Gary, you mean everybody doesn't say it like that?

How does one pronounce "Tsawwassen" ?

And I've always pronounced Toronto as "TroHnno".. I've heard my american cousins pronounce it as "ToRaaHnto".

Cheers!

If you took out one of the extra 'w's and 's's Tsawwassen is pronounced just like it's spelled - difficult as that may be. i.e. tsa WA sen - accent on the second sylable.

Because of all the varieties of culture and education Toronto, like London or New York, is pronounced many different ways by the people who live there and there really is no 'native' or 'correct' way. Most usages however put the emphasis on the second sylable and drop or de-emphasize the last 't'.

I got this joke email from my Mother, and it is completely her sense of humor. I thought it was histerical, then I needed to know HOW to say it so I searched and found this site....I hope you all think it is funny too and I made you smile!!!!!!!
Sue - read on now!

Subject: Tatamagouche

Tatamagouche...can you say it!?!??!???

Two tourists from Ontario were driving through Nova Scotia.

As they were approaching Tatamagouche, they started arguing about the pronunciation of the name.

They argued back and forth until they stopped for lunch.

As they stood at the counter, one tourist asked the employee,
"Before we order, could you please settle an argument for us?
Would you please pronounce where we are...very slowly???"

The blonde leaned over the counter and said,

Buurrrr....geerrrr....Kiiiingggg".
(Burger King) ha ha ha

DS,
BC Geographical Names lists Tsawwassen as "sa WOSS-en" but you will hear the T pronounced more often than not.

When we lived in Winnipeg, all my English relatives referred to it as "Winny-peg" (i.e. Winny to rhyme with whinny) and MANNY-toba.

And when we first moved from England to Winnipeg, my parents, maybe ahead of their times in terms of political correctness, took great care to pronounce all the French street names in Winnipeg with ultra-correct French pronunciation, e.g. "Portage Avenue" (my parents said porTAZH instead of PORtidge) and Notre Dame (not NOTERdame). Local Winnipeggers soon set them straight.

When growing up in Boston some years ago, it would fascinate me to listen to CBC Radio, especially of course Hockey Night in Canada w/Danny Gallivan. (Sorry, the Foster Hewitt station was hard to receive.) I'd keep listening after the games, when they presented the news and then the weather, so I'd long been familiar with pronunciations of Mississauga and Algoma and others. But I'd only seen the spellings for the larger cities -- I can tell you I was surprised when I saw the name Kapuskasing and it dawned on me that that's how Cappa's Casing was spelled.

Is Ottawa not a suburb of Toronto somewhere east of Scarborough and
Calgary a small cow town north east of Mississauga?

You can always tell who's local and who's not in Vancouver by their pronunciation of Abbotsford.

There are those that say it as if it's two seperate names, as if it should be spelled "Abbot's Ford", stressing the "Ford", pronouncing it like a Ford truck.

Those that pronounce it like "AHB-itsfird", stressing the first syllable, rhyming exactly with "rabbits-bird".

Then, there are the locals to Abbotsford, known to call the whole city "Abby".

There is a very small town near Edmonton that is spelled "Waskatenau". When I first saw this I was not sure how it would be pronounced.

To my surprise it is pronounced as follows:
Wuh-set-nuh, with the emphasis on "set".

Don't be silly, Hogtown Jim. Calgary is west of Mississauga, not east!