> Would you call it cultural arrogance or just cultural stupidity if a town uses a foreign city name but mispronounces it?
Well, once this town is your town its name it’s no longer “a foreign city name” but your city name so, I think, you are entitled to pronounce it as you wish.
There are people, as is my case, who cannot pronounce some foreign syllables properly or have to make a considerable effort for doing it. I have always thought that if you cannot pronounce a foreign word in an acceptable way you had better pronouncing it as if it was written in your native language. It surely will be better than inventing a new pronunciation.
I don’t know who started it, but a couple of years ago almost everybody in my city started pronouncing CD-ROM as ceh deh room. It was too much for me, I think that the “o” in ROM is one of the few vocals that English an Spanish pronounce similarly and some snob made this room pronunciation up and everybody found it fashionable. I think I had never imposed a way of pronouncing anything in my company before but, after getting fed-up with hearing it, I banned this way of pronouncing this word.
Maybe I’ve got a dictator inside me struggling to get out.
Juan Maria.
