>>Pronunciation is one thing, but why-O-why is Marseilles plural in English and singular in French? You don't even pronounce that spurious S...<<

Well, in a way this is where I started this thread. My point was that when I was young the city of Marseille had an English name, Marseilles, pronounced Marsales ~~ I was not 'complaining' of this, as someone suggests above, but simply drawing attention to the fact that it had an English name different from its native one: just as 'Moskva' has the English name Moscow, 'Yerushaliyim' has the English name Jerusalem, 'Firenze' has the English name Florence, &c &c.{&, for that matter, the French & Italians have their own names for London} ~~ while other places don't have these variants; & that, in the cases of Lyon, Marseille, &c, these distinctions had dropped out, tho Paris remains in its Anglicised form in normal usage.

None knows why ~~ but I just found the question of interest: & so, to judge from the flourishing of the thread, do others.

So keep 'em coming...

~Michael~