Colonel

[Mercen-X]

Wh is pronounced "hw(a)", so "hwy" is it spelt wh?

Uhh, I definitely do not pronounce "wh" like it starts with an "h". You obviously just talk weird. x}

Sorry, but I don't know what " x} " means. Are you being serious right now? People with British accents in television shows who like to act like they know better than everyone else, pronounce words with wh as "hw" as in "hwat", "hwere", "hwen", "hwy", and "cool hwip" and denounce others who don't as "uneducated simpletons". So now, where did these words originate?

[Jiro]

x} is a smiley.

Exaggerating the pronunciation is often used in a sarcastic way. I cannot even think of an example where anyone pronounces the H first except for Stewie in Family Guy that one time, and that's American. I'm not convinced you aren't imagining or inventing this concept, to be honest. It sounds simply absurd to pronounce any of those words the way they're represented. Perhaps you should provide a voice clip to make sure we're not missing something here.

[Quindiana Jones]

Oh, re-heally?

[Mercen-X]

"No. O'Reilly!"

While "whip" is not of English origin and was never supposed to be pronounced as "hwip" as there never was an h in the word, all of the others originated as having the h at the beginning as in "hwaet" (what).

Fun fact: "who" was originally pronounced similarly to "kwo".

Etymology.com

[Shauna]

We aren't discussing how words were historically pronounced - that is a whole different kettle of fish. Today, I have never encountered anyone, not once in my 23 years of living in the UK, who exaggerates the "wh" sound in that way. My personal anecdote is enough proof!

[Night Fury]

Nguyen

[Mercen-X]

Hmm... maybe it is just how Americans rip on Brits. I've never met anyone with an English accent and I don't listen to how celebrities speak outside a show. I gotta start paying attention.

Pistachio (of course this may just be another American idiosyncrasy)

The suffix -tion.

Also pretty much any name/word in Chinese. Of course this could merely be a case of not knowing how to properly represent their name in English.

[Dat Matt]

lol sterotypes with no basis.

I'm not sure where you get that Brits have put empahsis on the "wh" sounds. Seems more Texan to me

[Mercen-X]

lol

I guess it's just Stewie then.

[Lone Wolf Leonhart]

lasagna

[Colonel Angus]

lasagna

Actually, that's pronounced exactly as it's spelled. the "gn" combo in Italian is pronounced just as ñ is en español.

[The Man]

For that matter, "rendezvous" is also pronounced exactly as it's spelled, since it's French. English is weird because a large number of its words are loanwords from other languages. Knowing the pronunciations of those languages makes a lot of English's idiosyncratic pronunciations more intuitive.

[Quindiana Jones]

Also pretty much any name/word in Chinese. Of course this could merely be a case of not knowing how to properly represent their name in English.

It's pinyin. Chinese sounds using the English alphabet to make it easier to communicate. They may be the same letters, but they aren't the same sounds. C, for example, is pronounced "ts", and Zh is pronounced like a soft "g". It's a completely different language, not just "improper English".

[sharkythesharkdogg]

Nguyen

I called a guy at work "Ngyou-yen" for like 4 months because I didn't know any better. Then I saw it pronounced on TV or somewhere, and felt like a moron.

I don't know who was the bigger jackass, me for not knowing or him for being too polite to say anything.

[Mercen-X]

Also pretty much any name/word in Chinese. Of course this could merely be a case of not knowing how to properly represent their name in English.

It's pinyin. Chinese sounds using the English alphabet to make it easier to communicate. They may be the same letters, but they aren't the same sounds. C, for example, is pronounced "ts", and Zh is pronounced like a soft "g". It's a completely different language, not just "improper English".

Ah, I see. Cool, so then it does qualify.