Mispronounced City and State names (license plates, cities, accent)

[gnab gib]

Originally Posted by Steve-o

Ugh. No way, no how. As much as I think the skit is funny, that is in NO WAY how we talk here. Ive met 10s of 1000s of people, not a single one talks like that. And noone here calls Chicago "Chi-town" either, thats plain retarded.

I've spent lots of time in Chicago, and I've had friends and relatives who lived there ... and I also have never heard anybody talk like they did in that SNL sketch.

Chi-town is definitely lame ... and so is Chicagoland, for the greater metro area.

[krudmonk]

Originally Posted by Steve-o

Weird, I thought it was French and pronounced "bwah".


j/k of course

Actually, it would be "bwahz" because of the E at the end.

[CMDallas]

Los Angeles, it was a Spanish settlement so it should have maintained it name so now, the bad way of pronouncing it is totally acceptable.
pronounced: Loh-ss An-Heh-leh-ss...not Lah-ss An-gel-les,
and Detriot as well except for the french:
Deh-twa-t (i think)
and New Orleans
Noo-Oh-li-oh
but whatever, I still use the mis-used way because otherwise no one understands me.

[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.

[katmoney]

Originally Posted by skatealoneskatetogether

Oregon its pronounced "ore-gin" but people from ****cago always say ore-i-gawn.

YES! OR-A-GAN.

Man people give me s**t because of the way I say it (I am from Chicago) but I am correct, darnit

[Billiam]

Originally Posted by YoAdrian

In Maryland, there's the town of Havre de Grace. In French, "Hahv duh Grahss." Out here, "Havver de Grayce." Yuck.

Where im from, here in Md, we say "Harv duh grace"

[j33]

Originally Posted by katmoney

Man people give me s**t because of the way I say it (I am from Chicago) but I am correct, darnit

Yeah, I was given a hard time too for saying it that way too when visiting the Pacific Northwest. I wonder what it is about this part of the country and our desire to pronounce it the way we do.

[wurd4wurd]

Here's another one that hurts

Amherst, New Hampshire - I lived there for 4 years and could not bring myself to pronounce Amherst the way the natives said it...
am-merst not am-herst

[wurd4wurd]

Originally Posted by cosmonewman

No, I'm sorry but Boy-see hurts my ears. Just like the old-timers in Mass who pronounce Holyoke as "Hole-yoke" instead of "Holy-oak" or the Nashville pronunciation of "Lafayette." Sometimes the native pronunciation is just wrong.

I completely understand and agree! I cannot say Boy-see and always say Boy-zee, but by doing so I am immediately pegged as "someone from a strange land."

Originally Posted by Steve-o

Weird, I thought it was French and pronounced "bwah". j/k of course

hehehe Good one, Steve!

[Beetlez]

Originally Posted by lammius

Secaucus, NJ is SEE-caw-cus, not Seh-CAW-kiss

Heh, go figure, I live in right across the bay in Brooklyn and always thought it was Seh-CAW-kiss. I remember hearing one of the characters on the Sopranos saying it SEE-caw-cus and laughing at his pronunciation. Jokes on me, I guess.