On the business of spelling and pronouncing foreign names, Jonah, I refer

you to my definitive piece on this topic, published in that well-known

conservative magazine A.N.Other a couple of years ago. Sample quote: “Toponymical practice has now passed far beyond the bounds of reason into a realm of utter lunacy. The other day I needed to know the name of that wee gulf up in the top right-hand corner of the Mediterranean. I pulled down my Times Atlas of the World and got the answer: ‘Ïskenderun

körfezi.’ Now, I am sure that somewhere in there is the Turkish word for

’gulf,’ but alas, I had mislaid my Turkish dictionary. (So I went to the

attic and looked the place up in my grandfather’s 1922 atlas. ‘Gulf of

Alexandretta.’ Ah.)”