Not kilts but Scotland

[Frank McGrath]

I was driving down the road the other day, listening to my local NPR Station, WYPR, when the Commentator, Aniban Basu, was talking about business topics. What caught my ear was when he mentioned a city in Scotland, Edenburg. He pronounce it just like I spelled it. Hard E, Hard G. And this guy sells himself as an intelligent man. He did a consulting job for our county commisioners and now we are getting a longer runway at the local airport. I guess its needed for the jets to cover Camp David for the presidential weekend visits. Any way, I attempted to call the station and complain, but the lines were busy. I am still trying.

[Jack Daw]

The other callers probably phoned with the same complaint.

As a church volunteer, I used to answer the office phone during the church's Sunday morning telecast. They asked me to tally the calls, so the office could estimate the number of listeners by multipling my tally by 1,000. You gotta wonder if your radio commentator mispronounced Edinburgh on purpose to see how many would call.

[SteveB]

I also wonder what American dialect the commentator was speaking. Hea in Bahston they wud caul it Eddinbuhra. H*** they can call it England, Great Britain and the United Kingdom all in one sentence, and actually be referring to Wales.
Not all commentators are versed in basic geography.

[SFCRick]

strange

[McClef]

It's once of those cultural things regarding pronunciation.

Burgh is "borough" usually over here but burg or boro over there.

When I stayed in Scarborough Ontario it sounded strange not to hear it pronounced like Scarborough, Yorkshire.

Yet we would have no problem with Pittsburgh because there isn't a place with that name in the UK.

Would I be right in thinking that Pittsburgh is the only place where the h has been kept over there out of all the places that end in burg?

[DreamDancer]

Saint-Petersburg, at least, had lost his "h" long ago, i guess as a child i had problems with reading these names of places - Edinburgh of course but i understood i had to remember the right variant - just remember it for the rest of my life
you cann't imagine how many tele-and radio-commentators read the russian (their native) words wrong...

[SportBilly]

I've always found that kind of thing annoying, particularly the Edinburgh example. It's one thing to blame an American dialect for the pronunciation 'Edinburrow' (sic) but if it's not spelt that way then it's only really laziness to blame imo. For example, I'm English and live near Greensboro. I'd never dream of trying to pronounce it 'Greensburgh' and blame that on my accent.

[MacTavishOfJapan]

My fiancé used to say Edinburg - it took her ages to get it right and completely flummoxed her for a while. I had only ever heard Americans calling it Edinboro so was quite surprised.

[Phil]

I used to work with Bostonians and they always pronounced it "Edinborrow" and brae became bree. What really irks a Scot though is not this but the people who, while they will happily discuss the music of Bach whose name they can pronounce perfectly, cannot manage to pronounce the word "loch". I was once in the company of an Englishman who, and this is a true story, in the space of one sentence entertained us all with "Lock Ness,Lock Oik, and Lock Locky" (all lochs in the Great Glen that he had fished). Fortunately he left out Loch Quoich. I am sure McClef has similar feelings when he hears place names such as Llanwrtyd Wells pronounced "Clanwurtied wells" on the national news by an announcer who has just pronounced some obscure place in Outer Mongolia perfectly. The main difference between American and Scottish pronunciation is that Americans stress the first syllable whereas Scots place the stress on the second so that INVERness for an American is inverNESS for a Scot.

[McClef]

Saint-Petersburg, at least, had lost his "h" long ago, i guess

The Russian city, after which the one in Florida was named. never had an h in to to begin with.

I am sure McClef has similar feelings when he hears place names such as Llanwrtyd Wells pronounced "Clanwurtied wells" on the national news by an announcer who has just pronounced some obscure place in Outer Mongolia perfectly.

Well certainly on Wales TV channels they get it right The "Ll" sound is not easy for those who may not have an acquaintance with Welsh pronunciation and who are not used to using their throats to make new sounds. But local practices do not always help as no attempt is made to pronounce the name as it should be. For example Llanhilleth is locally pronounced as "Lanhilleth" and Pontllanfraith is "Pontlanfraith" (the ll dropped again) and although a single f in Welsh should make it "vraith"!