How to properly pronounce towns in New Jersey (Kearny, Ewing: to live, tree)

[njmike]

Originally Posted by UKOK

Hopatcong

"Hop at cong"

Should be, "Ho pac on"

I've heard this pronounced "Hop a tong"

[wileynj]

Originally Posted by njmike

I've heard this pronounced "Hop a tong"

I've actually heard Ho paca chung..damn city folk!

[njmike]

Face it, people from Jersey are the only ones who can speak properly!!!!

[wileynj]

Originally Posted by njmike

Face it, people from Jersey are the only ones who can speak properly!!!!

Ob so lute ly!

[pbergen]

Originally Posted by tahiti

kearny is pretty much an unknown in hudson county, maybe because of where it lies geographically. it and harrison are pretty much forgotten! i think the relocation of the county jail from Jersey City may have put it on the map so to speak a little more within the county itself.

i've always heard of kearny - my parents had friends there, my uncle lived there, and my dad ran the jail there when it opened. and i knew that one side of Ridge Rd was North Arlington (Bergen) and the other side was Kearny (Hudson), LOL. but otherwise, it's kind of "out of sight, out of mind".

harrison is totally "less" known, IMHO.

i think you're right about kearny, harrison, and for that matter, east newark being unknown due to geographical isolation. the west hudson area may as well be separate from the rest of hudson county due to the wide stretch of empty, industrial meadows that blocks it off from jersey city, north bergen, etc.

if you think about it, the west hudson towns actually have a stronger link to the southern bergen meadowlands towns (especially north arlington and lyndhurst) and the eastern essex towns along the passaic river (belleville, nutley, and the north newark and ironbound sections of newark) than the rest of hudson county. people who aren't familiar with town or county boundaries in the area might not even realize that that kearny is at the intersection of three different counties (hudson/bergen/essex), with clifton in passaic county not too far away either.

personally, i've always wondered why a lot of the towns mentioned, including kearny, weren't more popular with yuppie types moving out of nyc. certainly immigrants (esp. from portugal and south america) have discovered towns like kearny, but it seems that the west hudson/south bergen/east essex area is a little bit under the radar for white collar professionals. sure, the schools aren't the best, but all in all these are very respectable towns.

who knows, maybe the new developments near the PATH station will change things in harrison and then result in spillover into kearny and east newark, but for the time being these towns are still relatively anonymous.

[pbergen]

Originally Posted by lammius

I think the MOST forgotten municipality of Hudson County award goes to...

drumroll please...

The Borough of East Newark.

competely agree with this.

in fact, when i was younger, i didn't even know that it was a separate municipality. i always thought it was just a section of harrison.

[tahiti]

Originally Posted by lammius

I think the opposite. I recognize Harrison because there's a busy little PATH station there. I know Kearny is there, but I never hear it mentioned by anyone.

I think the MOST forgotten municipality of Hudson County award goes to...

drumroll please...

The Borough of East Newark.

LOL! East Newark is SO forgotten, I forgot about it! I stand corrected. You are 100% right!

[Kracer]

Keasbey = kaze bee......it is NOT- keys bee

Forked River = Fork-ed River

Iselin = Is lin..... ask for Icelan and you will get blank stares

Newark = new work..... as opposed to Newark DE which seems to be pronounced New ark...you shouldn't be asking how to get to Newark anyway.

not a phonetic challenge, but always qualify what Washington or Franklin your talking about....we got lots and lots of towns, townships, sections with these two names

[pbergen]

Originally Posted by Kracer

not a phonetic challenge, but always qualify what Washington or Franklin your talking about....we got lots and lots of towns, townships, sections with these two names

interestingly, one of nj's many washington townships (the one in mercer county) recently changed its name to robbinsville township in order to avoid future confusion with the other six municipalities in the state (five townships and one borough) named washington. it's probably for the best and IMO long overdue, since the newly-named robbinsville will no longer have to worry about explaining itself to outsiders (e.g. "we're the washington in mercer county, as opposed to the ones in burlington, gloucester, warren, morris, or bergen counties").

the same thing happened with dover township in ocean county - its residents voted to change its name to toms river to better reflect how most people refer to their municipality, and to avoid confusion with the town of dover in morris county.

i wonder if robbinsville's and toms river's actions will set a precedent for the remaining municipalities in the state with similar names (washington township/borough, franklin township/borough, springfield township, union township, etc). even if the name change were subtle, such as "washington hills" or "washington valley", it might be enough to distinguish itself from the other washingtons.

as an example, look at franklin lakes in bergen county: it seems that the inclusion of the word "lakes" is sufficient to differentiate the municipality from the four townships and one borough in the state simply named "franklin". no one i know mistakes it for, say, franklin township in somerset county or franklin borough in sussex county. and no one has to explain that "it's the one in bergen county", since its name is different enough to stand out on its own.

[lammius]

Guttenberg:

Goot-en-burg

or

Gut-en-burg

??