Iowa pronunciation -- Loess?

[LPerkins33]

Originally Posted by DMRyan

I've always heard it pronounced as "luss" hills but maybe that's a little southern Iowa twang on "lois" or "lo-ess".

No "luss" is the correct pronunciation. This coming from a geologist and an Iowan...and currently a resident of Idaho

[Tek_Freek]

Dictionary: lo·ess (lō'əs, lĕs, lŭs)
n. A buff to gray windblown deposit of fine-grained, calcareous silt or clay.


Take your pick. I've always said low-ess; as in the first pronunciation above.

[Babie_T_Nice]

Thanks for the comments and advice everyone!

[kenneth.kahl]

Please don't tie Steve King to this beautiful landform.

Back in high school (in the Loess Hills) we were told to pronounce it "Luss," as in "Lust in the Luss." Yes, it's an odd way to remember, but it worked.

[Persimmony]

Luss

[bcrichdesmoines]

I am 100 percent certain it is "Luss."

[mofford]

I am 100% sure that some egg head named it Loess and no one wants to give it a proper name.

"A buff to gray windblown deposit of fine-grained, calcareous silt or clay"

Mofford Mounds, near the town of Buck Grove, where Kenneth.Kahl prefers to live instead of the great town of Denison....where the meat plants and latinos make the town such a fine place to be. Hey Ken, come down out of the office and down to the production floor and pack some bologna, then take a trip out into the hills with your picnic basket and try to think of a good name for the Loess Hills.

[kenneth.kahl]

Originally Posted by mofford

Hey Ken, come down out of the office and down to the production floor and pack some bologna, then take a trip out into the hills with your picnic basket and try to think of a good name for the Loess Hills.

Thanks for your suggestion to return to the packing plants. They're where I got my start, actually, and I've never had as much fun at a job.

My dad used to call our neighborhood the Buck Grove Alps, and anyone who helps us farm now attests to that by preferring to work the fields in the dark so we can't see the entire steepness around us. I'm not sure about any other alternative name, or a need for one, to the Loess Hills.

It seems I've already accomplished your suggestion, so feel free to think of more things for me to do with my life!

[mofford]

OK Ken, Im sure you had loads of fun at the meat plant, don't spend it all in one place. I agree with Tec-Freek in that I would tend to pronounce it low-ss, for Loess. Whatever your preference, I don't think it is a very flattering name for those fine hills. I guess if you look at them long enough, you just say to yourself, Yes.........A buff to gray windblown deposit of fine-grained, calcareous silt or clay, Yes, I totally get it now, LOESS ! What a fine name for those hills, why would it ever be called anything else. And lets pronounce it Luss to make it more unattractive sounding for tourism.

If I polished up a turd and set it on my coffee table, I would name it Luss.

[Cyborg13]

We were taught in school "luss" and "low ss" as both being acceptible. I always hated luss because I am pretty sure that neither the letter o or e (or the two together) is pronounced like a short u. So I use "low ss." Mofford gets rep points for naming his polished turds.