An article in USA Today earlier this week claims that over half of Americans are unwilling to travel anywhere they are not sure they know how to pronounce.
The claim, based on a survey by travel aggregator Omio, which is pushing its pronunciation guide as a help, says that “54% of 2,000 U.S. adults said the fear of ‘getting it wrong’ has stopped them from booking a trip. It’s not just place names either; 47% said they’ll avoid ordering food items if they can’t confidently pronounce it. Even domestic destinations like New York’s Skaneateles and Poughkeepsie can trip travelers up.”
You can read the whole article here, but what you won’t find, at least so far, is details of how the survey was conducted and how the 2,000 respondents were chosen. We’ve reached out to Omio for details, but, in the meantime…
Gumbo wants to hear from you…
And yes, we know you’re not a scientifically-selected sample, and we doubt our regular readers have avoided visiting Wales because of the sign in the picture, but, please tell us in the comments or by email:
Have you ever heard anyone say that they won’t go somewhere because they don’t know how to pronounce it?
Image: Chris McKenna/Wikimedia Commons
