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As someone whom Ingrish isn't my firstist language, 'Murican Speech is confusticating as hell, especially, as pointed out earlier, our tongues are used to turning sounds differently, Then add in the mixture of Latin, so, its really screwy! Then you add in all the other languages, such as French, German, Italian, and mix it all around and turn out a bunch of words that really have no basis in actuality, being vulgar hybrids of the "Kings English"

Sock-Oh, as spoken by those who inhabit Finland and work there! Remember, SAKO isn't actually a word, it's an abbreviation!
Another funny one Volvo, Pronounced Vallvo!
Kar- Beign
Igual conmigo! I mean, same with me! English was difficult to learn and understand, especially when speaking with persons from the south. :s0114:

Also, I much enjoyed Ukraine, namely Lviv. Such a large country and I barely travelled much of it.
 
I don't know why, but I have never been all that impressed with Porsche, it's not like they are not cool or fast, or fun, but when I drove a 911, It was disappointing! I tried a 944 turbo, Meh, and the 928s was fast, but heavy as hell! Ended up with a couple of Mercedes Benz and never looked back! BMW, better have a good relationship with your mechanic, because he is going to have it more then you, same as a Jaguar!

And if that goes for Jaguar that certainly goes for Land Rover. Have an associate with one and there was a year when it was literally true that it spent more time back at the dealer than anywhere else. On the plus side... you get to try out a neat assortment of courtesy/loaner cars.
 
Over here, with little to look forward to except more woe, I've decided to PX my Porsche for an SL of some kind, either a 350 or the 500, since it will likely be my last small car.

I had a Cali-spect 380SL for fifteen years, and loved it to bits, but the need for EPA-specialised components, which had to be imported from CA, made it a bit of a money pit, to say the least. Even the pollen filters were different from the Euro versions, and when I hit a pheasant driving home from the range one day, and trashed the spoiler and lower aircon intake which was different to the Euro version, I called it enough.

Here is is, and even with the Naderite fenders it was a great-looking car -

View attachment 753210
I initially was looking for an SL500 but after talking to a couple of owners and reading reviews, I decided to go with an SLK. It seems that the very sophisticated suspensions on the SL are a hugely expensive repair. I was looking at 2006 and newer models. Now I have my 2006 SLK and love it except for service costs. My car is very popular with hair dressers and gay men, or so I've been told.
 
In the interest of preserving this thread toward "remaining on topic", I will assist those discussing the various merits of European automobiles as it relates to prescriptive pronunciation with this irksome violation:

"Jag Wire".

Had the rare privilege of driving a a12-cylinder E-type on a VERY snake-like steep-climbing two-lane when I was in high school. It is still amongst my fondest experiences with cars. Best described as flying an airplane on the pavement.

More recently went to the "working man's" side of PDX to buy a freezer from a Craigslist ad. The freezer was in one of those un-attached wooden garages behind the 1930's-'40's Craftsman style house. (You know: the old garage that sits next to the alley.)

Checking out the freezer, and talking to the owner, I noticed sharing the garage was something with a car-cover on it. My high school memory flooded back. I KNEW that shape!

Thumbing over my shoulder while counting out the the cash for the freezer (and knowing some people are sensitive to who knows what they have-as I am-regarding their classic cars), I casually mentioned, "E-type"?

His eyes lit up, he beamed (said something about, "Not too many would know that!") tore the cover off and there it was: In British Racing Green.
Needless to say, my time there was extended somewhat.
 
In the interest of preserving this thread toward "remaining on topic", I will assist those discussing the various merits of European automobiles as it relates to prescriptive pronunciation with this irksome violation:

"Jag Wire".

Had the rare privilege of driving a a12-cylinder E-type on a VERY snake-like steep-climbing two-lane when I was in high school. It is still amongst my fondest experiences with cars. Best described as flying an airplane on the pavement.

More recently went to the "working man's" side of PDX to buy a freezer from a Craigslist ad. The freezer was in one of those un-attached wooden garages behind the 1930's-'40's Craftsman style house. (You know: the old garage that sits next to the alley.)

Checking out the freezer, and talking to the owner, I noticed sharing the garage was something with a car-cover on it. My high school memory flooded back. I KNEW that shape!

Thumbing over my shoulder while counting out the the cash for the freezer (and knowing some people are sensitive to who knows what they have-as I am-regarding their classic cars), I casually mentioned, "E-type"?

His eyes lit up, he beamed (said something about, "Not too many would know that!") tore the cover off and there it was: In British Racing Green.
Needless to say, my time there was extended somewhat.
I have an E type on my short list of cars some day! Back in high school, my friends Mom had a midnight blue MK-1 coupe, 6 cyl. 4 speed! She let me drive it one time, and I was hooked! She still has it, and now it needs a lot of work, maybe some day I can buy it from her!

Our friends across the pond would cringe, it's Jag-You-War!
 
Each language has its own rules for accents, influctions, silent letters, long vowels, etc. And Americans are blissfully ignorant of respecting the pronunciation of names and words of another language. We pronounce Mexico, and even Texas, as differently as Latin Americans pronounce the American spelling of the United States.

Most Americans have mispronounced Garand for so long, the mispronunciation has become normal.

So many places in America have Indian names that have been completely butchered by English pronunciations. Yakima? Tacoma? Willamette?

And there are tongues throughout the world that have sounds well outside of our recognized alphabet, so we could not pronounce some names correctly even if we wanted to.

My own last name is pronounced completely different by Spanish, English, French or Dutch speaking people. And depending on who is pronouncing or writing it, my name could have come from any of those countries.

Some Irish or Scottish words or sounds, written in English are pronounced differently by Americans. Or is it the Scottish or Irish folks that are saying it incorrectly?

So who is wrong?

Even Webster, when he attempted to standardize spellings and pronunciations, who was to say he was right?
 
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Each language has its own rules for accents, influctions, silent letters, long vowels, etc. And Americans are blissfully ignorant of respecting the pronunciation of names and words of another language. We pronounce Mexico, and even Texas, as differently as Latin Americans pronounce the American spelling of the United States.

Most Americans have mispronounced Garand for so long, the mispronunciation has become normal.

So many places in America have Indian names that have been completely butchered by English pronunciations. Yakima? Tacoma? Willamette?

And there are tongues throughout the world that have sounds well outside of our recognized alphabet, so we could not pronounce some names correctly even if we wanted to.

My own last name is pronounced completely different by Spanish, English, French or Dutch speaking people. And depending on who is pronouncing or writing it, my name could have come from any of those countries.

Some Irish or Scottish words or sounds, written in English are pronounced differently by Americans. Or is it the Scottish or Irish folks that are saying it incorrectly?

So who is wrong?

Even Webster, when he attempted to standardize spellings and pronunciations, who was to say he was right?

Exactly this. I've spent enough time living abroad (for example, like a handful of others on this forum I was also born and raised on the wrong side of iron curtain) that it becomes quite clear that certain phonemes (basically, sounds) simply don't exist in some languages vs others and so it's totally reasonable to go with this closest approximation.
 
Still doesn't 'splain why 'mercans say EYE-ran, EYE-raq, EYE-talian, Moss-COW and even Glass-COW.

Let alone CAY-ro [Cairo, pronounced Ki-ro].

Or coop, for coupé [coopay]...............

I think my dad had the best idea when it came to spelling and pronunciation - he was a native Irish-speaker after all. Reading me a line out of 'Saol agus eachtraí aisteach iontais Robinson Crusoe' - 'The life and strange surprising adventures of Robinson Crusoe', he observed that 'we Irish are grand altogether at the pronunciation, but terrible at the spelling'.

I'm going to leave it at that.
 
Still doesn't 'splain why 'mercans say EYE-ran, EYE-raq, EYE-talian, Moss-COW and even Glass-COW.

Let alone CAY-ro [Cairo, pronounced Ki-ro].

Or coop, for coupé [coopay]...............

I think my dad had the best idea when it came to spelling and pronunciation - he was a native Irish-speaker after all. Reading me a line out of 'Saol agus eachtraí aisteach iontais Robinson Crusoe' - 'The life and strange surprising adventures of Robinson Crusoe', he observed that 'we Irish are grand altogether at the pronunciation, but terrible at the spelling'.

I'm going to leave it at that.

I suspect the Eye-raq, etc thing has to do with that combinations of phonemes being more natural to certain American English dialects than the "correct" option. It's not that the sounds themselves don't exist, but also certain combinations of sounds. Similar to how in Spanish, as a general rule, words doesn't start with "sp" or "st" (hence the Spanish versions of names starting with an E such as Esteban for Steven or Estefania for Stephanie, etc). So you'll often hear that as part of a Spanish accent speaking English (the addition of the "e" to English words that start with "st" or "sp.") In this case it's not that "s" "p" or "t" don't exist in Spanish, it's that this combination doesn't generally exist at the beginnings of words.
 
Regarding Americans and how they speak, my "progressive" coworker was going off a while back, about how dumb and arrogant we Americans are, and how we only speak English and expect everyone else to speak it as well.

I have always been interested in and enjoyed language. I'm by nowhere near fluent in anything but English, but have picked up some Spanish and German over the years. At one point I wanted to learn Russian and Mandarin, but have forgotten as much as I learned. I love listening to other languages and trying to figure them out. Now that my kids are taking Spanish in school, maybe I'll at least take the time to improve there. :)

So I asked him how many languages he speaks. Only English, but it's the government's fault! The schools should have mandated it when he was young! o_O
 
Regarding Americans and how they speak, my "progressive" coworker was going off a while back, about how dumb and arrogant we Americans are, and how we only speak English and expect everyone else to speak it as well.

I have always been interested in and enjoyed language. I'm by nowhere near fluent in anything but English, but have picked up some Spanish and German over the years. At one point I wanted to learn Russian and Mandarin, but have forgotten as much as I learned. I love listening to other languages and trying to figure them out. Now that my kids are taking Spanish in school, maybe I'll at least take the time to improve there. :)

So I asked him how many languages he speaks. Only English, but it's the government's fault! The schools should have mandated it when he was young! o_O

Sounds fairly typical for people of a certain inclination... that is having strong opinions for what's right and wrong but still not doing "right" because the government isn't mandating it. Sorta like the Hollywood sorts who call on increased taxes but then move countries to avoid taxes.
 
Too many people in this country forget that this IS in fact America, and we speak ENGLISH as our official language, and if people want to come here (Legally) they must accept that we speak english here and it is on them to learn it! We do not and should not require Americans to learn other languages, Especially Spanish, Again, this isn't mexico or any other southern country, America, Hard Stop, Period! I had to learn English, and I am required to speak it in order to communicate with others in this country, not the other way around!
 

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