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Well, i'm not going to insist that people call a certain city in MD "Lah play-dah, mairahlin" but people will look at you funny for enunciating "La plah-ta, mair-ee-land."
We also have Bowie. Of course pronounced "boo-ee". Obviously
And Huntingtown. Reporters can never get that one right and call it "Huntington". Nope: town.
And Wicomico. Wi-com-i-co. Not weekow meekow.
It's fun to pretend to be foreign or snooty and pronounce all the Spanish or French places names in the US as they'd be pronounced by native speakers of those languages.
"I'm going from Sahn Franhceesco to Las Vegahs, Nevahdah before we go for a business meeting in Day-twah..."
I once got in trouble in college as a public radio news correspondent for pronouncing Del Norte County as "Del Nor-tay" instead of "Del Nort" and Estacada, Oregon as "Es-tah-cah-dah" instead of "Es-tah-cay-duh". Knowing Spanish made it hard to remember the regional pronunciations.
I try to stay as close as possible to the Spanish/French pronunciation without it being the actual language (if that makes sense).
There are times, for practicality reasons, where I just give up because no one would know what I'm talking about. For ex: there is a street in the city of Santa Ana, CA called 'Lyon'. When I first started working there, I would pronounce it like I would Lyon, France...or at least an Americanized version "lee-ohn". No one knew what the heck I was talking about though, as the majority of locals pronounced it "lion" (like the animal).
One pronunciation I severely dislike is when out-of-towners say Los Angeles as "Lahs Angeelees" . Makes me cringe.
Sometimes people get their pronunciation s only from the written word so it's hard to interpret the correct way to speak it.
When I first moved to Oregon I remembered seeing bumper stickers that simply said Or-Y-Gun. I learned how to say the name correctly from the people who actually lived there. That came pretty close.
People have given me guff for saying ne-VAH-da and colo-RAH-do, but then they insist on calling my home state New YORK, when it should be pronounced New YAWK.
Double standards ;-)
Should Americans call Paris, par-EE, or Vienna, VEEN?
The one that kills me is when people say "Warshington". Fortunately I don't hear it often.
I've told that native Washingtonians don't say it that way, but I've heard it from people up in Washington in different parts of the state(maybe it's more a working class thing)? It does sound awful though.
I don't mind if people say "Ore-Gone", it lets everyone know you're from a long ways away--but there's a certain pronunciation where it's like "Orree-gawn", where it's pretty annoying. Sounds like someone is trying to be cute or something. It's probably as bad as when people from the Western US try to attempt what they think are East Coast pronunciations for places names like "New Joisy" or "Nu Yawk"...or "Bawston" said with a bad Good Will Hunting/Kennedy accent.
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