Ignorant local pronounciations that stick...

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Replies

  • _JustDG_
    _JustDG_ Posts: 1,584
    Down the mountain there's the tiny town of Snowville, the natives say snaw-vol... It always takes me a minute to interpret.
  • dpwellman
    dpwellman Posts: 3,271 Member
    How's the incorrect way? Brusch (German, like English brush) - etta?
    Yeah. That would be incorrect,

    brroo-sket-tah would be correct.
  • AglaeaC
    AglaeaC Posts: 1,974 Member
    How's the incorrect way? Brusch (German, like English brush) - etta?
    Yeah. That would be incorrect,

    brroo-sket-tah would be correct.
    Sì :)
  • IHateThinkingOfAUsername
    IHateThinkingOfAUsername Posts: 568 Member
    Okay, here's one for the Brits: Gloucestershire. I think I recall it without the "ce" in there, but I'm not sure.

    There are many tricky areas in London, too. Marylebone looks to be read Mary-le-bone, but I vaguely remember Maryl-bone.

    Yep glos-ter-shire. Same as Leicestershire -les-ter-shire.
    My husband and I both say mar-lee-bone.
    Ah ha! Thanks :flowerforyou:

    Missed off a bit... Neither of us are from London so we may possibly be wrong.... Although that'd make everyone I've ever played monopoly* with wrong too. (*it's one of the stations). :)

    Edit to add an apostrophe. Just incase it bothers fellow pedants.
  • Blacklance36
    Blacklance36 Posts: 755 Member
    There are many streets with French names in Detroit. Everyone butchers them, and it drives me nuts.

    Canadian weighing in.....even though we are supposedly bi lingual we have a road here called Marquis de Lorne trail that everyone calls Markus de Lorne.

    Oh, and I live in Calgary, not CallGary :smile:
  • blukitten
    blukitten Posts: 922 Member
    This isn't an incorrect pronunciation, but I dislike when people refer to a city by saying just the Area code like they are some hard gangster or something.

    Ugh, they do that in Virginia Beach all the time! Drives me nuts.

    They do this in New Mexico ALL THE TIME!!

    Its the 505
    or burque (pronounced boodkey)

    I dont live there anymore but it confused me when I first heard the second one,, i was like where?
  • SunofaBeach14
    SunofaBeach14 Posts: 4,899 Member
    Apparently in the mid-west they have problems with French pronunciations of French words. Particularly in the names of their cities and towns.

    I'm looking at you Versailles, Indiana (Ver-sales)

    Indiana ain't France... it's their town, they can say the name any way they want....

    Do you get upset when the people of New Orleans pronounce in N'awlins? Or Worcester, Mass is pronounced Wooster? Should the good folks in Paris, TX say they live in PARE-ee? (not if they don't want their respective *kitten* kicked)

    Language is local and the locals make the rules... if you want French names with French pronunciations, there's always France, or Quebec, or Haiti, or...

    Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries!
  • TechNerd42
    TechNerd42 Posts: 225 Member
    I have family on the AZ/NM border. They refuse to pronounce a nearby down as roe-Day-oh, it's Roe-dee-oh, and when I pronounced it correctly, I was corrected.

    Yeah, lots of hatred for the people who sneak across the border (and cause trouble) and they take it out on the language.
  • T1DCarnivoreRunner
    T1DCarnivoreRunner Posts: 11,502 Member
    Apparently in the mid-west they have problems with French pronunciations of French words. Particularly in the names of their cities and towns.

    I'm looking at you Versailles, Indiana (Ver-sales)

    How would you pronounce Des Moines?
    Not Dess Moinsss, but DeMoins. ?

    I lived in Des Moines for several years. We pronounced it Duh Moyn. Anyone saying Dez Moinz is obviously an outsider.
  • gym_king_carlie
    gym_king_carlie Posts: 528 Member
    that's West Hull folk for you haha, in the east it will sound more like cowk'ue lol
  • IHateThinkingOfAUsername
    IHateThinkingOfAUsername Posts: 568 Member
    that's West Hull folk for you haha, in the east it will sound more like cowk'ue lol
    :D
  • bennettinfinity
    bennettinfinity Posts: 865 Member
    I hate it when people say foyer like foy er instead of foy ay. Its a french word... silly me
    I wouldn't pronounce with an ay in the end, if I spoke French. Americans have a weird way of pronouncing French.

    Faux is one vowel in sound yet it becomes two in some miraculous way over there.

    And don't get me started on hors d'oeuvres, that one makes my ears bleed.

    If it's a French word, why is it in my English dictionary? Isn't it possible to have an English pronunciation? Or better yet an American English pronunciation?

    English is nothing *but* borrowed words... I'm guessing <1% are pronounced anywhere near the pronunciation of the original language.
  • devil_in_a_blue_dress
    devil_in_a_blue_dress Posts: 5,214 Member
    Heh, please come to the city of Pittsburgh. Where words with "ow" sound are pronounced with an "ah" sound.

    Dahntahn, ftw.
  • Guns_N_Buns
    Guns_N_Buns Posts: 1,899 Member
    Nevada

    Correct: NE-VA (like VAG)-DUH

    Incorrect: NU-VAH (like VOLUME)-duh
  • Birder155
    Birder155 Posts: 223 Member
    There are many streets with French names in Detroit. Everyone butchers them, and it drives me nuts.

    I live in Windsor and it's the same here.

    Pierre Ave. gets pronounced 'peery' for crying out loud. :tongue:
  • FeraFilia
    FeraFilia Posts: 4,664 Member
    Apparently in the mid-west they have problems with French pronunciations of French words. Particularly in the names of their cities and towns.

    I'm looking at you Versailles, Indiana (Ver-sales)

    How would you pronounce Des Moines?
    Not Dess Moinsss, but DeMoins. ?

    I lived in Des Moines for several years. We pronounced it Duh Moyn. Anyone saying Dez Moinz is obviously an outsider.

    This is more an observation from Indiana and Ohio. I guess I should have been more specific. :)
  • AglaeaC
    AglaeaC Posts: 1,974 Member
    Apparently in the mid-west they have problems with French pronunciations of French words. Particularly in the names of their cities and towns.

    I'm looking at you Versailles, Indiana (Ver-sales)

    How would you pronounce Des Moines?
    Not Dess Moinsss, but DeMoins. ?

    I lived in Des Moines for several years. We pronounced it Duh Moyn. Anyone saying Dez Moinz is obviously an outsider.
    Thanks! How I'd spell it DeMoin then :) (My alphabet is very different so the "duh" etc. are a bit confusing to try to "translate".)
  • Yurippe
    Yurippe Posts: 850 Member
    Oh. I forgot!
    bruschetta - dated a woman who actually got in TROUBLE at work (waitress in upstate WI) for pronouncing it correctly. One would think restaurateurs would know better


    Grrrr. You took mine.

    For the record I learned from a cartoon (Bob's Burgers) to not pronounce espresso with an "x". When Bob said it my thoughts were, "Why is saying that so weird?. I looked up how it was spelled and realized I'm a moron. It's one of those things like bruschetta that 99% of people say incorrectly.

    +1 for WI. We have fun cities to pronounce. It's fun to hear southerners pronounce Waukesha. You're putting the emPHAsis on the wrong sylLABle.
  • iggyboo93
    iggyboo93 Posts: 524 Member
    I live in Iowa... and we have several towns with issues

    Nevada - pronounced ne-VAY-duh

    Madrid - pronounced MAA-drid

    but the worst by far is Tripoli - pronounced tri-POH-luh

    Yah! Totally know what you mean. Grew up in Iowa.

    Peru (down by Winterset) is pronounced Pee Rue.

    Stuart was pronounced Stert.

    I lived in Des Moines for several years. We pronounced it Duh Moyn. Anyone saying Dez Moinz is obviously an outsider.

    And yep on that too.

    Worked in Louisiana for a bit. A town north of Alexandria was spelled Natchichoches. It was pronounced Nak-O-Dees by the locals.
  • SusanL222
    SusanL222 Posts: 585 Member
    Jaysus, so much tado bout nawthin!
  • bennettinfinity
    bennettinfinity Posts: 865 Member
    Apparently in the mid-west they have problems with French pronunciations of French words. Particularly in the names of their cities and towns.

    I'm looking at you Versailles, Indiana (Ver-sales)

    Indiana ain't France... it's their town, they can say the name any way they want....

    Do you get upset when the people of New Orleans pronounce in N'awlins? Or Worcester, Mass is pronounced Wooster? Should the good folks in Paris, TX say they live in PARE-ee? (not if they don't want their respective *kitten* kicked)

    Language is local and the locals make the rules... if you want French names with French pronunciations, there's always France, or Quebec, or Haiti, or...

    Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries!

    You're right, but she would've pronounced it hamPster....

    But in all seriousness, don't you think it's at least a little condescending to say entire populations don't know how to correctly pronounce the name of their city?

    To paraphrase an often seen MFP quote:
    If you find yourself in Indiana, and one man says Ver-sales, he's wrong;
    But, if you find yourself in Indiana and *everyone* says Ver-sales, and you insist it's Vair-si, you're wrong.
  • ParamoreAddict
    ParamoreAddict Posts: 839 Member
    Every single word spoken in Ebonics...
  • bregalad5
    bregalad5 Posts: 3,965 Member
    OHH..and my wife hails from MOSS-CO, Idaho... Not to be confused with MOS-COW Russia... although they are spelled the same. kinda an old cold war wound I think. :)

    In Russia they pronounce it MOSS (though a bit more toward MAHS)-CO when saying the name in English. It took me a while to adjust when I first moved there. So, the people in Idaho are actually pronouncing it correctly :)
  • _John_
    _John_ Posts: 8,646 Member
    I live in Iowa... and we have several towns with issues

    Nevada - pronounced ne-VAY-duh

    Madrid - pronounced MAA-drid

    but the worst by far is Tripoli - pronounced tri-POH-luh

    Yah! Totally know what you mean. Grew up in Iowa.

    Peru (down by Winterset) is pronounced Pee Rue.

    Stuart was pronounced Stert.

    I lived in Des Moines for several years. We pronounced it Duh Moyn. Anyone saying Dez Moinz is obviously an outsider.

    And yep on that too.

    Worked in Louisiana for a bit. A town north of Alexandria was spelled Natchichoches. It was pronounced Nak-O-Dees by the locals.

    I'm from about 100 miles northeast of Alexandria and I always heard Natchitoches as "nack UH tish".

    Alexandria itself was always interesting to me. Some from the area shorten it as "Elic" and it is often said as if it starts with E.
  • joet60
    joet60 Posts: 13 Member
    I live in north eastern Pennsylvania......I could fill up this whole topic!....but one thing that drives me crazy is people skipping words....It's more prominent in western Pa.....like "my car needs fixed"......what about the "to be" in there?!?!....my car needs TO BE fixed!!!
  • QueenBishOTUniverse
    QueenBishOTUniverse Posts: 14,121 Member
    Laughing my @ss off at Kuykendahl! I've never understood that one. Also, Ella blvd. and gracias (pronounced grassyass) you would think with the size of the spanish speaking population we have here that the pronunciation would get better, nope.

    ETA, Oil and Washer, pronounced ool and waRsher.
  • nurit1979
    nurit1979 Posts: 88 Member
    I hate it when people say foyer like foy er instead of foy ay. Its a french word... silly me

    I do this..
  • T1DCarnivoreRunner
    T1DCarnivoreRunner Posts: 11,502 Member
    I live in Iowa... and we have several towns with issues

    Nevada - pronounced ne-VAY-duh

    Madrid - pronounced MAA-drid

    but the worst by far is Tripoli - pronounced tri-POH-luh

    Yah! Totally know what you mean. Grew up in Iowa.

    Peru (down by Winterset) is pronounced Pee Rue.

    Stuart was pronounced Stert.

    I lived in Des Moines for several years. We pronounced it Duh Moyn. Anyone saying Dez Moinz is obviously an outsider.

    And yep on that too.

    Worked in Louisiana for a bit. A town north of Alexandria was spelled Natchichoches. It was pronounced Nak-O-Dees by the locals.

    Good to know. Natchichoches is a stop on a future road trip, so I'll try to blend (without the accent, it won't be so easy).
  • QueenBishOTUniverse
    QueenBishOTUniverse Posts: 14,121 Member
    One more, Miami Oklahoma, pronounced Miamah
  • ccmccoy09
    ccmccoy09 Posts: 284 Member
    Garnet Street in San Diego, pronounced locally as "garNET."

    It's definitely named after the gem -- the parallel streets are Emerald, Diamond, Chalcedony, Tourmaline, etc...

    But also Felspar St, which I think is a misspelling of the mineral feldspar.

    It took me a week after moving here to understand when people said "GarNET" they meant Garnet Street.

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