Pronunciation..is it just a football thing?

[10ClarionSt]

When they talk about Milan on the football/sports progs, it becomes Meelan. It's never that on anything else. It's just Milan. The same with the name David. On football progs it becomes Darveed; and Lionel becomes Leeonel. What's going on?

[bednobs]

are you joking?

[Zhukov]

AC Milan are from Milano(pronounced Meelano,in Italy)..but the club was founded by British Railwayworkers,I think..and they shortened the name to Milan..Don"t now why commentators frequently say Meelan?

Daveed and Leeonel are the pronounciations of their name,in their own Country,so it is courteous to use that.

[boxtops]

They're pronouncing it at the names are intended to be pronounced in their own language.

[Zhukov]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A.C._Milan

[MarkRae]

What a strange question. You surely wouldn't pronounce the surname of the footballer who has recently rejoined Arsenal as if he were a relative of the comedian Lenny Henry?

[boxtops]

Yeah, Mark, Terry Henry

[MarkRae]

They Call Me Mr Tibbs, starring Sidney Potter. Great actor...

[boxtops]

LOL

[Arksided]

Phonetically speaking 'Terry Henry' is sheer class Lol :-)

[Messi_Ten]

Just call me Lee!

[joeystuds]

football is typicaly a working class game since the day it started so i recon that the people your hearing speak like that are probably loaded, and trying to blend in the same way as wen a lot of woman speak to a posher realative they speak with a posher accent thy cal upsizeing an as the same with a lot of the upper middle class men going football so they can rant generally let their hair down this is a form of down sizeing... well thats what i believe anyway... p.s hope i never offended anybody with my observations

[pa___ul3]

joey studs, for the latter, it's a recognised lingustic term called reverse prestige, whereby you try to sound a bit rougher to sound hard or rough so as to gain respect from peers who speak in the same way. You are wrong though, it is just appreciation of how those words are pronounced by the players themselves in the cases of David and Lionel and by Italians in the case of Milan (when referring to the team). What you could pick on more fairly is that these same pundits seem to pick and chose when to go for the intended pronunciation i.e when pronouncing Barcelona they'll pronounce it in a typically English manner and never use the fricative B/V sound when pronouncing Valencia or Villareal etc. and I don't think I've ever heard English pundits calling the club Sevilla.