We have a member in our club who, bless him…cannot seem to pronounce brand names correctly to save his life.
For instance:
Those sound decoders that are made by a company in Durango, CO? they’re “Tasami” decoders. [:)]
And the passenger cars by that Italian company? “Rivarosity”
We tease him mercilessly about it, and he gives it all right back to us, so it’s all good. [:)]
I got tripped-up when I visited Dess Plains Hobbies (in Canada, it would be closer to D’Plain), but was smart enough to ask about Skanny-yattle-iss. Puh-kipsy was another one that fooled me and I still prefer Man-too-a over Man-chew-a, actually. [swg]
Wayne
Wasn’t the song “Dem Bones” written in Dez Plains?
If you’re looking for California Northern Railroad’s route through Vallejo, CA, don’t ask where VAL-lee-joe is. As for Vuh-LAY-hoe. Of course, Mexican commandante Vallejo (a true and honorable gentleman) might have preferred you had pronounced his name Vah-YAE-hoe.
Mark
Skinny Atlas?
I grew up thinking Athearn was pronounced AT-hurn.
There’s a guy that sells train-sound CDs at the local shows that were recorded when he was out west in the California town of MOE-jayve.
And by the way, the original maker of Jeeps, Willys, is prononced WILLIS (like Bruce), not WILLIES.
(Note: I don’t actually speak Japanese, but I am an anime fan…
Japanese does have the long “A” sound, but it’s generally spelled “ei” when transliterated into the Latin alphabet. (The transliterations are derived from Continental vowel sounds, not English.)
If the train brand were spelled “Keito,” it would properly be pronounced “Kay-toe.”
Japanese “Romaji” (Latin transliteration) → English
“a” → short O, as in “pop” or “ah”
“e” → short E, as in “bet”
“i” → long E, as in “seat”
“o” → long O, as in “boat”
“u” → “oo” as in “boot”
“ei” → long A, as in “freight”
“ai” → long I, as in “kite”
“Tsukini kawatte oshiyokio!” → “In the name of the Moon I will punish you!”
Similarly the founding brothers of the 60’s UK bank The Kinks, Ray and Dave Davies, pronounce their last name like “Davis” not like “Davy’s”.
Des Plaines is a tough one since “Des” is inconsistent. For example Des Moines is “Duh Moyne” not “Dez Moyne”. BTW it’s part of what local (Twin City) rock musicians used the call the “Duh Circuit” of small-medium towns they’d often play: Des Moines, Dubuque, Duluth…
Also because there are no accent marks or symbols (i.e. Chinese, Japanese characters have a set pronunciation for each symbol).
How is Athearn correctly pronnounced, anyway? I’m pronnouncing it ‘Ath-EE-arn’.
When I was a bit younger, (6-8 years old-ish), I thought it was ‘Athenian’ [:P]
How wonderful to see “received” spelled correctly.
“Walthers” comes immediately to mind when I think of mispronunciation–actually it is less “mispronounced” than it is what is labeled as “Americanized”; whether High, Middle, or Low German, “Wall-thurs” is “Wall-turs” as in Walthers P38.
That little house on top of the caboose… is not a CUPOla, it is a KEWPola
Well I pronounce it “Aa-thurn” as in “Aa” as in “Apple” and “thurn” as in "Southern."
Howdy, Rob,
Actually, in kana (phonetic Japanese), each symbol is either a vowel or a dipthong. The only free-standing consonant is either M or N, depending on its location in the word. When two vowels are together, each is pronounced separately - EI isn’t a long A, it’s AE, and AI is AhEe.
I know that the most unfavorite dipthong in kana is TSU - The T is pronounced, by starting with the tongue in contact with the palate. Why Americans find this difficult escapes this native speaker of Brooklynese who spent half of a military career where Japanese is the first language (and currently resides where Mexican Spanish is ubiquitous.)
Whenever possible, it’s appropriate to pronounce a word in the way that the native speakers of that language would pronounce it. I will concede that very few Americans have been in many of the places where assimilated words came from (or have even known native speakers of thos
I’ll certainly concede that–like I said, my acquaintance with Japanese is second-hand. But to my ears, when I listen to Japanese the sounds represented by “ei” and “ai” sound exactly the way I pronounce the letters “A” and “I”; that is as “long A” and “long I.” There may be distinct sounds in there, but there’s not a sharp transition.
(It may be a peculiarity of my Midwest accent–I can see how English “A” could be heard as “eh-ee” and “I” could be heard as “ah-ee”.)
I’ve also heard “moshi-moshi” pronounced as “mush-mush” and “so desuka” pronounced as “so deska,” so I may just be listening to bad examples.
(And I’ll stop here, as this is waaay off topic at this point.)
Not being from the East Coast, for a long time, I thought that railroad on the Monopoly board was the REEDing railroad.
I don’t pronounce the ‘h’ in Walthers. I just say ‘Walters’.
Uh-oh. Is it supposed to be “redding”? Never heard it spoken…[:I]
You mean it’s not? 
Heated debates abound during every game of monopoly I have ever played.
Sometimes old habits die hard… I have known that the railroad and the city in PA are called red-ing for at lest 40 years. A few years ago I was being trained for Camp Administration in a Boy Scout Camp near Reading, PA. In fact Reading, PA is in their council. During a chat with several locals in my campsite, I nonchalantly asked if they get a lot of troops out of the Reed-ing area. I managed to escape with only a few injuries. Mostly to my personal pride. [:-^] The topic came up at least once a day for the rest of the week…