Pronunciation II: Home Sweet Wilkes-Barre Or Nogales
Submitted by Sarah D. Bunting on February 29, 2008 – 10:40 AM253 Comments
My apologies to central and western PA, but for years, I thought they were two different towns: Wilkes-Barre, pronounced “Wilks Bar,” and “Wilkesbury,” like the Traveling Wilburys.
And if someone could please remind me how “Nogales” is pronounced, I’d appreciate it.
My PA family members always said “LANK-uh-ster.” Newark, NJ is “Noork”; Newark, DE is “New Ark.”
Anyone here from the Vincennes, IN area? How do you pronounce “Vincennes”?
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Tags: our friend English
Ooh! I wanted to add: How about the continual mispronunciation of Bret Favre’s last name?
Well, if we’re going to get into it, Chicago is always fun for…interesting pronunciations of street names. To name a few, Paulina = Paul-EYE-na, Goethe = GO-thee, Montrose = MAHN-trose, Throop = Troop, and Mozart = MO-zart. Although, to be fair, the last two are kind of old-timey.
I lived in Wilkes-Barre for a few years and always heard it pronounced “Wilkes-Barry.” I went to middle school in Forty-Fort, which continues to be one of the stupidest sounding names that I’ve ever heard. Apparently, at one point, there were forty people in a fort. Terribly literal.
I grew up in Bethlehem, PA…or BETH-lum, if you’re a local. Beth-le-hem is where Jesus was born; Beth-lum is where the Steel died :)
I never had to know how to spell (or drive on) the Schuylkill until I moved to the Philly ‘burbs some 15 years ago, but now I hardly hesitate when doing either.
Conshohocken? That’s an old indian word…means “no parking,” I believe :) I keed, I keed!! That one’s easy to say, but hard to spell–too many damn h’s!
I have had many people ask me, with a slightly desperate tone, how “Wilkes-Barre” is pronounced, once they find out I’m from Scranton. To me, splitting hairs over “Berry” and “Barry” is ridiculous — the important point is that the “Barre” part of the name most often has two syllables (however you happen to produce that vowel). But “Wilkes-Bar” is common enough, even locally, that no one should tell you you’re wrong.
To me this whole discussion starts to turn theoretical: it ultimately depends on what you mean by “is pronounced.” I’m annoyed any time I run into someone from Oregon who wants to lecture me about how “Oregon” is pronounced like “organ.” Not where I come from it isn’t. So is there an absolute “right” and “wrong” in a case like that? The two-syllable pronunciation would sound “wrong” in my part of the country. If I have to actually go to the place to find out how to pronounce it “right,” and there’s a general consensus elsewhere that disagrees, then is the local pronunciation still “right”? Or does “right” change depending on where you are?
Being the Californian-born-and-raised daughter of midwestern parents, I’ve learned the following:
California pronunciation: Sa-LEEN-uhs, CA
Kansan pronunciation : Sa-LINE-uh, KS
Californian pronunciation: ARK-an-saw (like the state) River
Kansan pronunciation: our-KAN-sas (like the other state!) River
Californian pronunciation: huh-WHY-ee
Kansan pronunciation: huh-WHY-yuh
Unfortunately, I seem to have picked up pronouncing “wash” with an r, as in “warshing machine” / “Warshington” / etc., occasionally. However, I’ve never heard them say “crick”, and my mother is very adamant that people in Kansas do wear shoes, despite popular stereotypes to the contrary.
Some from Maine:
New Gloucester is indeed “New Gloss-tah.”
Calais, the lovely French name, is “CAL-us.”
The sister cities of Lewiston-Auburn are pronounced “LOO-stun-Aw-buhn.”
Bangor is something like “Bayn-goah.”
I almost forgot! As a Scranton native I am obliged to talk a bit of smack, to wit: Wilkes-Barre *wishes* it were two different towns! So there!
(Also, Sars, you should know what part of the state Wilkes-Barre is in! NEPA 4-LIFE)
Hi, Caitlin. I, too, live in Alabama, home of Dauphin (pronounced “dolphin,” of course) Island. But I’m from Virginia, home of Buena (Byoona) Vista and Staunton (STAN-ton). That last one always gets me. I grew up near Norfolk, which is NAW-fck to some natives. Also nearby is Portsmouth, which I’ve heard pronounced PORCH-muf.
@Leonie:
One of my favorite Australian place names was “Cairns”, pronounced “Can” as near as I could approximate, but with the “a” more drawn out and pretty nasal. To add to the strangeness, I always ended up saying it sort of loudly to try to cover my uncertainty. “Could you tell me where the bus to CAAAN is, please?”
I have still never figured out how to pronounce the road near my brother’s house in Ohio: Clough.
Is it Clue, like in through? Clow, like in bough? Cloff, like in cough? Claf like in drought? Clo, like in dough? Claw like in thought?
(I believe then concensus is actually none of the above, and it is, instead, Cluff, as in tough. But I could be wrong.)
I notice that none of the Illinoians mentioned Cairo, which is pronounced KAY-ro. Des Plaines is pronounced “des-PLAYNES”. No, don’t ask me to explain that one.
My other favorite upstate NY-isms include Schenectady (skuh-NECK-tah-dee) and Skaneateles (skinny-atlas). Northern Wisconsin-ism is Chequamegon (sheh-WAH-me-gone).
@Allison: I think someone was pulling your leg about Lechmere. I’ve lived in MA my whole life and I’ve never, ever, ever heard anyone say “LETCH-meer.” It’s “LEECH-meer,” just like the department store. And Peabody is “PEE-bdee,” as close to two syllables as you can make it. Also good to know:
Worcester = WOO-stuh
Gloucester = GLOSS-tuh
Leominster = LEH-min-stuh
Quincy = quin-zee
Scituate = SIT-choo-it
And we have no “-ham”s in Massachusetts. Stoneham is STONE-um, Chatham is CHAD-dum, Waltham is WALL-thum, Petersham is PEET-er-sam, etc.
@ Peach: I was born and raised in Chicago and told my mom (an Indiana native) she had a speech impediment because she always said ‘shi-KAW-go.’ I did most of my undergrad in Indianapolis and have never heard anyone else say it that way. Do you say ‘Ray-road’ instead of railroad too?
The one town in Indiana that always throws me is Lebanon. It’s pronounced LEB-nin.
@Heqit – I don’t mean to be too forward (*batting eyelashes*), but I love what you’ve got on those parens up there. Hee!
@Jennifer – I’ve been white all my life and I’ve pronounced it po-white all my life, by all the natives. I’ve never before heard the theory that there’s any racial (or any socio-economical) divide on this, and I’m 40. Natives call it The PO-white. Visitors (and local newscasters – annoyingly) call it the POW-hite.
I have a friend from NY who loves the Powhite so much I had to give her a heads-up to grab her camera on a drive through the city a couple years ago, so she could photograph the exit sign and tell her husband about the miraculous expressway totally named for Poor White trash … Awesome. (Sometimes, I do love this effing little city.)
@Sars: “And why is “Sepulveda” “Se-PUL-vuh-duh” and not “Sep-ull-VAY-duh”?”
When I first moved to SoCal I was sure it was SEP-uhl-VEE-duh, until I was laughed at by many people. Another one that trips up a lot of people is Wilshire, which is WIL-shur, not Will-Shyer. I was always hearing about traffic problems near “Loss VEE-less” on the radio and finally figured out that they were talking about Los Feliz, which I had been pronouncing “Los Fay-LEASE,” which seemed like it would be closer to the original Spanish.
Even Los Angeles itself, if you watch old movies, used to be called “Loss ANGLE-less” (with a hard G).
When I lived in Washington state, my favorite pronunciation was Sequim (“SKWIM” — the E is silent I guess).
so, the onions? Vidalia?
It’s pronounced vy-DAY-yuh, not vih-DAL-yuh. I promise.
If someone could get the message to Martha Stewart, we’d appreciate it.
Being lazy with consonants, like Findlay = Finlay, is just a tendency in English in general, I think, and since much of Ohio has either a full-blown or fragmentary Appalachian drawl to start with, what are you gonna do?
Toledo, OH, is Tol-EE-do. (Or, for jokey people like my Dad, Toodeleedoo.) Both it and Lima were named in honor of the more famous cities, apparently by people who had only seen them written down.
Indiana also has a Russia – pronounced ROO-sha. As far as I’ve ever heard, though, Peru and Zulu, IN are pronounced reasonably correctly.
Apropos of nothing, people in my hometown of Van Wert, OH, and its environs use the expression “Hasta la bye-bye.” They pronounce “hasta” correctly, but still. Shudder.
I’ve now lived in North Carolina, Maine, Delaware, and Philadelphia, so I am qualified to say that the place names in New England are the best. Foo-watt Kee-yent, if I remember, is a town right up near the border. Rhode Island has good places too–trying to think of a synonym for “tiny town in Rhode Island,” I came up with “Scrumsawansett,” and my friend said, “You got something against Scrumsawansett?”
But reading over all of these, I just love this whole darn country.
I’ve been to Fort Kent; it sounded like “Fawt Kent” to me.
I drove down the eastern edge of Maine after that, and that accent…what is that, Acadian? It was like a Boston/Cajun mix.
@Vanessa: I believe “dauphin” means dolphin in French, and it also means prince. (Random, I know.)
So at least calling it dolphin isn’t JUST a mispronunciation…right? :)
@ Vanessa: Dauphin Island…and Conecuh, Cahaba, Opelika, Sylacauga, Oneonta, and Eufaula.
and it’s MOH-beel. NOT mo-bil….
I always liked Wapakoneta, OH – where they just call it WAH-pock.
And I completely forgot to mention, I have driven the Schuykill enough to know: It’s definitely pronounced Sure Kill. And rightly so! Heh.
The British do love a good counfounding pronunciation, though. I remember reading about Elizabeth I and some guy named LIE-ses-tur when I was a kid. (Funny how much you can know, and not know, when you read a lot but don’t converse for years on end.) My mom still likes WOO-sis-ta-CHEST-ah-sha-SHEEEER sauce just for a little spice. So do I.
Chiming in with more CA Spanish-origin mispronunciation!
Los Gatos = “Loss GAA-tus”.
Alameda = “Al-uh-MEE-da”
Tiburon = “TIB-err-on”
Not Spanish, but Yreka = “Why-reek-uh”
If you’re visiting wine country, it’s “Saint Hell-EE-nah”, not “Saint HELL-eh-nuh”.
I live near Yulupa St., and nobody around here can agree if it’s “You-LOOP-uh” or “WHY-loop-uh”.
See you guys later, I’m off to the commute home. I have to cross over the “Shoyull Kill River”
Wilkes – Barre: many locals pronounce it wilkes-bear. Alls i know from native husband is that it is never, under any circumstances, wilkes-bar.
I’ve lived just outside Nevada all my life (in SLC) and it is pronounced with a short A. Definitely not Ne VAH da. (CSI drives me crazy with that, don’t you people live in Las Vegas?) Just like the ski resort above us is pronounced Alta, not Allta, but Alta, as in Al Gore.
Hooooooowee. We lived all over the place: my dad’s family’s from Western PA, so we grew up “warshing” clothes and driving the SKOO-kull ‘spressway to get to Grandmother’s house.
Then we moved NC, where it took a bit to get used to “Durham” having one syllable (“DERM”) but Chapel Hill having four (“CHAP’ll HIH-yull”).
But my all-time fave: my wife’s family lives in Roanoke, VA, near Botetourt county. I gave my mother-in-law the giggles the first time I pronounced it the only way I knew how, the French way: Boat-eh-tore. No, no, she explained. It’s BOT-a-tot (to rhyme with “got a pot”).
LANK-as-ter is in PA, LAN-cas-ter is in England. Clearly.
I’m pretty sure that the first is right for Lancaster in England too.
And I can’t believe we got down to here without anybody mentioning Poughkeepsie. po-kip-see? The hell?
My least favorite terrible Californian renderings of Spanish names are San Rafael (san ruh-fel — where did the other syllable go?!) and Los Gatos (los ga-dos, with the a like hat). My own parents laughed at me when I talked about taking them to Los Gatos sometime. I’m from NM and I do know how to pronounce it, but they don’t call it that here, and saying it “right” only confuses people.
@Laura – I always give points for effort! I wish I’d gotten points for effort in 2nd grade when I assumed that Romeo Montague was pronounced, well, like I’d always heard it my whole life :( My first vivid memory of being laughed at just for being Southern.
@ pixel: I had my wallet stolen once in Schenectady. After calling all my banks & cards & whatnots and spelling the name over and over and over again… looks totally natural to me! :)
@Diane: I grew up in southern VA, and I agree with you– I’ve only heard it pronounced it PO-white by locals, but it’s often mangled by tourists. Speaking of the Powhite, I once pronounced the exit for Jahnke Rd. as “Jahn-key” and got told by my aunt that it’s really “Jank.” So trashy, I love it.
@Liz: When I went to confirm the pronounciation with my coworker, she said it never occurred to her to pronounce Romeo’s last name any different from the county, so don’t worry, you are not alone in that one.
@ everybody talkin’ about SoCal names:
The locals do all right here in San Diego, but I have to admit we make it hard on the newcomers with a lot of our names. El Cajon (correctly “El Ca-HONE”) La Jolla (La HOY-ya) and Jamacha (HAM-ah-sha) aren’t easy, but I can’t help giggling when someone is talking about heading to “El Kajun, and then Lah Joe-la. How do I get to Jah-muh-sha?” It’s cute!
(Not that I can talk, after seeing a sign for an exotic flavor of ice cream, and mentioning to my friends that I wanted to try the “Ox-a-can” kind. How was I to know Oaxacan is pronounced wah-HA-cun…)
@Jenna
Sorry, I can’t enlighten you on “Cin-suh-nat-uh.” Laziness, maybe? All I can say on that topic is 1) we all know which letter is doubled in the spelling of the name, and 2) if you’re *from* there you get to call it “The Natty” or if you’re feeling saucy, “THe Nasty Natty.” Not being from there myself, I just call it Cincinnati.
@EAS
w00t! Hi there!
Oh, man! I forgot about Wooster and Berlin!
I also forgot about Ravenna (local = “REE-vanna”).
Gnaddenhutten… I know the last part is “nadden-hooten” but I can never remember if you’re supposed to say the “g” or not :\
Ever heard Montrose pronounced as “Mont Rose,” like 2 separate words? My grandfather & my mother do that, and occasionally I catch myself saying it that way. Maybe it’s just b/c my grandfather is originally from Ap-uh-LATCH-ian western MUR-lind?? ;)
@Sarah
You gawn dawn ta Picksberg? LOL.
Warms my heart, really. I just love that city!
and finally…
@Jaina
You made me remember that we have a Milan (MY-lin), too. It’s where Thomas Edison was born :)
We Okies also have a city named Prague pronounced PRAYg. However there seems to be no consensus in Oklahoma about how to pronounce Techumseh. Some say Tecum-sa some say Tecum-see.
Nevada, MO = Nuh-VAY-duh. In St. Louis, we have our own particular brand of bad French. Gravois = GRAV-oy (or sometimes worse, GRAV-oise), Chouteau = SHOW-toe (instead of SHOE-toe), Car-ON-duh-LET for Carondelet, and my very least favorite, Pere Marquette = Pierre Marquette. Now that’s just lazy.
@Angie
The one that frightens me is Wollongong frightens. I think it’s WOLlongong, but it always looks like it could be WolLONgong too. Cairns, as far as I know, is pronounced more or less like Caaaihnz, but I’ve never been up there so don’t quote me on it.
There’s also a small town called Lisarow, which is something like “LIZzarow” in actual pronunciation. Then there’s Cowan, which could be be pronounced in a number of ways, but should be coWAAAN with the nasal a Angie was talking about. The best of all of them is Umina (youMYnah) though, which is lovingly (and jokingly) called UHmunah by mocking locals by now. Not a bad beach either ;)
I see Rhode Island has already popped up here, haha. Try this one on for size: Usquepaugh. Also: Quonotonchaug.
There’s a village in West Warwick called Arctic. It is pronounced “Ahhtic.” If you pronounce it “Arctic,” we will just look at you funny.
I can’t believe I’m the only one to have ever been ridiculed by Michigan natives for mispronouncing “Mackinac.” WHY is it pronounced “mac-in-AW”??!!! There is NO W in that word!
To WHOM do I speak about this?
There’s a town in northeastern Nebraska spelled “Norfolk”, pronounced “NOR-fork”, and one in western NE spelled “Kearney”, pronounced “CAR-nee”.
So this isn’t a pronounciation thing so much, but here in San Francisco, we call our city “San Francisco.” Not Frisco, which most people know, but also not San Fran or SF, which most people don’t know.
The first time I traveled to Philadelphia I was shocked to hear Philadelphians calling their own city Philly, as I thought this uppity San Francisco thing was universal.
(P.S. We also call San Francisco “The City”, even when we are in New York, which I know is ridiculous.)
Caitlin, I’m from Alabama and live in New Jersey.
I’ll say this for Alabama, we can certainly take Native American or French place names and mangle the hell out of them. Mo-BEEL, accent on the second syllable is sort of close, I guess. And for those who AREN’T from Alabama and can’t decipher…
Conecuh–Cuh-NECK-uh.
Cahaba-Cuh-HAH-buh
Sylacauga-Sih-luh-CAH-guh
Oneonta (I once saw Willard Scott blow a gasket trying to get this one out when there was a 100th birthday from there.)–AH-nee-ah-nuh.
Eufaula–You-faw-luh.
Personally, I am originally from Etowah County. EH-tuh-wah. Which in the wide world tends to become ee-TO-wuh. The one that REALLY dealt people fits was Wedowee, which got a lot of national press when they had a segregated prom or some such nonsense. It’s Weh-DOW-wee. Dow like the chemical company. All the national news anchors said WEE-duh-wee. And then there’s Arab. A-rab. And ya gotta make that A real long. The one that always killed me, though was people who were completely floored by Tuscaloosa.
>>My mom still likes WOO-sis-ta-CHEST-ah-sha-SHEEEER sauce just for a little spice. So do I.
@Jennifer … I had no idea they were the same place. Until this VERY MOMENT I thought there were two places in Michigan — Mack-in-ack and Mack-in-aww. I, too, would like to lodge a complaint about that one.
More Rhode Island nonsense:
-Warwick: “Warrick,” or “Wark” (like the word war with a k). The second w just disappears.
-Pawtucket: “P’tucket.” Peter Griffin says it wrong.
-New Shoreham: “New Shore-um,” or, more commonly, “Block Island”
-Pascoag: “Pas-koh”
-Cowesett: “Co-WEE-sit”
@Colleen: That’s a pretty good list of the Boston-area stuff. It’s definitely LEECH-meer, not LETCH-meer. Also, along with a lack of -hams (here are some more: Dedham (DED-um), Needham (NEED-um), Hingham (HING-um), and Framingham (FRAME-ing-im), although this site disagrees with you about Waltham, as do I), we have a lack of -mouths: it’s Weymouth (WAY-muth), Yarmouth (YAR-muth), Falmouth (f-AL-mith – not fall-mouth), and Plymouth (PLI-muth – although I guess most people know that one from history class).
Other fun Mass. names: Reading (RED-ing), Haverhill (HAY-ver-ull), Groton (GROT-un, rhymes approximately with cotton), Dunstable and Barnstable (DUNST-uh-bull and BARN-stuh-bull, respectively), Dracut (DRAY-cut), Methuen (muh-THOO-un), Natick (NAYD-ik), Billerica (bill-RICK-uh), and Medford (apparently MEH-fuh, if you grew up there). Marlborough (MALL-broe) and Lowell (LO’EL) get really condensed. Oh, and the Barre in Massachusetts is apparently BEAR-ee, not BAR.
Grew up in Bexar (Bare) County in Texas, so the idea of spelling and pronunciation not being connected letter-for-letter is sort of ingrained. Other nonintuitively pronounced Texas names: Nacogdoches (knack’-a-DOCHE-us), Coppell (cup-ELL, not COP-ul), and Boerne (BURN-ee – although Bourne in Massachusetts is BORN).
The weirdest pronunciation thing I’ve found is the way my Texas parents – one raised outside of Dallas and one raised in Corpus Christi (generally referred to as just Corpus, in my experience) – pronounce my current state of residence: mass-a-TOO-sits, instead of mass-a-CHOO-sits. They seem to be incapable of pronouncing the CH as a CH. Didn’t know that about them for the first 30 years of my life :)
Finally: Oklahoma’s Ouachita Mountains gave our geology students fits on field trips – they’re pronounced WASH-it-aw or WASH-it-ah (depending on accent).
In Utah, we seem to have a lot of city names that have pronunciations that don’t bear any resemblance to the spelling. Tooele is pronounced “Too-will-uh” or Mantua is “Matt-ew-ay”. There’s also counties: Sevier is “Severe” and Duchesne is “Do-shane.”
There’s also a Beaver city and county here, which is awesome only because they have signs that say “Thanks for Visiting Beaver.” Hee.
@Jaina: It’s actually “MILE-in”. We also have Lake Orion, pronounced, of course, “layk OR-ee-un”. Don’t even get me started on Metro Detroit street names Schoenherr (“SHANE-ur”), Gratiot (“GRAH-shit”–never fails to make out-of-towners blush), and, to a lesser extent, Dequindre (“duh-QUINN-derr”). We also have Boblo Island, a totally bastardized spelling and pronunciation of Bois Blanc Island.
@Mollie (from way back)
I do make the effort to use the right regional pronunciation, after hearing Ne-VAH-da instead of Ne-VA-da, and Ore-gone instead of Ore-gun (I’m from CA). Loo-zee-anna, Wi-scon-sin, etc. I think the locals take precedence on pronouncing their own names!
@Christina — let’s through in my favorite, San Ruh-FEL for San Rafael. (Re: Yulupa, do you live in SR?)