Standardizing things is a way to practice cultural oppression. That’s Critical Race Theory 101.
Houston St. In NYC
Pronounced “How-ston.”
I wasn’t really being serious about that, FWIW.
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I believe you. I quite like you actually.
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How are we pronouncing Chile in this forum?!
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Houston Street is named after William Houstoun, but was later misspelled and it stuck. Houston, TX, is named after Sam Houston.
I have no idea how William Houstoun pronounced his name but Hows-town would make sense, and the later misspelling would then change the pronunciation.
In English, I pronounce it chil-lay. So basically half and half. In Spanish I pronounce it she-lay. The only reason I do it differently is to not come off as a pretentious douche to English speakers. If I’m around people who I know won’t get that impression, I say she-lay.
Isn’t the American pronunciation chi-lee and correct Spanish pronunciation chi-lay?
I was thinking of all the countries that I don’t use the usual English pronunciation and the only ones I could think of were Chile, Paraguay, and Uruguay.
So I’d say Chee-lay, just because I can’t seem to bring myself to say Chili lol. I don’t care if it sounds pretentious!
I think she-lay is just the Argentinian pronunciation though. Or maybe Portuguese.
Edit: nope, not Argentinian.
Interesting question. Same list for me in Latin America.
Nothing in Europe. No English speakers say Magyar instead of Hungary, or Hrvatska instead of Croatia. 99% of people will have no idea wtf you’re talking about.
A few come to mind in Africa. I say Niger “niSHARE” and Eritrea “eh-ri-TRAY-a.” But countries I’m less familiar with, like bur-UN-di (?) or Lao(s?) I just pronounce the normal way.
I’m more likely to pronounce a city in the local language. It takes a very prominent city to have a special English name or pronunciation (and many have purposefully rejected these), and I’m not going to entertain a fake English pronunciation for a city like Querétaro or Guangzhou (formerly Canton).
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chili, ny is pronounced ’chai-lai’
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The difference between ch and sh is negligible I think, just how hard/soft the sound is. But an i in Spanish is pronounced ee, so che-lay or she-lay would be the Spanish pronunciation.
I’m just pointing out the English pronunciation sounds like “chili”.
That’s not even the most offensive pronunciation of spots in the area. Charlotte is the worst. shar - LOT.
Not a country but Puerto Rico.
I definitely had no idea Niger was pronounced like that!
For Laos they don’t pronounce in the S in the country, so I like to go with ‘Lao.’ Plus calling it Beer LaoS just sounds off…
It’s too bad there’s no Polish named cities in the US, or we could get stuff like RoClaw! (Wrocław, pronounced something like roslov or voslov, i dunno). Poland threw me for a trip on the city names.
Vu-ro-suave is Wroclaw
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Lol at all you colonizers who can’t pronounce “Kiribati” correctly.