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How To Speak American: The City and Town Names That We Have Butchered

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US Map Puzzle

Hey foreign languages are hard ok? Just ask Mitt Romney or Newt Gingrich.

But they're not the only ones. Americans, in general, have a hard time with languages. All those accents, characters, and genders. Who needs them?

Our trouble with tongues is perhaps best demonstrated by how we've come to pronounce the names of many of our cities and states.

Though most of these places derive their names from foreign words, you would hardly be able to tell that by the way we pronounce them today.

And while no one expects that we pronounce the names of places in OUR OWN country any differently, it's still fun to see how far off we've gone.

Montpelier, Vermont

Quick what's the capital of Vermont? If you passed third grade, you should remember that it's Montpelier, pronounced Mont-PEEL-yur. But, in the original French, it's actually pronounced Mont-PEL-ee-YAE.



Calais, Maine

In English, the beautiful port town of Calais, Maine is pronounced CAL-US (like callous). But en Français, it sounds more like CAL-ay.



Toledo, Ohio

Remember this the next time you're in Ohio. Toledo is To-LAY-Do only in Spain. Here, it's pronounced To-LEE-do.



See the rest of the story at Business Insider

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