I just noticed, nobody has yet mentioned Avila Beach, Ca.
That’s pronounced A-və-la (accent on the first syllable, rhymes with “bad”), second and third syllables unaccented with the vowels reduced.
The history, they say, is that the original Senhor Avila, an early rancher in the area, was Portuguese, and that’s how it should be pronounced in Portuguese.
Some Texas places:
Bexar County = “Bear” County
Pedernales = “Per-duh-NAL-es”
Humble = “Um-bull”
Iraan = “Ira-ANN”
Refugio = “re-FURY-oh”
For the benefit of those who don’t read the whole thread, see post #70 above.
Some folks call it a Sling Blade, I call it a Kaiser Blade.
ermm, hrmm
Let me try:
Haleakala: Hah-lay-ah-kah-lah
Kaaawa: Kah-ah-ah-wah
Kalanianaole: Kah-lah-nee-ah-nah-oh-lay
Humuhumunukunukuapuaa: Hoo-moo-hoo-moo-noo-koo-noo-koo-ah-poo-ah-ah
How’d I do? (I’ve never been to Hawaii, except once on a stopover when I was three.)
When we went to Hawaii, we saw one ABC store after another, sometimes next door to each other!
I always said if I won a few hundred million in lottery, I would open up a chain of DEF stores, just so the poor kids in Hawaii could learn a couple more consonants.
BTW, when I first moved to California, I was told to go to La Jolla street to pick something up…but the name was spoken to me verbally (La Hoya) so I drove and, not having any working knowledge of Spanish, drove past “La Jolla” and kept looking for that street named “La Hoya”…I thought that was pretty stupid until a woman at work told me she was at a teachers’ meeting discussing holidays and, new to California with no Spanish knowledge, seeing the list, she raised her hand and asked, “When exactly is Cinco de Mayo?”
That reminds me of the old joke about the tourist asking how to pronounce “pipeline”.
And this reminds me of an incident that happened to one of my (former) coworkers. He’s an ethnic Mexican born in Texas, and Spanish was his first language. He was bicycling to work one morning in Orange County, when a Mexican guy pulled over in a car and asked where ‘Stat-ta Co-yay-hay’ is. My coworker had to think a moment, before he realised the guy was looking for State College Blvd.
Prescott in AZ is not pronounced Press-cot. It’s Press-cut.
Yes, but if people called it San LOUIS Obispo, the local pronunciation would be San LOUIE Obispo just to be contrary.
Btw, do the actors in Out Of Sight get the pronunciation of Lompoc right?
And I assumed that was a reference to the Fox show, The O.C.
I almost always hear both (plus SLO-ville) from natives.
Strange considering all the various tribe-origin names, but Wisconsin towns don’t get mangled by a lot of outsiders that I’ve heard.
The only mangled town I can think of offhand is, I think David Letterman mispronounced Antigo on one of his segments. It’s not “an-TEE-go”. It’s “ANT-ih-go” (in other words, it rhymes with Eggo, not ego).
But I think people deliberately mispronounce Wisconsin “Wis-(extremely nasal) CAAAHN-sin” to get our goats. Yeah, doing a bad Fargo impression might have been fun fifteen years ago. Now it’s just annoying.
Come to think of it, there was a bit of a flap back when Barry Alvarez took the Badgers to the Rose Bowl in the early 90s. Apparently Bob Griese was calling the game, and people got all up in arms because he pronounced it “WES-con-sin”, but I couldn’t hear it. I was just glad the Badgers were in a bowl at all.
I’ve heard it. But upon reflection, only from older (say, 70s or 80s) people, from the Five Towns.
So maybe it’s fading away, and maybe it was only one part of Long Island in the first place.
Please don’t call it Ootsburg.
It’s Oostburg!!!
Towns in Oklahoma:
Miami: my-AM-uh
Alex: EL-luk
Lookeba: low-KEE-buh
Gotebo: GOH-tee-boh
And I keep saying this in these threads. Using “the” before a freeway number is also a Southern Ontario thing.
And we have a Highway 405, and yes, we call it “the 405”. Along with other freeways we call “the 401”, “the 400”, the “407”, the “427”…
And locals also say “Teranna” for the name of the largest city in Ontario. If you enunciate it carefully and pronounce every “t”–Toh-ron-toe", we know you’re a tourist. 
If you’re in Illinois, Joliet is pronounced JOE-lee-et.
If you’re in Montana, it’s pronounced JAW-lee-et.
As for the “the” debate, I grew up in Colorado, lived in the San Francisco Bay area for over 20 years, and have lived in Montana for over 10 years. I’ve traveled all over these United States on business. I’ve never heard anyone but southern Californians and former southern Californians put “the” in front of a highway name.
When I spent a bunch of time out there in the 80’s, almost everyone pronounced that one Billricker.
In Washington state, you shouldn’t be allowed in the state if you pronounce it WAR-shin-ton. There is no “r” in Washington. Nobody calls the capital that or pronounces our first president’s name with an “r”. Then where the hell did it come from?
Oh to sports announcers, the city of Spokane is Spo-CAN and not Spo-CANE.
Whoa, dude!! It makes sense, you say “the” freeway, right? You say “the” highway, right? Makes sense to say The 55, The 5, The 101. I don’t get why it bothers people, I guess some people are just easily annoyed. Everywhere I live, and I move around a lot, I use “the” with freeways … guess it tips folks off where I grew up.
It’s Tel-Ah-VEEV, not TEHluviv. You get that, American tourists?
Also, the name of the country rhymes with “Ale”, not “Eel”.