why are the boston celtics pronounced "seltics" rather than "keltics", shouldn't they be pronounced "keltics?"
364174
yep!  That drives me crazy!
199901
There are so many urban legends about why the team is referred to as the Habs that is hard to believe which one is true. Habs, in and of itself, is a shortened version of Les Habitants, a French word.\n\nIt seems that during the 1920s, Madison Square Garden owner Tex Rickard was falsely told by someone that the "H" on Montreal's uniform stood for "habitant", a French word that in those days was used to denote the farmers of Quebec. Rickard was told that the French players on the team came from the farms and they were therefore "habitants" or "habs". \n\nAt the time, the Canadiens were recognized as the French team of Montreal as opposed to the Montreal Maroons, the English team. In reality, the "H" in the Montreal crest, which is inside a "C," stands for Club de Hockey Canadien. Hope that helps.
659382
When the French, Swiss, and French Canadian families named LEVEQUE arrived in America and/or in England, many anglicized the spelling to LaVake, La Vake, and Lavake, since English-speaking peoples would often have trouble pronouncing the Veque as "Vake" (Vay-k). They just simplified the spelling so it would be easy to pronounce in school or at work.
293787
The correct way........Ill i noy..........The "S" is silent.\n\nIllinois (pronounced "ill-i-NOY")\n\nIts name was given by the state's French explorers after the indigenous Illiniwek people, a consortium of Algonquian tribes that thrived in the area. The word Illiniwek means simply the "men," i.e. "people."
558599
Yes its true. They say it without the 'r' but it sounds like they said it with the 'r'. Its more common with Yorkshiremen and Australians, I think.
335978
The idea is, use "an" because the h is very soft to the ear. An historian. But a whole lot of refined educated people say "a historian,." because the h isn't really silent...you can hear the soft h consonant.  The "an" before h+vowel rule is a loosey-goosey one...not many people use it and as you point out, it doesn't work. One of the oddities/challenges of our language. Personally, I don't follow it.
493556
It is called "dabulls" in various places and seems to be used in association with the Chicago Bulls.\n\nThere is a better version of it here:\nhttp://members.tripod.com/~no14me/dabulls.mid\n\nAnd an even better version here:\nhttp://www.ilovewavs.com/TV/Sports/TV%20Theme%20-%20Chicago%20Bulls%20Theme.wav
1051981
For the same reason they say things like "HIV virus", "Interstate I-95", "POS sale", "intravenous IV", "Eight AM in the morning" or "7PM in the evening"!\n\nRedundancy is a great tradition in spoken English.  It probably all has something to do with a giant EEC "word mountain" somewhere that needs to be used up! LOL
349348
Hoops is a nickname that I believe evolved out of Celtic FC of Glasgow Scotland.  Celtic are nicknamed the Hoops because of the "hoop" or rings around the jersey. FC Dallas has a similiar looking jersey to Celtic other then the color.  ( FC Dallas has red and Celtic has green)  One might say the look like stripes but the stripe actually is a "hoop" around the jersey.  The Hoops is an unofficial team nickname much like people say the Bucs referring the Pittsburgh Pirates or the Birds when referencing the Baltimore Orioles or Toronto Blue Jays.
1063990
I like many of the new rule changes. I absolutely love 4-on-4 during overtime. It opens the game up more. One rule I would like to see though is that a player's namemust have a minimum of 3 vowels, just so I can know how to pronounce it.
382962
Good question: I suspected that it was to do with one Celtic (with K) being an adjective (is that the right grammatical term, it describes the noun) because the word appears in Celtic art (art is the noun) or Celtic language (language being the noun).  The football and basketball team use the city as the adjective and Celtic as the noun (Glasgow Celtic and Boston Celtic respectively), hence S sound.  However, why there would be a difference I honestly haven't a clue!\n\nThe word Celt, comes from the Greeks Keltoi, by the way.\n\nC in Irish (and presumably Scottish, they are the same language with only pronounciation and spelling differences, just like American and British English) is always a k sound, this is because in Latin C is always a k sound and the Irish got their spelling from the Romans.  Of course, people might say "but Julius Caesar is an s sound", only in English pronounciation; it sould sound like Iulius Kaysar, hence the German Kiesar and Russian Tsar comming from Caesar.
983686
And on top of these answers there is mine:\n\nKraków is pronounced /krakoof/\n\njust because the "ó" letter is a orthographic variation of a letter"u", which is pronounced in Polish "oo" like in "foot"\n*"a" is pronounced like in "cut"
535061
It is pronounced Uventus, like U is read in English. As a joke they call the team Juventus like J is pronounced in English. this name means youth in Latin. It is often said about Juve that plays with a strange line-up of players, with a referee behind 2 forwards.
10355
Because of the long and complicated influence from other languages as well as language 'evolution'. English is a germanic language. In 1066, Then french invaded england and we have a huge romance language influence from that. Then we have arabic words, indian words, it goes on and on. Plus some 'olde englishe' words were pronounce differently.  For instance I believe knight didn't have a silent 'k' originally. There have been many other vowel shifts and consonant additions/deletions that leave us with the mess we have today
912332
It probably was a product of laziness at first but now, pronouncing your Ts sounds...like...cultured, and almost condescending. Only the most educated people will pronounce their Ts. I know, it's weird, but it's become culturally acceptable for the average American not to pronounce them.
599345
How about Cockburn? Seriously! (pronounced ' Coburn') LOL\nFuchs. Ok, so they are were surnames. But WTF?\nI would change it instead of passing down the name!
79261
He doesn't mispronounce it.  It is just something people who don't like him say. \nPresident Lyndon Johnson pronounced it the same way.\nCheck out Merriam-Webster online below and click on the pronounciation key, there are three variant ways.\n\nBut, based upon the way you posed your question, I don't think you care much for a real answer.