That's right down there with "orientate."

Since you're an American, I'll see your "orientate" and raise you "obligate".

Do americans think the orient express is a really quick-response compass?

Ah, those crazy Yanks. Dictionary.com's FAQ explains that "Orient is the word to use; orientate is a silly variant [which] has existed since around 1849" yet has nothing to say at all about "obligate" and "oblige". A word in common usage for over a century-and-a-half is a "silly variant"? Isn't rather a lot of American English considerably younger than that? At least the variant of "orient" came about, as new coinings often do, to encompass a new meaning: there are good reasons why people don't want to use the same word to mean "turn to face in the right direction" and "East Asia" — and British dictionaries sensibly list the two as synonyms. "Obligate", on the other hand, came about through mere ignorance of the etymology of "obligation".

And few things crack me up as much as an American attempting to pronounce "fracas".

On the other hand, they're right about "lieutenant". Pronouncing the V from before the letter U was invented? What the hell are we on?

As far as "lieutenant" goes, I'd be happy to switch from "lef-tenant" to the Franco/German "loyt-nant", which sounds suitably like a commissioned officer, but not to the American "loo-tenant", which is altogether more suggestive of someone who spends their time hanging around in lavatories.

Don't think it sounds a bit too much like "loiterer"?

Come to think of it, if we went for the American pronunciation, it's only people in East Anglia and the West Country who'd switch to "lootenant"; the rest of us would use "lyootenant". And we could laugh at the bumpkins the same way we do when they try to say "computer".

Once on a train (in England), an Australian chap asked me how much longer it would take for the train to reach 'Looga-Barooga'. I wondered what continent he thought he was in, until I realised that Loughborough was the next stop.

I've heard the Loogabarooga one before. Australians must make that mistake a lot. One of them once informed me that they also pronounce "croissant" "cr-zont", which I have to say I rather like.

A friend from Devon once said that an occasional source of humour was American tourists asking locals for directions to 'Ill-Frack-Um-Bee'. Depending on how the local was feeling they would either proclaim ignorance of any such place, or point the visitor towards Ilfracombe.

East Anglia's full of places like that — Featherstone Haugh, Wymondham, Stiffkey — but, of course, it's not just Americans who can't pronounce the names; it's everyone bar the locals. This is because everyone in East Anglia is barking mad.

Not been back for years. I love East Anglia.

And Glaswegians get to feel all superior about their ability to pronounce Milngavie. Which almost makes up for their inability to pronounce every single word in the English language, including "Glasgow".

I don't like obligate either.

We also have palatalizing and non-palatalizing dialects. If you live near an isogloss between the two, "coupon arguments" are nearly inevitable at dinner parties (whether it's pronounced koopon or kyoopon).

Sign me your friendly American linguist, who doesn't take digs personally (but admittedly does shudder whenever he hears or sees "should" where there should only be a BE-subjunctive, that is, "I demanded that he be on time," and NOT "I demanded that he should be on time.")

Hey, Prof.

You shouldn't take any digs around here too seriously. We're none of us particularly serious.

However, a lot of the commenters here are Scots (and I'm kind of an honorary Scot), so I'd advise against presuming to know the correct use of "shall" and "should".

Hang on. "Kyoopon"? What the hell? "Coupon" is not a word that anyone over here would palatalise. It's a U followed by an E that gets palatalised, not an O-U. Weird colonials.

"However, a lot of the commenters here are Scots (and I'm kind of an honorary Scot), so I'd advise against presuming to know the correct use of "shall" and "should"."

It's not the correct usage of modals; it's the correct usage of the subjunctive, which allows no modals.

And there's no palatalizing dialect here that would palatalize an 'l'.

There's no need to palatalise the L in "lieutenant". It's just a matter of pronouncing the I. The word "lieu" is pronounced "lyoo".

"There's no need to palatalise the L in "lieutenant". It's just a matter of pronouncing the I. The word "lieu" is pronounced "lyoo"."

That *is* palatalizing the 'l.'

Fair enough. I thought we were discussing sounds getting palatalised by implicit pronunciation rules rather than actual letters. So you're saying no-one in the US would pronounce a "yoo" sound after an L even if there's a letter there to make the "y" sound? That is strange. Ach, you live and learn.

As far as I know, nobody in the US is under the impression that English is spelled phonetically (-:

However, I can't offhand think of ANY example of a word-initial palatalized 'l' (or if you prefer, l+y) in US English pronunciation -- medially, examples abound of course, such as brilliant. A word-initial 'ly' sounds distinctly "foreign" (well, Slavic) to my ears.

That is rather interesting.

I'm trying to think of an example other than "lieutenant" and "lieu", but I'm stuck. Maybe they're the only two English words where this could happen. We wouldn't palatalise "lu": "lute" and "loot" sound identical here, unlike "cute" and "coot". So there has to be an I or a Y in the way to force it, and that's probably only going to happen with Anglicised French words.

If it is a unique construction in English, that might go some way to excusing our ridiculous pronunciation of it. Not much, mind.

I've always wondered where the British pronunciation of lieutenant came from -- then, I wonder the same thing about 90% of British place names.

I'm a Germanicist, so I studied a number of Germanic languages as a PhD student. One of them was Danish, whose relationship between spelling and pronunciation is about the same as ours. I did gain a sympathy for those learning English (spelling, particularly) from that.