AmE or BrE ?

[Jamie (K)]

In 4th grade, my teacher made a big deal out of making sure the whole class pronounced Edinburgh correctly. The lesson was about Scotland in general, but that was the thing that was really pounded into our heads. I don't know how we got to Scotland that day, because nearly the entire year was spent in detailed study of the Netherlands and Argentina.

[Beeesneees]

LOL.
She obviously didn't like the stereotype. Did she also teach you how to spell it correctly?
How would you get on with the other place names I mentioned?
_________________
Cheers m' dears!

[Jamie (K)]

I can't always tell how to pronounce the name of every little dorf in my own state, let alone in a foreign country where people have had centuries to mangle them. There are some American place names that I REFUSE to pronounce "correctly", such as "Louisville" (which the natives call [luwəvəl]), and "New Orleans" (which people there insist is [nɔlɪnz]). I'll meet them halfway, but no further.

[Beeesneees]

...a nd yet you are an educated - and well travelled man... so hopefully you will see the point I am making about the pronunciation of foreign words and place names.
_________________
Cheers m' dears!

[Jamie (K)]

Yes, but I don't see why an egghead scholar narrating a British documentary on, say, the Byzantine empire mangles the place names as badly as an American child just learning to read. Is this the way he pronounces them in private moments at home and in his office, or is he doing that so that the philistines watching the program will know how to spell them? Americans generally use the etymological pronunciation, and when we see this august scholar using the spelling pronunciation, we wonder what year of school he missed when he was little.

[Beeesneees]

I will not make a guess at generalisations based on one person, especially when I didn't hear him pronounce it.

That said, I understand there are differences in its pronunciation depending on whether you have an AmE accent or BrE accent, but that is no different to pronunciation of words such as 'lieutenant'. It's accepted that there are some words where the pronunciation varies between speakers of standard dialects -- words for which there is no single most common pronunciation that is definitely preferable to others.
_________________
Cheers m' dears!

[Beeesneees]

Incidentally, in case anyone was wondering about the pronunciation of the place-names I mentioned in an earlier post:
Cholmondeley - chum-lee
Bicester - bis-ter
Tintwistle - tinsel
Mousehole - mou-zl ('mou' rhymes with 'cow')
Woolfardisworthy - wool-sree
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Cheers m' dears!