>(On the other hand, I haven't
>the faintest idea how to pronounce "Worcester." There was an old
>thread on that topic somewhere in the archives, IIRC...)

As Massachussetts is one of the markets I get a lot of calls from at work, here's what I can tell you about Mass city name pronunciations:

Worcester: Woost[er|ah] (depending on how Bostonian the speaker is)
Leicester: Lester
Leominster: Lemonster (as in, the fruit, with a "-ster" on the end)
Quincy: Quinzee
Peabody: Peebiddy
Woburn: Wooban
Haverhill: Havril
Waltham: Walth-ham
Hawthorne: Horthon (that's the best I can do to render how the Boston accent destroys that city name)

Those are the ones I remember off the top of my head.

I could also mention a few of the other interesting place names I know of by way of my job (Florida's got a few doozies, like Thonotosassa and Immokalee, for instance), but nobody mangles pronunciations quite like Massachussetters (and Bostonians in particular). (It's to the point where I've had callers from Mass confused about spelling or city names by their own accents -- sorta like a Southerner having to specify "ink pen," since "pen" and "pin" are pronounced the same in Southern.)

-- Sean --
Rabid Crack Weasel #42
"All tribal myths are true, for a given value of 'true'." -- Terry Pratchett
Drelau Productions
The Broken Link