Am I saying this right???

[Debera109]

Originally Posted by mm34b

North Carolina Cities, Counties, Towns, Mountains, and More: Pronunciations
Click on the specific location in the list to hear it pronounced.

North Carolina Collection-Talk Like a Tar Heel

Thanks and what a great website!! The counties are listed first, and if you scroll down, it has the pronunciation's for cities listed.

Oh my!! I've been saying so many of these wrong.

[welovedurham]

That's a fun link!

I was corrected from saying FOR-sith (with a short i, like the beginning of forsythia) to FOR-sith (with a long i, and with the accent on the front end).

I still want to see a non NC native try to say Oine.

[ctribucher]

Originally Posted by welovedurham

I still want to see a non NC native try to say Oine.

So how DOES one pronounce Oine? I may have missed it on the site the other poster provided, and now I'm curious!

[raccemup]

ok.. I'm gonna take a stab at Oine...

Oh-een

is that it?

[jkmeca11]

Is it wee-nee?

[nlblueyes]

It is pronounced like Owen- -- from what I have been told by Warren County natives..

[rds0811]

Originally Posted by Debera109

Are there any names or places that a newcomer would mispronouced? Being a Sci-Fi reader, I thought the city name Zebulon sounded like a Flash Gordon serial "Flash Gordon and the Evil Empire of Zebulon", but I was told I was saying it wrong. Should be saying "Zeb-u-len", not "Zeb-u-lawn".

The funniest example of wierd pronunciations I have seen is Conetoe, NC. I'm from the Eastern part of the state, and had never even heard of the place until a relative of mine moved there. I still can't get over the fact that it's pronounced "kuh-NEE-tuh." My dad and I decided that we aren't going to put up with any name craziness and we have a good time just calling it "cone-toe" (just the way it looks like it would sound).

[welovedurham]

Well, we say Wee-nay but, yes, it is officially "Owen."

I would insist on saying Cone-toe too.

[AuntDeeDee]

OK, a Zeb native here with the lowdown on how to say it...

If you're new here or telling somebody about the town, it's
ZEB-you-lunn (NEVER "LON")
If we hear Zeb-u-LON (usually a new TV reporter that hasn't been "taught" yet), we know you/that person is a newcomer or "Ain't from around here."

If you've been here a longggg time,
it's "abbreviated" to just
Zeb-lunn. There's a very small accent on the Zeb, but not much.

Then, for Wendell,
new TV reporters give us locals a good chuckle on that one... because they say
WIN-dull (as in Oliver Wendell Holmes).

However, the right way to say it is
WINNN-dell with a stong accent on the WIN and almost a breath between Win and Dell (and dell, as "Farmer in the Dell")

Hope this helps!

[RDSLOTS]

Too funny.

My favorites comes from the folks who move INTO an area, and want to tell the natives how to pronounce "it." A street in Wilmington that is continually a source of argument is Kerr Avenue. Newcomers want to pronounce it 'cur' while the family for whom the street was named, prefer 'car.'

My husband and I entertain ourselves with what people from an area call themselves -- for example, we like being Care-eans (somewhat like Koreans) while most refer to themselves as Caryites (makes me think of mites, myself). Apex-ers are A peckers, and poor Garner! We won't even go there.