On Sun, 27 Jun 2010 21:06:26 +0100, Ian Jelf
wrote:

snipped

Real ones (ie to me, in 18+ years in tourism), complete with the reasons
"tourists" might want to go to sometimes unlikely places):

Neck-ells (Nechells area of Birmingham. To get to the "Star City"
complex))

Sluff (Slough, as they;d been told to get a bus from Heathrow with that
destination, in order to reach an hotel)

Edin - burrow (Edinburgh, as almost *always* pronounced by North
Americans)

War - sester (Worcester)

Lie - ces - ter (Leicester)

Bury Street in Edmunds (Bury St Edmunds)

Not quite a place name but an American lady living in Britain on a tour
of mine once said she caused amusement among her new British friends by
always calling Sainsbury's "Sains - berry"; apparently they ended up
calling it that, too!

sure there have been more.

Tourists and natives alike are asked in this country to pronounce the
new name for Abbey as San-tan-daire. I asked the staff whether they
would look at the cal-en-daire on the wall, and whether I could
ten-daire a 5 pound note. Sensible answers were prohibited by
management.

Guy Gorton