# 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:** 2
**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, 2:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronounciation-of-los-angeles-by-anglos/809584/21 "2018-02-26T14:56:59Z")
> [@guizot](#): > > No one says /lɒs ˈængələs/ any more. On my screen, that looks like it’s saying Los Angeles is pronounced ‘Los Angeles’. (Or ‘Los EENgeles’ with the æ as in Æsop.) Too much bother looking up each symbol. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2018, 3:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronounciation-of-los-angeles-by-anglos/809584/22 "2018-02-26T15:17:42Z")
> [@Civil\_Guy](#): > > 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. If you’re _really_ from there you just call it Pee-dro. No San. 🙂 At least that is what I remember from when I lived there for about a year in the early 70s. As for the pronunciation of Los Angeles, it’s: el-AY. ---
**Author:** ![Jonathan\_Chance](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jonathan_chance/32/701_2.png) [@Jonathan\_Chance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jonathan_Chance)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2018, 3:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronounciation-of-los-angeles-by-anglos/809584/23 "2018-02-26T15:25:33Z")
True that. I’m an Angelino by raise - moved there at 3 - and it was always just ‘LA’ to me. But I think the discussion is missing the OP’s point. I believe he’s asking about pronoucing it: Los Angeleeez with a long ‘E’ sound in the final syllable. The ‘G’ sound is really a matter of how near or far the speaker is from spanish influence. But the long E sound? That’s something I’ve seen often in older movies and so forth. Even Arlo Guthrie… “Coming into Los Angeleez Bringing in a couple of keys” As to when that shift to a flatter, shorter ‘e’ sound? I can attest that it wasn’t a thing for me growing up in Redondo Beach in the 1970s and beyond. But it clearly was - possibly with British influence? I seem to have a feeling that’s where I’ve heard it from most - at some point prior to that. ---
**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, 3:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronounciation-of-los-angeles-by-anglos/809584/24 "2018-02-26T15:32:39Z")
Also interesting to me is how the Spanish “Los” (lowS) becomes “Loss” in Anglo pronunciation. ---
**Author:** ![TSBG](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/77aa72/32.png) [@TSBG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TSBG)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2018, 3:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronounciation-of-los-angeles-by-anglos/809584/25 "2018-02-26T15:35:17Z")
I don’t have the book handy and won’t for a while, but in Carey McWilliams’ “Southern California: An Island On The Land,” I believe he said that the adoption of the hard “G” pronunciation was a deliberate effort by the Anglo elite to de-Mexicanize the city’s image. ---
**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, 3:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronounciation-of-los-angeles-by-anglos/809584/26 "2018-02-26T15:40:09Z")
I was always amused by people pronouncing the street ‘sepple-VEED-uh’. (OK, by ‘always’, I mean two or three times.) Also amusing to hear people try to pronounce Port Hueneme. 😛 ---
**Author:** ![TSBG](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/77aa72/32.png) [@TSBG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TSBG)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2018, 3:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronounciation-of-los-angeles-by-anglos/809584/27 "2018-02-26T15:45:25Z")
Right. “The corner of Seh-pul-VEE-da and PIE-co.” Spot the newcomer. Although Waze still gives awful pronunciations like these. ---
**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, 3:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronounciation-of-los-angeles-by-anglos/809584/28 "2018-02-26T15:49:28Z")
Having hung out in California at various times in my lifespan, I was quick to notice how almost all the Spanish place names have become, do I use the word “Anglicized” or “corrupted”?, so to speak. ---
**Author:** ![Jonathan\_Chance](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jonathan_chance/32/701_2.png) [@Jonathan\_Chance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jonathan_Chance)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2018, 3:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronounciation-of-los-angeles-by-anglos/809584/29 "2018-02-26T15:58:33Z")
I would chalk that up to nearly 100 years of immigration from places in the US that did not have significant Spanish language exposure. Toss people from Alabama, Ohio and Nebraska into a place together and present them with an ‘N’ with a tilde above it and they’re all gonna end up pronouncing it as just an ‘N’. ---
**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, 4:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronounciation-of-los-angeles-by-anglos/809584/30 "2018-02-26T16:22:19Z")
> [@bardos](#): > > Having hung out in California at various times in my lifespan, I was quick to notice how almost all the Spanish place names have become, do I use the word “Anglicized” or “corrupted”?, so to speak. But that happens almost any time a word moves from a language to another. There are a few rare exceptions, but usually either the spelling changes, the pronunciation does, or both do. ---
**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, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronounciation-of-los-angeles-by-anglos/809584/31 "2018-02-26T16:27:28Z")
> [@Jonathan\_Chance](#): > > present them with an ‘N’ with a tilde above it and they’re all gonna end up pronouncing it as just an ‘N’. When I was a kid in San Diego, I thought ‘canyon’ was spelled ‘cañon’. ---
**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, 4:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronounciation-of-los-angeles-by-anglos/809584/32 "2018-02-26T16:28:46Z")
> [@Nava](#): > > But that happens almost any time a word moves from a language to another. There are a few rare exceptions, but usually either the spelling changes, the pronunciation does, or both do. It’s just a pet peeve of mine after living, teaching and doing translation work in Spain for a few decades. ---
**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, 4:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronounciation-of-los-angeles-by-anglos/809584/33 "2018-02-26T16:33:49Z")
> [@bardos](#): > > I mean, due to the fact that the city was founded by the Spanish, was named after angels, the type with wings, (ángeles) … No, not really. It was named as the village of the queen of the angels of the LA River. The full name is quite long. I think the queen might have been or represented some saint. ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2018, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronounciation-of-los-angeles-by-anglos/809584/34 "2018-02-26T16:36:09Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > As for the pronunciation of Los Angeles, it’s: el-AY. And its major airport, el-AY-ex – one of the few airports in the world that’s almost universally referred to by its IATA code in common parlance. I suppose JFK is another, but there you need to disambiguate between three major airports. ETA: As for the pronunciation, I’ve always pronounced it with a soft “G” and ending in something between “less” and “lez”. It never occurred to me I was doing it wrong. ---
**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, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronounciation-of-los-angeles-by-anglos/809584/35 "2018-02-26T16:53:38Z")
> [@bardos](#): > > It’s just a pet peeve of mine after living, teaching and doing translation work in Spain for a few decades. Oh, I share it, not so much the shifts as the people claiming that “there is no shift” or that it’s the people who speak the original language who do it wrong (gotta love the ones who tell me I don’t know my own name), but hey, so long as the reaction is “oh ok, I didn’t know that” I’m fine with it. It’s not as if the Spanish pronunciation of _güiski_ (or worse, _juiki_) is particularly Scottish… > [@eschereal](#): > > No, not really. It was named as the village of the queen of the angels of the LA River. The full name is quite long. I think the queen might have been or represented some saint. 😕 it’s Our Lady. The Virgin? Chus’ mom? Am I being wooshed or do you really not know who that is? And the Porciúncula is a chapel in Italy where the Franciscans were founded, currently part of the Basilica of Our Lady, Queen of Angels. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2018, 5:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronounciation-of-los-angeles-by-anglos/809584/36 "2018-02-26T17:06:17Z")
> [@Nava](#): > > it’s the people who speak the original language who do it wrong I’m not sure if I’m understanding you correctly, but I don’t find this unusual at all. Like, I grew up with Polish as my first language (though I now would only really consider English to be my native tongue), but when speaking Polish words in English, I would use the American pronunciation, since it doesn’t sound euphonic to all of a sudden switch to the Polish pronunciation. Our family doesn’t even pronounce our last names like we do in Polish (I have a “w” in my last name, which is a “v” sound in Polish, but we pronounce it here as an English “w.”) Or do you mean while speaking the native language? In that case, yeah, the tendency is to use the native pronunciation. ---
**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, 5:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronounciation-of-los-angeles-by-anglos/809584/37 "2018-02-26T17:12:39Z")
I mean while speaking the native language, or your own name, or when it’s the first time you encounter a word from your native language in a non-native setting. Being told “oh, in [the secondary language] it’s like this” is a welcome correction; being laughed at and told “how can you be so stupid, who says it like that!?” is… not. Specially when the “who” happens to be half a billion people who actually know what the word _means_. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2018, 5:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronounciation-of-los-angeles-by-anglos/809584/38 "2018-02-26T17:17:02Z")
> [@Nava](#): > > I mean while speaking the native language, or your own name, or when it’s the first time you encounter a word from your native language in a non-native setting. Being told “oh, in [the secondary language] it’s like this” is a welcome correction; being laughed at and told “how can you be so stupid, who says it like that!?” is… not. Specially when the “who” happens to be half a billion people who actually know what the word _means_. Ah, yes. That would be infuriating. ---
**Author:** ![TSBG](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/77aa72/32.png) [@TSBG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TSBG)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2018, 6:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronounciation-of-los-angeles-by-anglos/809584/39 "2018-02-26T18:05:05Z")
It’s an interesting line to try and draw. My father, born and raised until his teens in Italy, speaks perfect English, though with an accent that is noticeable to other people–I don’t hear it since I grew up with it. But it’s not the stereotypical Italian-American kind of accent you hear in say “The Sopranos”–a lot of people seem to think he’s originally British though he learned all his English in the States. Whatever, no big deal. But he retains the habit of pronouncing Italian words as Italians do–I’m trying and failing to think of an example that translates really well to the page, but the one that always gets me is “PAS-tah” rather than the less stressed and articulated American “pasta.” It’s like, we’re in America now dad. Still, who’s really wrong–him or me? And of course Brits have their own version of the word “pasta” which is different from either. And I have a similar experience in Britain (well, really just London, don’t know much of the rest of the country). How do I pronounce, for example, pasta? My way or the British way? Am I being impolite by using an Americanism, or obsequious by using the Britishism? ---
**Author:** ![markn\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f9ae1b/32.png) [@markn\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/markn_1)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2018, 6:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronounciation-of-los-angeles-by-anglos/809584/40 "2018-02-26T18:27:05Z")
> [@Johnny\_L.A](#): > > > [@guizot](#): > > > > No one says /lɒs ˈængələs/ any more. > > On my screen, that looks like it’s saying Los Angeles is pronounced ‘Los Angeles’. (Or ‘Los EENgeles’ with the æ as in Æsop.) Too much bother looking up each symbol. Oh no, are we going to another argument about IPA? I was just about to post that guizot’s post was the only one in this thread where I can tell what the hell pronunciation people are trying to convey by these ad hoc respellings. Here in Northern California, I pronounce it /lɔːs ˈændʒələz/ on the rare occasions when I pronounce the full name, and that’s what I usually hear here. Of course, 95% of the time, it’s just /ɛl’eɪ/. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronounciation-of-los-angeles-by-anglos/809584.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronounciation-of-los-angeles-by-anglos/809584.md?page=3)