Teachers not knowing how to pronounce place names. Would it put you off?

[Sillysallysausage]

A couple of open days we went to recently I noticed at one the head teacher was talking about a trip the kids had done to Tanzania except he kept saying TanZAYNia and at another they were talking about Homer's Odyssey and kept calling Ithaca iTHARca. Would it put you off the school? I know it sounds petty but surely in your speech to prospective parents you'd make sure you knew what you were talking about?

But if you'd sent your kids there on a field trip that you wanted to repeatedly mention in a speech surely it has come up for you before?

To be clear it's obviously not the deciding factor for me in the schools. That would be insane I do find it a bit sloppy and off-putting though

Well my reasoning when considering the OP was that it presumably comes up quite a lot when you’re the headteacher responsible for sending a group of students over there.

However that was before I read @Kittensmittens1309 that that is the correct local pronunciation - perhaps that is why the headteacher was using it. Had I been him I might have had to spell that out though ‘our year 12s have the opportunity to visit TanZAYnia - I’m using the local pronunciation by the way as that is what my counterpart over there has taught me - a truly incredible learning experience etc etc’. Otherwise you’d get whispering and people thinking you were thick, as the OP says happened here.

I find most people don't know how to pronounce Everest... the tallest mountain in the world and so few people pronounce it properly. This lad from Crickhowell who didn't want a mountain named after him because he thought it would be too difficult for people living in the local area to pronounce and it couldn't be written in Hindi either.

It's eve rest.

Not ever rest.

Equally people in Tanzania do pronounce it TanZAYnia.

And people in Chile don't say Chilly.

I have heard TanZANNia before. I wouldn't have thought that was weird. It was rhyming with Romania though like I said.

You do know it's pronounced differently in different countries?

Yes! Exactly this. If his pronunciation is correct (as a PP has said) but it's not what anyone else would be likely to call it and he'd said then I wouldn't have thought it weird at all.

Your examples are petty. I'd possibly be worried about multiple mispronunciations or spellings of more basic words.

I interviewed a lady from Tanzania recently who pronounced as in your post. I don’t think anyone can agree how Ancient Greek was pronounced so up to them I think!

I take that back! Looks like Trump invented it! 😂

I’d love to know why they were talking about The Odyssey at an open day!

That’s right- a long A as in father. It has the stress on it.

Get them arrested and sent to Tarzania

My friend pronounces it this way too - she's a native KiSwahili speaker (I had to text her to make sure I spelled that correctly!)

Tarzanelli (which sounds similar!!) is what my Italian family call the little bits of poo that hang from the wool by a sheeps bum! That Aussies call dags. 😂 Sorry absolutely nothing to do with this post, just made me think of the "little Tarzans"

Us Welsh call them dags too! Got to get rid of them to prevent flystrike!

You are going to go mental you hear the Potato/Potato song. Different people say different words differently.

Not high enough, wake the PM

Love this, made my day.
Also love the correction re Tanzania.

Was this the Geography teacher?

Head teacher (don't know if they actually teach a subject or just full time running of school) and English teacher.

I'm my experience (I travel to East Africa annually) we Brits seem to be the only nationality that pronounces it Tan-zuh-NEE-uh. I meet travellers from all over Europe and they all pronounce it Tan-ZAH-nee-uh, and the locals I came across in my (admittedly brief) stay in the country called it Tan-ZAY-nee-uh, if memory serves me right.

Having said that, a long time ago when I was teaching, the head told a story about some children in THAY-land. I was genuinely shocked. He had to read it a lot of times, too. And I winced every time.

I used to work in the Falklands and one year we had a new influx of expat teachers. I was in the pub when they had all been dropped off to their houses and, no joke, the landlord who also did airport runs, said to me that this geography teacher had said to him: "So where in Scotland are we exactly?"

If I hadn't heard it from his mouth I would not have believed it. I guess she confused them with the Faroe Islands... but the flight is bloody 18 hours long and you refuel in Africa!!!!!!!

This is brilliant!

It was Tan-ZAY-nee-uh when I visited there too - and how I met my friend - I was 18 at the time and nearly 47 now.

Isn't it just people's accents?
I live in South London.
Or as my South London born and bred daughter would say "Sarf Landon"
I don't say it that way because I'm not from London originally.