I got sent to the principal by my 5th grade teacher in Oklahoma for correcting him in class as to the pronunciation of Atchafalaya, the river in the poem about Evangeline.
He said it like it’s spelled and I said it’s “Chaffa-lie.” Despite my being the county’s rep at the state spelling bee, he told me I obviously couldn’t read OR spell.
My daughter has a new boyfriend from England. He would not believe that the city of Cheyenne was pronounced like it is. He insisted it was Cheney- as in Dick Cheney.
We laughed at him, but he got us back when we were looking at a map of London. We were looking for Leicester square (lie-chester). Turns out it is pronounced Lester. Who knew ?
There's a river in southeastern Colorado named by early Spanish settlers the Purgatorie.
It's pronounced picketwire. I kid you not.