On 28/06/2010 21:58, MIG wrote:
On 28 June, 19:18, Jeremy wrote:
Neil Williams wrote:
On Mon, 28 Jun 2010 09:48:52 +0100, Guy Gorton
wrote:

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.

Presumably, though, pronouncing it as "Santanduh" would be as
incorrect as the other examples in this thread. It is after all a
Spanish company named after a Spanish place.

OTOH, in English we don't pronounce Paris as "Paree", many people
pronounce Bologne as "Bolloin", we've changed the name of München to
Munich, Köln to Cologne, Москва́to Moscow, etc... so as far as I can see,
we can pronounce Santander any way we like in England.

I thought it was more to do with Drake.

Conversely, there are cases where post-colonial guilt and PC
willy-waving mean Britons use "local" names which the natives might not
themselves use.

But at least it's reasonably close to the Spanish, unlike "bowkay" and
"larngeray" for certain French words, as I've mentioned somewhere.

Anyone mentioned Bombardier yet? (being from Quebec, the train and plane
manufacturer is not pronounced like the beer)

--
Arthur Figgis Surrey, UK