People who use foreign words...
...for no good reason (just incase you had me pegged as a Daily Mail I'm not a racist but... type of person.)

You know what I mean, writers who use words like azure or rouge when fucking blue or red will do. I bet Dante or Camus never felt like subbing English words into their poetry (I'm sure someone will correct me on that one but the point remains), so why do English writers feel the need to show us that they know the Italian for blue.

Also place names.

I am aware that Moscow is Moskva in Russian, I am aware that Warsaw should be pronounced Varshavaa, but in English we have English words for these places.

To use the example of Moscow.

If I am speaking Russian the country would be Rossiya and the capital Moskva. (cant be chewed with the cyrillic keyboard for any pedants out there.)

If I am speaking Hungarian it would be Oroszorszag and Moszkva.

German: Russland and Moskau.

In English though it is and should always be Russia and Moscow.

Makes me start having headaches when I am corrected by some jumped up twat who has done interrail or the likes, visited a city for 2 days, flicked through a rough guide, got pissed, desecrated a national monument or two and is suddenly Ptolemy.
(captainbildo, Thu 8 Apr 2010, 17:26, 14 replies)

I think it was Arthur Smith who said
"I'll start saying 'Bai-jung' instead of 'Beijing' when they start saying 'London' instead of 'Hahn-dun.'"

Ah, casual racism...
(LongJohnBaldry, Thu 8 Apr 2010, 17:30, closed)

But azure is a specific shade of blue, and therefore a useful word.
What about cerise? Am I allowed to say cerise?

I don't really understand why we (or any other language/nation) has their own words for foreign places. Why don't we call every place by whatever its inhabitants call it?
( Bob Todd whee, Thu 8 Apr 2010, 17:31, closed)

people aren't that clever
They will inevitably fuck up the pronunciation. Even something as seemingly piss easy as Roma is hard for your average native English speaker to pronounce.
( Sextant goes to him is emotionally erect, on this day, Fri 9 Apr 2010, 12:44, closed)

Taking it to it's logical conclusion
Place names in Britain should be pronounced as they are by the locals. `Birmingham' should be pronounced with a rising tone, Glasgow should be pronounced `Glasgae' and my home area of Thurrock (in Essex) should be pronounced in a broad Estuary English accent - something close to `Fuwwoc'.
(Audax Victor, Thu 8 Apr 2010, 17:42, closed)

Oh, don't, there's already enough American tourists
struggling to get directions for 'Lye-sester' or 'Loogabaroogah.'
(LongJohnBaldry, Thu 8 Apr 2010, 18:01, closed)

We should call places by their names.
I realise that we're a nation steeped in "shout louder and johhny foreigner will realise 'lodge' means 'wooch' culture" but it's still ignorant and pathetic.
Or, to look at it another way, since we're all connected to the rest of the world all the time perhaps it's time to stop saying "spain" when we could at least say "espanya" and attempt not to sound like we can't even read things written in the alphabet we use every day.
English may be the most spoken second language but that doesn't mean we should be lazy, bigoted and just plain rude to the rest of the world.
(Me, I'm not... in any way intoxicated, Thu 8 Apr 2010, 17:51, closed)

By that token
the French should say England and not Angleterre and so on.

Good luck on getting the Germans to say Wyoming, Wisconsin, Winchester and Western Sahara.
( sandettie light vessel automatic New Twitter - @bollocksreally, Thu 8 Apr 2010, 18:01, closed)

This is my point
Every language has its own names for other places as it is more palatable to that language's pronunciation, a very good example :D.

The point is forefront in my mind at the moment really as I live in Hungary (or Magyarorszag as some would clearly prefer) and Hungarian has its own names for pretty much every major city in the region, largely for pronunciation reasons, in which I see the logic.
(captainbildo, Thu 8 Apr 2010, 18:13, closed)

Just because "they" do it?
I work with and interact with people from most continents and they seem to be able to pronounce English place names as well as us natives.
I'm not suggesting we must drop the 's' from "paris" or anything but it would make things a fuck of a lot easier if we at least tried to prounounce the real place names as opposed to some moron's interpritation which made it into the atlas.
I can't say Brno properly myself but I don't feel the need to call it Bono and expect everyone in the world to understand.
It seems that the world is (in most cases) hapilly adopting English as the lingua franca -- but if that's the case we should at least try and get place names nearer to the real ones so we can all understand.
(Me, I'm not... in any way intoxicated, Thu 8 Apr 2010, 18:44, closed)

I see your point and consider that in a recent conversation with Hungarian and Austrian friends, I was giving the same place 3 different names. Speaking Hungarian referring to it as Pozsony, in German (to Austrian ears), Pressburg and in my own head thinking in English, Bratislava.

I agree that had linguists thought of this many years ago it could have been simpler, but I guess linguistics need to appeal to the masses for very obvious reasons and therefore if we cant pronounce a place name easily in its native tounge we must use our own Moniker.
(captainbildo, Thu 8 Apr 2010, 19:14, closed)

Viva la difference
English (and every other language) has placenames that often reflect a history. `Germany' comes from the Latin Germania (whilst Deutschland comes from the same root as the word Teuton).

In addition to this I find the use of placenames in Welsh for English places interesting and they often reflect a history. Chester? Caer (it means `fortress' - was originally `Caerleon' like the place in Newport and means `fortress of the legion). Scotland is `Alba' - the ancient name for the place and based on an ancient name for Britain.

Personally, I don't give a rat's cock how they pronounce anywhere in this country overseas.
(Audax Victor, Thu 8 Apr 2010, 19:48, closed)

Mumbai.
When we owned it it was called "Bombay".
Now we've given it back to the natives......Mumbai.
They've always called it "Mumbai"
Bombay was how we interpretateteded the word when we turned up.
"Bombay" is still "our" version of what always was and always will be, Mumbai.
( Unklian Lives in the only country where "Glass" is a verb., Fri 9 Apr 2010, 10:11, closed)

Welsh
Go to Wales, look at the road signs and then try saying those place names.
(spazmataz mong-a-long-a-ding-dong, Fri 9 Apr 2010, 11:44, closed)

But the Welsh are just being awkward.
Besides, I can say abertawey as easily as swanzey so there's at least one place I don't need a redundant English name for. I'm sure it's also possible to render most welsh names into something that a language-challnged person like myself can say and sound vaguelly correct.
That said, Wales is a good example of somewhere where perhaps we can't pronounce the local names and have to rely on our own -- the same certainly can't be said of Deutschland, for example.
(Me, I'm not... in any way intoxicated, Fri 9 Apr 2010, 18:13, closed)