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@skinnylatte, the non-prescriptivist linguist in me wants to argue that like it or not Eye Ran and Eye Rack are just the names for those countries in certain English dialects. But the rest of me wants to scream every time I hear those.

The English name for Paris includes the final “s”, and the capital of Austria in English Vienna not Wien. So my reaction to Eye Rack is more like my reaction to “nucular”.

The cases you raised are different. There aren’t English expressions for those personal and place names. So just guessing from the romanization is not excusable for a journalist. (If I were just guessing from the romanization I would pronounce those identically, but I like to think I would make an effort get it right if I were speaking publicly. If the differences is in tone, I would need to practice a few times with the help of someone who could correct me.)