>>Oh, but it gets better in the South.
>>
>>Bayou, depending what part of the South, get pronounced "Buy-you" or "Buy-Oh"
>>
>>Here in Austin we have Manor (May-nor) Road, that lead to the town of Manor (May-Nor). We also have the town Elgin (El-gin) but in Houston there's Elgin (El-jinn) Street.
>>
>>There's also Manchaca (Man-chak) Road and the town of Manchaca (Man-chock-a).
>>
>>And I won't even start up on the bastardization of the German, Czech and Spanish names/words around here....but I'll give a couple of examples...
>>
>>We've got Kay-nig (Koenig) Road, the town of Bernie (Boerne) and the town of Green (Groene)
>
>The last reminds me of when Americans over here say they're going to "lease-cess-ter-shire" for Leicestershire (just Lestersh'r) et al. Looks like we'd do just as badly in Texas :-)
>
>But wassup with Kansas (Kansas) and Arkansas (Arkansaw)? :-)

I really don't know, and my mother was from Arkansas. To confuse it even more, the river is pronounced "Ar-kansas"