Cairns.  It’s quite possibly the second most difficult word to correctly pronounce in the entire Australian vocabulary.  Sure – I’ll admit that I’ve heard grammar rules in my life about what to do when two vowels are together in a word, but I’ve never found any rules about silent r’s being added just for fun.  Subsequently, I cannot tell you why “Cairns” is pronounced as “Cans,” but I can tell you that I hate that stupid “r.”

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