Betws-Y-Coed

Okay, how would you spell Betws-Y-Coed? The Welsh village may just be the most misspelled place name on the internet. Kevin Jones runs the town's tourist website, and discovered that people have searched for the place using at least 364 different misspellings!
"I'd like to know if any other place in the UK is as misspelt," he said.

Mr Jones said he was amazed that all the people who wrote the name wrongly into a search engine had got to the website.

"Some of the names were unrecognisable," he said.

"But my criteria for counting the misspellings was that at least three people would have spelt it that way - and that they had viewed pages on the website after using them.

"I think we must be the most misspelt place names in the UK - I challenge people to let me know if we're not."

When Jones first moved to the village, he found out there were many different pronunciations of the name as well. Accompanying the linked article are some other places in Wales that you might find hard to spell. Link -via Arbroath

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Here in Scotland we have Milngavie, pronounced Mulguy, and Culzean, pronounced Cullain, so both those are often misspelled or mispronounced, as is my town of Strathaven, pronounced Strayven, but then, non-UK people struggle even with Edinburgh, pronounced Edinburrah (with the stress only on the Ed), and often say Edinburg
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I was just in betws-y-coed in december, i felt like i was in harry potter it's so magical. It does have a weird spelling until you understand how the welsh pronounce things. It's pronounced "bet-toos-see-co-ed" the ws is making the toos sound. My Fiance lived near here when he was a kid so he knew how the phonetics worked and pronounced everything properly.
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This is my favourite area in the entire world -- so far.

I remember going into a pub while on holiday about five miles from here, in a tiny little hamlet just outside where we were staying. Suddenly, the locals all switched to speaking Welsh.

And, I was not in the least offended; just pleased that they had a way to continue their discussion in private. Besides, spoken welsh sounds wonderful.
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Worst pronunciation I've heard of was by someone asking for directions to Loughborough (luff-buh-ruh) whose interesting interpretation was 'Looger-borooger'.

In other news, someone phoned me today and pronounced my surname (gizz-burn is the correct way) as if it started with J. I am not named after a bedroom-related skin complaint thanks very much!
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