A suburb of Omaha is called Papillion. You'd think you would pronounce it pap-e-on. But no, it's pronounced pa-pill-yon.

Tell that to the residents of Day-trwa, Michigan, or Day Mwan, Iowa, or of the state of Illin-wa. Or go to New Orleans, which like many placenames thereabouts is stuck in a no-man's-land (AW-lins) between the French pronunciation AW-lay-on and the English aw-LEENS.

Peter