Yesterday I had lunch with a woman who had taught English in Japan. She became very hot under the collar over the pronunciation of 'Hiroshima.' She said it is 'Hi-ROSH-i-ma' and wanted to know why the hell the world doesn't say it that way.

I wanted to tell her it was because the world has heard this pattern many times:

NakaMURa
MitsuBISHi
FujiYAma
WataNAbe
MatsuMOto (friends of mine)

In our language we follow patterns and try to use logic. If Hiroshima breaks the pattern, we don't know unless someone tells us.

However, conversation moved on to other topics before I could verbalize all that. She enjoyed being angry, anyhow.