>>>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.

Cockneys are supposed to say "skelington" for "skeleton". Maybe an over-the-top attempt at pronouncing words correctly, as they drop their "g"s from "ing". And as they drop their initial "h"s your old-fashioned Cockney, when trying to talk "proper", in front of his "betters" would say, "Hi don't know what you're talking about, hi'm sure" :-) (a bit like Parker in Thunderbirds).