# Pronounciation of los Angeles by Anglos **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [February 26, 2018, 2:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronounciation-of-los-angeles-by-anglos/809584 "2018-02-26T02:09:53Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![bardos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bardos/32/1069_2.png) [@bardos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bardos)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2018, 2:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronounciation-of-los-angeles-by-anglos/809584/1 "2018-02-26T02:09:53Z")
With some time on my hands, I’ve watched a few black and white films from the 40s, and in each one several characters pronounce “Los Angeles” Los Angle -ese". When did the angel dz sound enter into it? ---
**Author:** ![jtur88](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e9c0ed/32.png) [@jtur88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jtur88)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2018, 2:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronounciation-of-los-angeles-by-anglos/809584/2 "2018-02-26T02:23:28Z")
I think Art Linkletter continued to call it that on TV his whole life. He was still regularly on the air into the mid 60s. He was Canadian, and moved to California when he was five, which would be 1917. In Spanish, the G is pronounced like an H, Los Anhelez, and it is easy for an English speaker to slide from that to a hard G. It’s one of those names like New Orleans, which is pronounced by local people in several different ways. ---
**Author:** ![bardos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bardos/32/1069_2.png) [@bardos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bardos)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2018, 2:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronounciation-of-los-angeles-by-anglos/809584/3 "2018-02-26T02:28:33Z")
> [@jtur88](#): > > It’s one of those names like New Orleans, which is pronounced by local people in several different ways. But still to this day some folks in LA use the hard g as in “angle”? ---
**Author:** ![eschereal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eschereal/32/18939_2.png) [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2018, 2:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronounciation-of-los-angeles-by-anglos/809584/4 "2018-02-26T02:55:34Z")
> [@jtur88](#): > > In Spanish, the G is pronounced like an H, Los Anhelez, and it is easy for an English speaker to slide from that to a hard G. No, the G in Spanish is pronounced as in “guacamole” unless it is followed by an “e” or an “i” – in which case, it is pronounced like a clearing-of-the-throat sound. ---
**Author:** ![Civil\_Guy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/d78d45/32.png) [@Civil\_Guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Civil_Guy)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2018, 2:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronounciation-of-los-angeles-by-anglos/809584/5 "2018-02-26T02:58:19Z")
No hard cite, but I’d say not very common. My dad (Linkletter’s age, about) made sort of a point about saying Los Angle-es. As I make it, that would be half a nod toward the Spanish pronunciation, while still botching it a good bit. But the worser offense toward Spanish is how we pronounce San Pea-dro – but if you’re from there, that’s what you call it. ---
**Author:** ![buddha\_david](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ee7513/32.png) [@buddha\_david](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/buddha_david)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2018, 3:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronounciation-of-los-angeles-by-anglos/809584/6 "2018-02-26T03:04:10Z")
Angelica Huston’s character in _The Grifters_ would pronounce it “Los AN-guh-LESS”. I’ve never heard anyone else pronounce it that way. ---
**Author:** ![zbuzz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/e19b73/32.png) [@zbuzz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zbuzz)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2018, 3:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronounciation-of-los-angeles-by-anglos/809584/7 "2018-02-26T03:46:13Z")
In Southern California, it’s pronounced “the” Los Angeles. ---
**Author:** ![eschereal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eschereal/32/18939_2.png) [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2018, 4:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronounciation-of-los-angeles-by-anglos/809584/8 "2018-02-26T04:09:33Z")
no one ever uses the full name, though ---
**Author:** ![Mr\_Downtown](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Mr\_Downtown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr_Downtown)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2018, 4:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronounciation-of-los-angeles-by-anglos/809584/9 "2018-02-26T04:57:13Z")
[Our previous discussion.](https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=261921) For decades, the _Los Angeles Times_ ran on its editorial page, directly below the paper’s masthead, this one line: “Los ANGELEs (Loce Ahng hail ais).” ---
**Author:** ![bardos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bardos/32/1069_2.png) [@bardos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bardos)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2018, 5:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronounciation-of-los-angeles-by-anglos/809584/10 "2018-02-26T05:14:19Z")
Just a sidenote, was watching “Across the Pacific” (1942) with Humphrey Bogart this evening and apart from people using the Angle pronunciation, when Bogart mentioned Hawai’i, he actually pronounced it correctly, saying “Havai’i”. Anyway, bendita sea Nuestra Señora de los Ángeles ---
**Author:** ![Rick\_Kitchen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rick_kitchen/32/522_2.png) [@Rick\_Kitchen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rick_Kitchen)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2018, 5:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronounciation-of-los-angeles-by-anglos/809584/11 "2018-02-26T05:18:21Z")
> [@zbuzz](#): > > In Southern California, it’s pronounced “the” Los Angeles. It is? Where, and by whom? ---
**Author:** ![guizot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guizot/32/3636_2.png) [@guizot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/guizot)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2018, 7:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronounciation-of-los-angeles-by-anglos/809584/12 "2018-02-26T07:00:09Z")
No one says /lɒs ˈængələs/ any more. That was the pronunciation of transplants from the Midwest who came to L.A. in the 30s, 40s, and 50s. When I was driving taxi, I’d occasionally get elderly people like that (usually living in Park La Brea, or the elsewhere in the Fairfax), but that demographic has pretty much all passed away now. ---
**Author:** ![zbuzz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/e19b73/32.png) [@zbuzz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zbuzz)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2018, 7:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronounciation-of-los-angeles-by-anglos/809584/13 "2018-02-26T07:28:26Z")
> [@Rick\_Kitchen](#): > > It is? Where, and by whom? I’m poking fun at the not too infrequent threads here about why Southern Californians call their freeways “the” 405, “the” 101, etc. ---
**Author:** ![jtur88](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e9c0ed/32.png) [@jtur88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jtur88)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2018, 7:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronounciation-of-los-angeles-by-anglos/809584/14 "2018-02-26T07:45:47Z")
> [@eschereal](#): > > No, the G in Spanish is pronounced as in “guacamole” unless it is followed by an “e” or an “i” – in which case, it is pronounced like a clearing-of-the-throat sound. Which English speakers hear as an H, and then pronounce as an H. Except in Tijuana, which thye pronounce as a W, after inserting an A. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2018, 9:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronounciation-of-los-angeles-by-anglos/809584/15 "2018-02-26T09:11:18Z")
But that’s not “the ‘g’ in Spanish”, that’s “the way Anglophones pronounce the Spanish |x|” (which Hispanics wouldn’t even call ‘g’; when we use the letters as shorthand for the phonemes, that one is called _j_). ---
**Author:** ![bob\_2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bob_2/32/3341_2.png) [@bob\_2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bob_2)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2018, 2:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronounciation-of-los-angeles-by-anglos/809584/16 "2018-02-26T14:07:40Z")
I imagine it depends on whether you see the first two syllables as ‘angle’ or ‘angel’ If the latter, using a short ‘a’ is awkward so you get ‘an’ as in angle and the rest as in angel. Simples…🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Jasmine](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jasmine/32/2964_2.png) [@Jasmine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jasmine)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2018, 2:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronounciation-of-los-angeles-by-anglos/809584/17 "2018-02-26T14:22:21Z")
Well, in English it means, “The Angels”, not “The Angles”, so I’ll stick with a soft “G”. ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2018, 2:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronounciation-of-los-angeles-by-anglos/809584/18 "2018-02-26T14:30:52Z")
The late LA mayor Sam Yorty pronounced it “Law-SANG-less” The LA Times reports on the pronunciation controversy: > **[Devil of a time with City of Angels' name](https://www.latimes.com/local/la-xpm-2011-jun-26-la-me-0626-then-20110626-story.html)** > > Devil of a time with City of Angels' name ---
**Author:** ![bardos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bardos/32/1069_2.png) [@bardos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bardos)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2018, 2:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronounciation-of-los-angeles-by-anglos/809584/19 "2018-02-26T14:48:05Z")
I mean, due to the fact that the city was founded by the Spanish, was named after angels, the type with wings, (ángeles), one would think that the correct pronunciation would be Los Angeles (g=dz). But really, folks can pronounce the name as they wish. Not being from the West Coast, although I have visited LA, I was just taken aback on hearing the hard g (angle), as i had never heard it before. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2018, 2:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronounciation-of-los-angeles-by-anglos/809584/20 "2018-02-26T14:51:43Z")
> [@Civil\_Guy](#): > > But the worser offense toward Spanish is how we pronounce San Pea-dro – but if you’re from there, that’s what you call it. As a SoCal native, I always called it San Pee-dro. A woman of Hispanic descent with whom I worked lived there, and she would become very annoyed if anyone pronounced it properly as ‘San Pay-dro’. She would insist the city’s name is pronounced ‘San PEE-dro’. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronounciation-of-los-angeles-by-anglos/809584.md?page=2)