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
So much love for my native Philadelphian pronunciations…it’s making me misty. I have a personal preference for Bala Cynwyd, myself…BAL-uh KIN-wood; what’s so hard about that?
But the best is Olney. If you’re not from Philly, you say “OHL-nee,” and everyone laughs at you. If you’re from Philly, you say “AHL-nee,” which is better. But if you’re actually from Olney (or know someone who is), you know to say “AHL-uh-nee.”
This is fun.
Being from the midwest (MN represent!), seeing you talk about Wilkes-Barre and hashing out the difference between “berry” and “barry” I can only scratch my head. To me, “marry”, and “merry” are the same sound. I keep trying to wrap my mouth around the difference and the only one I can come up with (apologies to East Coasters) is that very nasal “a” in “Barry” that makes me think of Fran Drescher. *shudder*
As far as mangled names, Faribault, MN is pronounced “FAIR-bow”, Mille Lacs is one word: “mill-AX”, and Vadnais Heights became “VAD-nis Heights.” Not too bad, but still a little jankety.
Another Utah place name: Wasatch. WAH-satch. Thank you very much.
@rb, a Connecticut girl who had moved to a DC suburb, where I lived, once informed me that we most certainly could not go into “the city” for dinner, since New York is always the only “The City,” no matter where you are or what city might be closest. I may have murmured something along the lines of how sweet it was that even folks from The One And Only City could be so provincial.
When I moved to Oregon, I literally spent more than a year not realizing that Coeur d’Alene and “Curdlelane” were the same city.
@Jos: Hee! I did a summer program at a college near Roanoke that had a Botetourt Hall – it was domed, and we couldn’t pronounce it, so after about a day we were all calling it Boobytit.
@Susan: Kearney/CAR-nee is Irish, so I think pronouncing it KEER-ney would be incorrect.
OMG Newark, DE gets a mention! I live there! (Here?) After 26 years, I only recently realized why the bumper stickers that say “New-ark: A Wonderful Place to Live” have a dot between “New” and “Ark”. It’s so people won’t call it “Nerk”.
Another southern Illinoisan weighing in on how to pronounce Cairo, Ill. Some do indeed say CAY-roe, others do indeed say CARE-oh. But everyone agrees that the best barbeque sauce comes from Cairo!
I grew up in So. Ill. near Beaucoup Creek. That’s pronounced BUCK-up, y’all.
“Loo-vul.” Hee. My parents were both pilots, and when I was a kid we were flying from God-knows-here to God-knows-there, and we got lost. In a plane. I know. We landed, and my mom and I stopped a local and asked him where we were. “Loo-vul.” Huh. No Loovul on map. Repeat until local writes it down. I think my mom may have wet her pants laughing.
Jennifer: “Mackinac” = French fur traders trying to phonetically spell place names in the Ojibwe language.
To further complicate things, “Mackinac” is not spelled consistently. Mackinac Island, the Mackinac Bridge, and the Straits of Mackinac are all spelled the same way, but the city at the uppermost point of the lower peninsula is Mackinaw City with a W.
Of course, the historic fort on in Mackinaw City, Fort Michilimackinac, is pronounced “Mish-ih-la-mack-in-ack.” Yeah, I don’t know.
In addition to Milan (mile-in), we also have Charlotte (shar-lot), Grand Blanc (gram-blank), and Saline (suh-leen).
And it’s Duh-troit, never Dee-troit.
Thanks for the Newark, DE shout-out Sars! I was very proud of the ESPN sportscasters for getting the “New Ark” thing right when they showed a UD football game a couple months back.
@Jenna: do I know you? All we Delawareans know each other, after all. let’s just assume we do know each other and go from there.
I’ve got a good one, the producer of my theatre company is from a tiny town in the Missouri Ozarks called Ponce de Leon. Pronounced PAHN-cee duh LEE-on. He has that town in several plays that he has written, and in some of them you have to hit actors over the head to make them stop saying Pawnce de Le- OHN.
Lisa: there’s also a “Bellefontaine” in Mississippi that’s pronounced “Bell-fountain”.
Daisie: omg, Los Feliz. I pronounce it “FEEL-is” so people don’t look at me like I’m on crack, but it makes me a little twitchy.
I have a Canadian uncle who is always mispronouncing So. Cal. names – he was talking about finding a job in either Murrieta (MYOOR-ee-et-a) which became “mur-RYE-et-a” or Temecula (te-MEK-you-la) which became “tem-mee-COOL-a”. It took us a while to understand what he was talking about.
My favorite, however, comes from Utah – Toquerville, which I thought was pronounced “TOOOK-er-ville” (like the hat) until I heard it pronounced on the radio as “TOKER-ville”. Had a lot of fun with that name.
Fun!
Chiming in from SC:
Clemson and Sumter both have p’s in the middle.
A country club on the coast, Debordieu, is pronounced “Debbie-doo.”
The small town “McBee” is pronounce “MAC-bee.” If you say “mick bee,” we will not know what you are talking about.
@Leonie – New South Wales native here – I can tell you that Woolloomooloo is pronounced Woolamuh-LOO, with the first bit run together (as you’ve no doubt noticed we do, haha), and for Wollongong you were mostly right the first time – WOOL-un-gong.
And ‘Caaaihnz’ is totally right. My accent is really awful when spelled phonetically!
@Adia – There’s nothing like a flat midwestern vowel, is there?
As was mentioned before there is a BUR-lin here in Wisconsin and also a New BUR-lin, both spelled Berlin. This confuses my German relatives to no end. And also, it’s Wis-con-sin NOT Wis-con-son. That second I is there for a reason.
A friend of mine from Down the Shore tells me that the Jersey town of Avon is pronounced A-von with a short A, as in BAD. The locals use this to identify the summer people.
My brother lived in SC near a town, Beaufort, pronounced BYOO-fort. No worse than the way the Brits pronounce Beauchamp as BEE-cham. The Brits, of course, are responsible for the WOOST-ering of Worcester, which frustrated Solaana, above. (But doesn’t having Worcestershire Sauce around help ease that adjustment?) I’m not convinced the Brits go with Lan-CAS-ter, personally; my Brit-o-meter is over in the LANK-us-ter range.
What I find fascinating, though, about almost all the pronunciations listed here, is the inherent ambivalence in evoking the Old World by naming our cities for theirs, but then distancing ourselves almost purposefully from them by aggressively mangling the way they’re pronounced.
When Philip Roth (originally from Noork) gave a talk at the University of Delaware (in New-Ark), he claimed his city was pronounced differently because they couldn’t afford the vowels.
Where’s the love, Kelly C.? Jenna’s not the only one from DE. :)
@Sally: You stole my A-Rab thunder! But you forgot Opelika – oh-puh-LIKE-uh.
From the great state of GA:
Taliafero – Tolliver
Buchanan – BUCK-cannon
Houston County – HOW-stun
Vienna – VIE-inna
Albany – ALL-BEN-ny (you cannot say it unless you are a native, and yes, the first 2 syllables are stressed almost identically. Most people when they try say al-BAN-ny, which makes my teeth hurt)
Cairo – Kay-row
Pooler – POO-ler, not POOL-er. There is a difference.
Truetlen County – Trout-lin
Louisville – Lewis-ville (KY messed it up for everyone)
And the Atlanta transplants hate Ponce de Leon Avenue, which is pronounced ponts-duh-LEE-on. Most people get around it by calling it Ponce.
I tell my husband it is our way of weeding out the yankees.
Clemson and Sumter both have p’s in the middle.Clemson and Sumter both have p’s in the middle.
Damn straight. Sportscasters, please take note.
Also, the Lancaster in SC is pronounced approximately like Lank-iss-ter, though you should swallow the second syllable as much as possible.
Wisconsin has a bunch of fun names – Oconomowoc (o-CON-uh-muh-wok) and Kinnickinnic (KK). Minnesota has New Prague (Prayg) and Gaylord (Gale-erd). And then the Eau Claire in Michigan is Ah Claire, but the Eau Claire in Wisconsin is Oh Claire.
Living in a city with a name of a Polish Capitol: Warsaw, you would think our county would have the Polish pronunciation as well. So how the heck did Kosciusko get turned into Caw-zee-Osco?
And for the reader that mentioned Peru (also near here,) the old natives insist it’s Pee-rue, and the close-by town Chili is Chai-lye. Swayzee, however, is just like Patrick’s last name.
@Sally: I, too, am from Alabama–and I’m the one who’s in New Orleans now (and posted waay above about silly mispronunciations I’ve encountered here). I’m used to the Alabamian Indian names–the aforementioned Tuscaloosa included (and I’ve even eaten at a great Mexican place in Oneonta!). But when I moved down here, I admit it took me a while to fully get my head around “Tchoupitoulas”: “chop-ih-TOO-liss”.
I can attest that we do have cricks in Kansas, but only in the western part. I grew up next to Big Crick in Hays (Haze), America. People rarely say Kansas City, it’s always KC like KAY-SEE. Olathe is O-lay-thuh.
From my time in Southern Indiana, my understanding is that Louisville is pronounced louvull with no stress and almost like you’re swalloiwng it. And Indianapolis is just Indy.
@Jthan: Up here it’s “Kos-key-oo-sko.”
I wouldn’t mind a definitive ruling on “Goethals,” though. I *think* it’s “Goth-ulls,” but I’m not sure, so my whole family just pronounces it “Gertles” as a play on “Goethe.”
Re: New Orleans
As a person born and raised in N.O., it’s Noo Or-linz. (or Noo Oar-linz).
You may hear “n’awlins” from someone outside the city proper, like Chalmette, or in lower parishes where Cajuns live, or even from someone in the 7th Ward (which is kind of close to Chalmette), but not from most people in the city.
Never Noo Or-leenz, though!
Wow! Newark DE in the house! For such a small state there are plenty of us here. (And you never realize how often Delaware is the punchline of a joke in the movies or on TV till you live here. Try Zelig, for one.) Yes, we’re New Ark.
Having lived in Indiana for a number of years, I can testify as to Vin-SENZ, though I wouldn’t split hairs over Vin-SINZ.
(And speaking of splitting hairs, one way I know I’m still a Midwesterner at heart, even after living in Delaware for 26 years, is that I’m absolutely befuddled by discussions about whether something is pronounced “berry” or “barry.” They’re the same sound!!…. er, aren’t they? Never mind, I trust the experts.)
And just to the south of Indiana is Louisville. Sars asked “…’Loo-vul’?”
I would say that that’s close, to the point of being acceptable. But it’s more “Loo-uh-vuhl,” and the real native experts say all 3 vowels the same, as in “Luh-uh-vuhl.” Whenever I hear someone in a movie who’s supposedly from there say “LOO-ee-vihl,” I moan inwardly at the lack of basic research.
Just south of Newark DE, we have the little Maryland town of Havre de Grace (which is of course “HAVverduhgrayce”).
So much Philly love!
(@rb: yes, locals call it Philly, but mostly with a modifier, e.g., North Philly, West Philly, etc. Otherwise “full-a-DELF-yuh” is probably a more common answer to “where are you from?”)
This stuff gets crazy local… As a South Philly (Sowfilly) transplant, I’ve been exposed as an outsider by my mispronunciation of all these neighborhood streets:
Passyunk (PASS-yunk, or PASH-yunk)
Iseminger (EYES-min-ger)
Wilder (WILL-dur, not “more wild”)
Fernon (Fur-non)
Greenwich (Green-witch, not Grennich)
My pronunciation of wooder-ice gets more native by the year, though…
I had to laugh at Christina’s mention of St. Helena, CA being pronounced St. huh-LEE-nuh and not St. HEL-uh-nuh. As someone from the wine country, myself, that’s how we would identify tourists. Another wine country town is Yountville, pronounced YAWNT-ville, not YOWNT-ville. I’ve heard Paso Robles pronounced about equally as either Pass-uh Robe-ilz or Pass-uh Ro-bose (where did the letters go??) Los Banos is either Loss BAN-ose or Loss BON-ose, the debate continues (definitely not lose bon-yose, the correct Spanish pronunciation)
San Francisco is ALWAYS referred to as “The City”, even as far south as LA.
I grew up near Lexington, and everyone around there pronounces it Loo-a-vull, though that “a’ can get lost. The only one people really look askance at is “Lou-wee-ville.” That will totally out you as a Yankee. We also have a tiny little town named Athens, pronounced “Ay-thens.” I grew up in Paris (standard pronunciation).
My favorite New England town is Billerica, which would seem to be said Bil-ler-ri-ca, but is actually pronounced Bill-ricka.
Sally & Caitlin — Ever heard Sylacauga pronounced silla-CAR-ga? I hear natives say that…
Re: Dauphin Island — I pronounced it DOE-fan when I first saw the name, and that’s too fancy, apparently. But I feel better if the French translation is dolphin.
Also…what’s so hard about saying the name of my town, Tuscaloosa?
Some Utah fun:
Hurricane: “HER’kun.” Why do we have a town by that name?! That weather event would never even happen here.
Tremonton: “TREE-montin’.”
Duchesne: “Douche-AYNE.”
Manti: “MAN-tie.”
Moroni: “More-OWN-eye.”
Nephi: “KNEE-fie.”
Lehi: “LEE-high.”
Hooper: Advanced. The oo sounds like the one in “book.” Even if you get it right, the residents will correct you because they’re so in the habit. (And they’re mean.)
All the traffic reporters refer to the Goethals Bridge as the GOTH-ulls, if you consider that definitive.
The one that no two traffic reporters appear able to agree on, though, is the Van Wyck expressway. Some go with the long Y, some with the short. I used to go with short, but I recently switched to the long in honor of the name’s Dutch roots.
I’ve been living in Tempe, AZ for about a year and a half…and I’m not 100% sure how it’s pronounced. I hear it stressed on different syllables from different people: some say TEMPe and others say tempE. Any native Arizonans who can weigh in on this?
@Jen: Actually, Framingham is the exception to the “no -hams” rule, and is pronounced exactly as it looks, according to both me and my native Framinghamian boyfriend.
I never even considered that everyone might not know that “-mouth” sounds like “-muth.” Do people really say it differently in other parts of the country? I grew up in Plymouth, so that pronunciation is as natural as breathing to me. Also, if anyone was wondering: The rock is not that interesting.
@Diane: “I lived in OH for a few years back in the late 80s/early 90s, and I’m STILL not over the town of Versailles. “Vur-sails.
It still makes me shudder.”
You and me both.
@Anne-Cara: “LAN-cas-ter is in England. Clearly.”
There’s also a “Lan-cas-ter” in OH. Finally one that doesn’t make me tear my hair out!
@Lisa: Ohio also has a Bellefontaine, but here it’s “Bell-fountain”. Oh well, at least they got the first syllable right.
@Liz P: “Both it and Lima were named in honor of the more famous cities, apparently by people who had only seen them written down.”
Since I started the “Lye-mah” complaining in the first thread, I feel the need to point out that the judge who named the city DID mean for it to be “Lee-mah”, but all the residents ignored him. That poor man.
@JJ: “Cuyahoga (should be pronounced “ky-uh-HOE-guh” but for some reason we all say “cuh-HAWG-uh,” although admittedly “cuyahoga” is not really a universally known word)”
It’s always been “Ky-a-hoe-gah” when I’ve heard it. Great, now we can’t even agree on our stupid pronunciations amongst ourselves.
Honourable mentions to:
Xenia (Zeen-YUH. Am the only one who sees an I and an A in there?)
Antrim (AN-ter-im or An-TER-um. Where is that middle syllable coming from?)
Chauncey (“Chance-e”. I have no idea.)
Milan (MY-lin)
And want to mention Antioch (Usually sounds like “Annie-awk”) but that could just be widespread laziness. Of course my mother spent my childhood correcting my pronunciation and diction so often that half the time people from the southern part of the state ask if I’m British, so I’m a little oversensitive.
This reminds me of a story a farm implement salesman once told me about how whenever he travels to a new town, he asks how to pronounce it first, so he won’t screw it up when he’s doing in sales pitch. Versailles, Cairo … all those places that people get wrong. One day he was in Wilammette and he said to the woman at the restaurant: Tell me, very slowly, how you pronounce this place where we’re at. She stared at him, blinked and finally said … Burrrgerrr King.
@KC – “San Francisco is ALWAYS referred to as “The City”, even as far south as LA.”
Though apparently not as far south as San Diego…I’d never heard it called that ’til this particular message thread. I’ll be listening for it now though…
Born and raised in Tucson, Arizona (it’s pronounced TOO-saun, not TUCK-son)
we say No-GAL-es but “No-go” is picking up in popularity – only cuz it’s fun to say, not because you shouldn’t go there. Nogales is great fun!
Vincennes is pronounced vin-sens. I was in a McD’s in IN once, and heard a couple of locals talking about going to Lay-fay-ett (Lafayette). I still wonder who Fayette is.
And in Kentucky, Versailles is not vear-si, it’s ver-sales. Gotta love the midwest.
@Casey, my brother lives in Tucson, and I love to use the mispronunciation of Tuck-son.
@Sars, it is Creeve (like sleeve) Coor (like Coors Beer).
And people from Missouri (like me) do NOT say Miz-ur-RAH. The only people who use that are politicians on the campaign trail… in any area that is not Kansas City or St. Louis. One politician actually shot two ads, one with the -RAH pronounciation for “small town” Missouri, and one with the -REE ending for KC and STL.
Born and raised in Kansas, there’s no difference in the pronunciation of merry / marry or bury / berry / barry to me. And, when I say dolphin without really thinking about it, it unfortunately comes out dauphin, so that one seems natural to me.
The river is definitely ar-KAN-zus, but the state is still AR-kan-saw
I did, however, finally cure myself of saying “ruht” beer (I don’t even know how to phoeticize that flat midwestern vowel sound) instead of roooot beer.
Some from Idaho:
The city of Moscow is pronounced mos-ko (as in go)
The town of Tekoa is pronounced tee-ko (also as in go)
And someone mentioned Washington – A fun game to play when I lived on in NJ was to write down “Puyallup” to see what people came up with. (It’s pyew-al-up.)
Another NJ thing – why isn’t it SEE caw cus (sih CAW cus)? Or HOE boken (ho BOE ken)? I’d never been told I had an accent before but those two were fun to my Jersey native roommate to hear.
Dude, in all the years I’ve read your site, I never thought you’d mention my hometown, Vincennes. This is awesome! And you are awesome! You rock! And you have Vincennes natives in your family? Cool!
I was born and raised in VIN-senz. I now live in Terre Haute (TAIR-uh hoat), which is about an hour from Induh-naplis. Peach is right, you can usually tell what part of the state people are from by whether they say Vee-go or Vye-go county and such.
And yes indeed, I was a Vincennes Lincoln High School Alice. Soooo intimidating.
Forgot one. I worked at a theater by a lake in Alexandria, MN. The lake and the theater are named the same: L’Homme Dieu. Frenchy french, right? WRONG. Try “La Homma Doo”. It used to make my skin crawl. Then I became ONE OF THEM.
You can always tell when a new television weatherman is NOT from Oklahoma by listening to them try to pronounce Tahlequah, Sapulpa, Checotah, Muskogee, Okemah, etc.
As a southeast PA native, I’m always irritated when people pronounce “Swarthmore” with an R. It’s just “Swath-more” (for both the university and town).
And the town of Crum Creek is “Crum Crick”, regardless of whether you’re native enough to use the pronounciation for the actual body of water.
Incidentally, Google Maps does list 476 as the Blue Route (or rather, Blue Rte). I was surprised, too.
I just fell outta my chair! Christine knows how to say Oconomowoc!!! OMG!!!
(That’s Cowomonoco, backwards…)
I grew up near there…well, maybe not, but I spent my childhood near there…)
@Caitlin, Sally, and Vanessa: I once heard sex columnist and political neologism-coiner Dan Savage absolutely mangle the pronunciation of the Alabama town Tuskegee (location of the tragic Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis in the Negro Male). The word is pronounced “Tus-key-gee” (with a hard g, as in “get” or “going”), but he said “Tusk-uh-jee” (with a soft g, as in “George”)
@Vanessa: I have actually never heard anyone in Alabama pronounce Dauphin Island as “dolphin,” though it is, of course, not pronounced the proper French way either. I have only ever heard “daw-fin.”
@Robin – Shut Up! I live in near Troy and I can’t even spell Schagticoke but I know how to pronounce it: “Ska-ta-coke” would be how i’d spell it, but your’s seems right too…
what kills me is up here we have a “Mechanicville” – no “s” – but inevitably, people from Mechanicville pronounce it “Mechanicsville”…
we also have “corinth” – which i would say “Ka-rinth” – but if you are from there, you say “core-inth” – i’m not getting the subtlety right…
I love to say “wore-chester” for Worcester, MA instead of “wooster”
And I’ve always said “Wilkes-Bar”