>>Whan te Normans invaded one of their barons/lords (whatever) took an estate that he probably thought was a "fine place" and called it "beau lieu" -> Beaulieu, but its pronounced "BYOO-lee"
>>
>>Americans are just as much at fault: "Notre Dame" (Notr Dam) becomes Noterdaim.
>>
>>>Is there another word that uses that concept? Should I be saying 'hergraph', or 'hertov cocktail'? How about pleading 'ner contendere', or getting on a horse to play 'per'? ;)
>>
>>Don't understand this lot!
>But everone knows that if you're talking about "Noterdame" it's the school. "Notradame", on the other hand, is that big church in France (grin).
>
>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)

We have a major street here in Toronto named 'Eglinton Avenue', and invariably people will stick in an extra 'g' and pronounce it 'Eglington'. Nobody knows why.