this post was submitted on 04 Sep 2023
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I'm picking "Colonel" needs to be respelled to match how it's pronounced.

Try to pick a word no one else has picked. What word are you respelling?

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[โ€“] catharso@discuss.tchncs.de 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

i'm from somewhere in europe and always wondered why you guys would pronounce those two so different!

[โ€“] fubo@lemmy.world 5 points 1 year ago

America has a lot of place names that come from Native American / First Nations languages; but they also come via different European languages.

And some of those names are actually words that refer to a different Native group. "Arkansas" and "Kansas" are from the Osage word for the Quapaw people. The name of the Snake River between Oregon and Idaho is a translation of the name that Plains people used to refer to the Shoshone: they were the "snake people" and that wasn't a compliment.