Pronunciation

It's very very impolite to correct someone's speech, local people pronounce things very different sometimes. Mathew don't let it throw you you were the one who was offended. Little story a high roller and his wife had a Condo where I had my fishing Condo. They were about 20 yrs older than my wife and I. I lived at the Condo he didn't, I made sure his 45 ft yacht was always tied up tight during fowl weather and we were in enclosed boathouses. He liked my coffe which I made very strong. One day he came over with his wife, who I did not know very well, we talked about people we knew and I said I was friends with a Siaae, she corrected me and said it a different way, now I was pronunceing it the way my friend did. She would not leave it alone and kept on about the pronunciation, my Cajun Ire took over and I put my nose in her face and said I've never hit a woman , especially an old woman, but if you say another word I"ll Slap The shite out of you. After that he didn't drink my coffee and I didn't tie his boat up.

Sort of like the way they pronounce Hebert "He Bert" up north and Hebert "A-Bear" down here.

I'm with the pear reek and la tah kia group.

Now. Pronounce
Atchafalaya and Tchoupitoulas.

I originally pronounced it the second way too, but your mom is correct. 
Latakia Pronunciation

In another thread I mentioned that the clerk(s)
at my closest B&M Like to act superior and snobbish.
The best example I could give is their "correcting".
The last visit there I commented that I liked Latakia and
Perique.Now I have read an article by ,I believe, Russ O
with the owners of St.James Perique.And if I remember
correctly,he gave the proper pronunciations as La-Ta-Kia
and Per-Ah-Kee.The clerk corrected me with La-Teak-A and
Pa-Reek.So have you heard other variations?

The only variations I heard of, is the clerk's name, Douche Nozzle (doooosh nozzle).  Used to be a rarity in our area, but as I get older, their numbers seem to be on the rise.  One way to recognize them is described above, another very irritating clue that somebody is part of the Douche Nozzle family, the loud cell phone conversationalist in the checkout line (you know what I mean, put your phone down and pay for your items).  All of this probably explains the lack of respect shown nationally now.  Man I am getting old.

I'm with the majority (and the French) when if comes to Perique. There's nothing about it that says Per-Ah-Kee. By the same token, how could someone derive La-Teak-A from Latakia.

But there is debate over whether it's Lah-tah-KEY-ah or Lah-TAH-key-ah. I always said the latter, then my mom corrected me and said, "that's how your father said it." It also sounds more Arab, so it probably correct.

Then again, why do we call Deutschland "Germany"? If the guy who actually grows Perique calls it Per-Ah-Kee I'm not going to correct him. But I'm not gonna say it, either!

But A publicly arrogant person that prides themselves on their learnedness calling a corpsman, a corpse man deserves the ridicule he or she gets.

Years ago I dined at a neighborhood Greek restaurant, as I did regularly. One evening I ordered my usual, along with the usual side of pita bread. Well, on this one loathsome occasion, the waitress/owner/cook brought my meal to the table with very burnt/black pita bread, which is always otherwise lightly grilled the way I enjoy. When I asked her to please replace the black pita, she retorted that "bread is bread". I stood up from my uneaten meal, laid a twenty on the table, told her my business with her after all these years was dead... "dead is dead". I never went back.