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on 6/1/01 12:28 PM, Mark Weiss at [log in to unmask] wrote: > I was married to a woman from Toronto and have known a lot of folks > there--lived briefly on the outskirts, now I'm told near the center of > town. "Tronno" or "Tronna" (more usually) is the normal pronunciation, I > suppose like maudlin for Magdalen. Or Wooster for Worcester. Or Balimer or > even Balmer for Baltimore. Anyone care to add to the list? It's a long one. > > Well, Melbourne is Melb'n or Melben not Mel-bourne, it's Canbra or Canbrer for Canberra and Brisb'n or Brisban for Bris-bane - the stress is on the first syllable rather than falling equally. And, unfortunately Ostralia is becoming Ostraya. And there's heaps more. For instance, a small town with the Aboriginal monicker of Goonoo Goonoo is pronounced Gunna G'noo. But, as with Candice, that 'aboot' says Canadian to me if nothing else does. And some Austrayans get rather tragic kicks by asking New Zealanders to say the next number after five - it's somewhere between 'sex' and 'sux'. No wonder they think we're a bit thuck, eh. But how does the rest of the world tell the diff? I was in a shop in Paris once and the woman at the counter asked if I was from New Zealand and I said no. She said she only asked because they get a bit snippy when they're mistaken for Australians. Fair cop, I guess.