English mispronunciations that became common usage

boing
21

Definitely duct.

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22

… and Cologne for Köln, Copenhagen for København, Athens for Αθήνα.

In Danish we say Helsingfors for Helsinki. The Germans used to refer to Lviv (or Lwow) as Lemberg, if memory serves.

I don’t think the habit of translating place names is wrong per se.

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23

To be fair, I suspect it’s easier to say ‘hab-an-yer-o’ (which is how I’ve usually heard people say it) than ‘habenero’

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24

The same thing happened to “moto” ~ “amoto”.

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As a foreigner I think it is interesting that in the English-speaking world people often assume that foreigners somehow object to English names for their places. In my experience it is pretty much the opposite. Foreign-language names give a place an air of international relevance and often they are embraced far more than real world use seems to justify.

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26

Dear future,
On behalf of all hard G “gif” pronouncers, you’re welcome.

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27

Lemberg is ithe original name, of course. No translation here.

But yes, this “You have to pronounce it like the current holders do” is in most cases quite silly.

Especially when it comes from people who call me “German“ even though i’m deutsch.

28

The photo of the ask is a nice touch.

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29

At our house pronouncing words borrowed from other languages with the native pronunciation is de rigueur. It adds to the pretension.

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30

“Texts” as in text messages are now “Texses” FYI

31

I can’t believe that we don’t use the original Greek alphabet for Athens. How are we ever going to get it right?

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Helsingfors is the correct name, the city was founded by Swedish speakers. Helsinki is the Finnish form of the name.
KĂśln (German name) and Cologne (French/English name) are both derived from the Latin word colonia (the city was known as Colonia Claudia Ara Agrippinensium in antiquity),

A lot of the old established names for various places can be traced to a time when pronounciation, names or even the languages were different.

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33

If you’re looking for the pronunciation of British place names to make phonetic sense, you’re in for a miserable time.

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34

i’m going to start saying it “darta”

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35

when all you have is an axe, everything looks like a grinding wheel

36

Helsingfors is an exception, though. The city has two official names (Finnish and Swedish), and you’ve merely picked the one that’s from a language related to your own. Granted, Finnish is by far the majority language, especially so in Helsinki itself - but you’re technically correct.

As for the article itself, I’ll just note that “wasp” is also “Wespe” in German … but Norwegian has retained “veps”.

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Worcestershire and its sauce.

38

Not sure if trolling, or really missed the point that badly…

39

Does anyone actually say “key-HOE-tik”, though? Yes, that would make sense, but I’ve only heard it pronounced as kwik-SOH-tik.

Of course there’s also the opposite opinion – that words should be pronounced according to the language that they are in rather than their source. British Comedians like David Mitchell like to make fun of how Americans pronounce “herb” as “erb” (“What? Are you French now?”).

40

How about datra?