounce it correctly. The internet informs me that:

"The name "Arkansas" originates from the French "Arcansas," a pluralized, Anglicized form of "akansa," a name used by the Quapaw people. This name, "akansa," was in turn derived from an Algonquian term for the Quapaw, believed to translate to "south wind people" or "people downstream". The French explorers then adopted this name for both the people and the river, and later, the state."

So it's native American via French, not a European import...

I’m glad I didn’t have to learn English (as a language) in a classroom.

What do you do with somewhere like Shrewsbury? The local generally say Shoosbury nor Shrawsbury or Shroosbury?

The Welsh names are more complicated because a few have

1. English names as well as Welsh ones (e.g Hay-on-Wye/Y Gelli Gandryll)
2. Some are tricky (Machynlleth)
3. Some have Welsh names that have been anglicised for a long time, so you'd probably get 'corrected' if you used the correct pronunciation.

It's very annoying when you're right but the vast majority of people are wrong - which then makes everybody assume that you are the one who is wrong. This is the case in so many things; not just in road names.

It isn't just in pronunciations, either, but it can also be the actual spellings of road names. We used to know people who lived on Spenser Road - named after 16th century poet Edmund Spenser, who wrote The Faerie Queene. Even though it's there on the road sign, just about everybody - including virtually all of the people who live on the road - spell it Spencer Road; the result being that, if you spell it correctly, they assume that you're a bit simple and don't know how to spell a common British surname!

Interestingly, I've noticed that one word that is almost universally spoken with the wrong pronunciation is actually the word 'pronunciation'! It's so irritating when people ask "What is the correct pronOWnciation of..." and you're just wanting to hop right in and say "Can I just stop you there?!"

I think you should pronounce it as the locals pronounce it. Unless it was specifically named after the American place for some reason, there is nothing to say that the American version is correct.

@wherethestreetshaveasillyname in scotland! my dh car could never get the hang of me asking to call him on the phone/ would ask if it was any number of people but couldnt get my scottish accent. as for the sat nav, well I sometimes roll about laughing at how the place names are pronounced!! I think I need to take a drive up to ecclefechan or kirkudbright just for a giggle!! a good railway announcer once said "ecclefechan to aibirdeen an ahing else inatween!

Place names develop their own local pronunciation.

If you lived in Paris Street would you insist on calling it Paree Street?

Beaulieu in the New Forest is definitely pronounced Bewley, and the locals were extremely irritated by my friend using the French pronunciation.