Mispronounced City and State names (home, military, subway)

[Billiam]

Originally Posted by Steve-o

Hello, I'm good humor! Have we met?

obviuosly not!

[wurd4wurd]

Moscow, Idaho is pronounced ma-sko (by native Idahoans) and not mos-cow

[katie45]

Here's some good ones from SoCal:

Ojai is: O-HI

Port Hueneme is: Port Y-NEE-ME

It's interesting how city names are pronounced; and I never felt offended if someone got it wrong. Guess I view it differently than those who get irritated if someone isn't born knowing how to pronounce something correctly.

[kettlepot]

Tuolumne County, CA - I've never actually heard anyone mispronounce this, but it's just begging to be mangled.

Two-ALL-a-me.

Years ago there was a rail accident outside of Red Bluff, California. Peter Jennings of neek-a-RA-gwa (Nicaragua) fame pronounced the county of Tehama in his perfect Spanish accent as TEh ha ma. It's pronounced as a very Anglo TeHAYma.

Of course sometimes it goes the other way. In the San Joaquin Valley along the railroad, Coaling Station A or Coaling A's pronunciation became through a process of Hispanization co-a-LEAN-ga (Coalinga).

And kudos to all you PNWers for spreading the word about the pronunciation of Oregon. It's the east coast newscasters who seem to butcher it the most, and thus spreading their malaprops throughout the nation.

[j33]

Originally Posted by katmoney

Seems like chicagoans always think the way they say things are right and everyone else is wrong!

It is because we are right of course.

(for the humor impaired, that was a joke)

[Drouzin]

Originally Posted by Minnehahapolitan

Historical innaccuracies aside, you should usually try to pronounce place names as someone would who lives there. Los Angeles (with a long a) has been American much longer than it was Spanish. We get to name it.
New Orleans is Nu Orlens or Nu Or-a-lens.
The French named it Or-Leans. It is wrong.

Just PLEASE what ever ya'll do, don't say, "Naw'lins!" The only person who should be allowed to use that pronunciation is Frank Davis.

Here's one we see on national tv all the time: Metairie should be Met-ah-ree, but when you order that spatula or juicer the anouncer asks you to mail the check to Met-air-ree.

This one made the Times-Picayune: The Parish of St. Bernard paid some out of towners to paint the water tower in Meraux (prounounced Meer-oh). Apparently the company wasn't told how to spell the town name and spelled it MEROE. We laughed about it for a few days until they returned to change the spelling back to Meraux.

The town Meraux, LA was also used in one of those Jean-Claude Van Damm(sp) movies. The writers decided to explain his accent by making his character Cajun. Meraux is 20 minutes from the French Quarter and is definately not a sleepy little Cajun town, not to mention there are no mountains in Meraux. Hollywood can be so funny.

[Verseau]

I always get a kick out of tourists who can't correctly pronounce the names of towns in New England, even though they are overwhelmingly ENGLISH names.

A few examples:

Worcester, MA - pronounced "WUSS-tuh" (the vowel in "wuss" is the same vowel in "book" - although some people Bostonians say WISS-tah, I think)
Gloucester, MA - GLAWSS-tuh
Leominster, MA - LEM-in-stuh
Concord (MA and NH) - KAWNK-id
Pawtucket, RI - Puh-TUCK-it
Quincy, MA - KWIN-zee
Woburn, MA - WOO-bin
Peabody, MA - PEE-b'dee
Reading, MA - RED-ing
Dracut, MA - DRAY-kit
Leicester, MA - LESS-tuh
Haverhill, MA - HAYV-rill
Scituate, MA - SITCH-oo-it
Natick, MA - NAYD-ik
Nashua, NH - NASH-oo-uh
Plaistow, NH - PLASS-tau (rhymes with "cow")
Lowell, MA - LOW-ull
Methuen, MA - Meh-THOO-in
Pembroke (MA or NH) - PEM-brook
Stoughton, MA - STOAT-in
Billerica, MA - Bill-RICK-ah
Damariscotta, ME - Dam-riss-SCAW-duh
Bangor, ME - BANG-gore or BANG-gaw
Bar Harbor, ME - appropriately pronounced "Bah HAH-bah"

There's also a little town near where I live in NH called Sanbornton, which is correctly pronounced "SAN-buh-tin"

Of course, some times it's a little trickier. For example the suffix -ham, which takes on a different pronunciation depending on what town you're talking about (in Massachusetts alone!). For example:

Needham, MA - NEED-um
Framingham, MA - FRAY-ming-ham

In fact, when the ending is 'tham', this suffix can be pronounced in four different ways:

Eastham, MA - EAST-ham
Chatham, MA - CHAD-um
Waltham, MA - WALL-tham
Wrentham, MA - REN-thum

[Sandysaw]

Louisville, Ky - pronounced Loo-ah-vul, all slurred together really fast...they had a great t-shirt about all the possible mispronunciations of the city a while back - Lewis-ville, Looavhul, Looeyville...

[wurd4wurd]

Weiser, Idaho is pronounced WEE-zur not WY-zur

[Katiana]

Louisville, Colorado: LEWIS ville, not Louie ville

Pueblo, Colorado: Some natives pronounce it Pee EB low

Norfolk, Nebraska: Pronounced NOR fork by Nebraskans. I had to show my DH on a map, that the spelling was Nor FOLK, not nor FORK.

Buena Vista, Colorado: Natives say Byuna Vista or Byunie.