I’ve heard both pronunciations and have always wondered which was correct.
I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone pronounce the S in Louisville.
Lancaster, CA is pronounced ‘LAN-caster’. Locals also occasionally call it ‘Lan(d)-scatter’. FWIW, Antelope Valley dwellers call the San Fernando Valley, and especially Los Angeles, ‘Down Below’. (Lancaster is in the high desert – 2,432 feet at the airport – and you get to L.A. by going ‘down below’ the mountains.
Lima, Ohio is named after the bean, which I guess they grow a lot of in that area. Many people pronounce it Leema including one character in a movie who claimed to be from Leema, Ohio. Guess the movie people didn’t do their homework.
The Nevada tourist ads even spell it out that way. See the beginning of this ad - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gc8k60k5Gmg
Prague, Oklahoma is pronounced PRAYG.
El Segundo, California is pronounced Ehl Suh-GUHN-do, not goon.
Former mayor of Los Angeles Sam Yorty was notorious for pronouncing the city’s name as Los AN-jeh-leez. But, if I recall correctly, that’s an outdated pronunciation.
Lake Orion, Michigan is pronounced Lake ORE-ian by locals.
I don’t know how many out of towners they get, but I have to assume that they would pronounce it Lake Ore-I-an.
mmm
Yorty said Los ANGLE-eez, with a hard G.
Canberra has two syllables, though most people do in fact get it right.
Strangely, I’ve met Newfoundlanders who pronounced it totally differently. Depends where you’re from on the island. Many are insistent it be pronounced very clearly, as “New FOUND land.” Most Canadians outside Newfoundland say “NEWF-und-land,” though.
Years ago I read an account by someone who was relocating to Washington D.C., wo said that people recommended s/he look for homes in Merlin. The person couldn’t find the town of Merlin, and later discovered that people were telling him/her to look for homes in Maryland.
I’ll always remember the 21 Jump Street where a character said “I grew up in Mun-au-chee, New Jersey.” Well, if you grew up there, or even spent two minutes calling the borough hall, you’d know it’s pronounced “MOON-au-kee.”
Norfolk, Virginia
Non-locals: Nore-folk
Locals: Naw-fuk
Arkansas City, Kansas: ar-kan-zas, not ar-kan-saw. Ditto the Arkansas River in that part of the state.
Since street names have come up, Rio Road in Charlottesville, VA: Ri-o with a long I and a long O, not Ree-o. The story I heard is that it was Route 10 once upon a time, which got turned into R.10 on the street signs, which got pronounced Rio with the long I, and then they eventually changed the official name of the road to Rio.
Try the town on the Oregon coast: “Yachats”.
The only place that comes to the top of my head is Berryville, but the locals have a bunch of different pronunciations. There’s BAR-ville, BARE-ville, BURR-ville, and even BARE-uh-ville and BURR-uh-ville. And the ville in all of those can be VIHL, VUHL, or VOOL (oo as in book.)
The one thing it is not is Berry-ville, though, unlike in a lot of other places, there’s no acrimony if outsiders say it that way. I think it’s because that pronunciation is popular even just slightly out of town. I think the pronunciation is viewed as more of an accent thing.
Do they really completely leave out the /t/, or is it replaced with with a glottal stop? For example, some people would say I say “bun” for “button,” but I really say buh-nn [bʌ ʔn].
To put it another way, does it really sound like only two syllables, or does it (almost) sound like three?
Interesting. I have a friend whose MIL used to be the Mayor of Puyallup. When his wife says it, it sounds to me like “Pee-yall-up”.
Y’know, IME it’s actually fairly uncommon to encounter someone with the full-on Baltimore accent. But those who do have it say it more or less just like that, with possible variations “Bawl-ah-mur” or “Bawdy-mer.” I find they tend to be primarily of an older generation.
I think it sometimes gets shortened to “Pyallup” (there was an ad for a car dealer where a guy found a frog that said “pyallup, pyallup” but when pressed to perform, the frog says “bork”).
There may be some dispute about the town south of Normandy Park, though. The city council rule that the final “s” in “Des Moines” is silent, but most locals still enunciate it.
… what are they?
Same with Lancaster, Ohio.
Lank-astir. Or Lank-stir.
That’s how the original one is pronounced too.