JazzOctopus asked
There's a suburb of Cincinnati named Versailles and the "es" is pronounced at the end, far from the real French pronounciation. Toledo is also mispronounced from is Spanish namesake. In the US it's "Tol-ee-do", but in Spain, as far as I've heard, it's "Tol-eh-do".If I may offer my sen on the matter, I think that the two examples you give are situaations in which it is entirely appropriate to pronounce the names differently. Versailles, Cincinnati is not Versailees, France, and Toledo, Ohio is not Toledo, Spain, so pronouncing the names ina different manner serves to make that distinction clear. Here in New Zealand there is a topographical feature known as the Bombay Hills, north of which there is no civilised society. Despite the large, and rapidly growing, Indian population on both sides of those hills, no one has suggested renaming them "The Mumbai Hills"
