A few weeks ago at Drinking Liberally, a young woman mentioned the pe-CAHNS in my portable baklava and I reflexively said "pee-cans." I made a joke of it and certainly wasn't seriously disagreeing with her pronunciation, but on some fundamental level, I probably was. Your accent gets so ingrained that it becomes a part of you. Also, I always felt that the wood should be pronounced one way and the nut another. (Not that this approach requires either to be pronounced "pee can." Pi-CAHN and pi-CANN, respectively, probably meet the situation well enough.)
This Tuesday at DL, I had to correct (apologetically, even embarrassedly), or rather incorrect a young man regarding the local pronunciation of a nearby road, settlement and lake called Monticello. We pronounce it MontiSELLo. Mortifyin'.
The Southernese pronunciation that I've never quite believed is "bedroom suit." No one has ever said it to me directly, but they say it in local TV furniture store ads (or did when I watched TV). I always picture my imaginary incorrecter saying, "No, (pronounced, unspellably, somewhere between "Naw" and "Now," like Andy Griffith did in "No Time for Sergeants") it isn't 'bedroom SWEET.' It's bedroom SUIT. You ain't from around here, are ya?"
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