Someone asked if people had heard ‘a foreigner absolutely mutilate a place name’ and, well, it turns out that Brits don’t need any help with that

Britain has a lot of strange and difficult to pronounce place names, as any visitor from abroad who has ever asked for directions to Woolfardisworthy will know (‘Woolzery’, fyi).

But it turns out that it’s not just foreign tourists who get confused. Over on the AskUK subreddit, user LinkLinkleThreesome posted this…

Have you ever had a foreigner absolutely mutilate a place name? I just had an American/Canadian (not sure which) tell me they were going on to ‘Lie-sester’ next (figured out after prompting they meant Leicester.

And the replies quickly demonstrated that, while newcomers are understandably confused by the fact ‘Milngavie’ is pronounced ‘Mil-guy’, us British people struggle with our native tongue just as much as anyone else…

1.

‘Americans love shortening place names here in London – I work in central London and have been asked for directions to “Oxford” (Oxford Street) multiple times in the past year.’
–BulkyAccident

2.

‘A chap once told me he was going to al-buh-rone-ee. After some questioning it turned out he was off to All Bar One. He wasn’t even foreign, just Geordie.’
–arpw

3.

‘Someone once asked me how to get to Clafarm. He meant Clapham.’
–reader270

4.

‘I got laughed at for pronouncing Burpham (just outside of Guildford) like Clapham. How was I meant to know it’s Burfam? Where’s the consistency?’
–blodblodblod

5.

‘Omigod my absolute favourite was Staveley. Which they pronounced as Saint Aveley.’
–TeamOfPups

6.

”Follo-kess-toné’. Italian guy.’
–mronion82

7.

‘I’m Welsh I’ve had the English mutilate place names. ‘Loompier’ for Llwynypia.’
–Welshbuilder67

8.

‘Bit guilty of this. I met a Tinder date in Wales (I’m from Devon so the range extends over the water) and the Welsh coach driver laughed hard when I asked if it was the coach to ‘La-nelly’.’
–LinkLinkleThreesome

9.

‘I’m English and pretty sure I would unintentionally f up many Welsh place names, but when I lived in USA it took me a long time to realise that ‘Professor Looer-line’ was an attempt to reference the poor guy called Llewellyn.’
–fluorine_nmr

10.

”Why-strad my-nooch” for Ystrad Mynach or ‘Jelly-dog’ for Gellideg are some of the best I’ve heard.’
–Ok-Summer1478

11.

‘I’m English but live in North Wales. Plenty of people butcher the names around here.

But in a reversal of roles, in a work meeting (I work in England), I accidentally referred to a street in England (Siddallt Street – pronounced Sidd-Alt Street) using the Welsh pronunciation of that spelling and everyone in the meeting looked at me like I’d had a stroke.’
–ooh_bit_of_bush

12.

‘Americans overheard on a plane telling people they’d been to Scotland, where they visited ‘In-VERR-nuss’ and ‘O’bahn’. I gagged.’
–sloth-in-a-box-5000