# 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:** 4
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2018, 4:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronounciation-of-los-angeles-by-anglos/809584/61 "2018-02-27T04:21:12Z")
> [@Nava](#): > > 😕 it’s Our Lady. The Virgin? **Chus’** mom? Am I being wooshed or do you really not know who that is? Chus’? Did you mean Chuy’s mom? ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2018, 7:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronounciation-of-los-angeles-by-anglos/809584/62 "2018-02-27T07:23:39Z")
> [@Nava](#): > > 😕 it’s Our Lady. The Virgin? Chus’ mom? Am I being wooshed or do you really not know who that is? I was with you until you mentioned Chu. Who’s Chu? > [@Nava](#): > > …_de la Porciúncula_. You missed an article. If we’re getting all official and everything, why not go with the _full_ name: _El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Ángeles sobre el Río Porciúncula_ The “sobre” clarifies that we’re not just speaking of some minor queen who rules a few angels on Porciúncula River, but rather the Queen of Heaven — _Chu’s Mom herself_ :eek: — who happens to have a Pueblo dedicated to her on that River. ---
**Author:** ![UDS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecae2f/32.png) [@UDS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UDS)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2018, 7:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronounciation-of-los-angeles-by-anglos/809584/63 "2018-02-27T07:49:11Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > Discussions _with_ IPA are worthless since only a few know what the fuck it means. But it’s easy to find out what it means. Whereas if someone tell us that the last syllable in _El Segundo_ is pronounced -do-, the only way to find out whether he means (a) as in the verb “to do”, or (b) as in the noun “dough”, or (c) something else, is to ask him. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2018, 8:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronounciation-of-los-angeles-by-anglos/809584/64 "2018-02-27T08:53:55Z")
I don’t see anything wrong with asking people who use IPA to also include less precise language to help people who don’t understand it. I’ve often recommended it. But I find the implication that people are wrong to use IPA to be strange. Of course a thread about pronunciation is going to have people using the single most common method of transcribing sounds. If you don’t want to “bother” looking something up, but still want to participate, then it makes sense to me to just ask for help. Just like any other situation. Not to get sassy. Anyways, /lɒs ˈejngələs/ is just lahs ANN-gull-uss, where the ANN is the sound in man\*. In other words, it’s the same as the normal pronunciation of Los Angeles but with a hard G. As the context indicated, it was just a way to transcribe what the OP was talking about. I also note that I personally have two different vowels for **a** ngle/ **a** ngel (/æ/) and Los **A** ngeles (/ej/). The “an” is the vowel in _man_ for _Los Angeles_, similar to the sound in cat. But in both angle and angel, the vowel is the same as in main, similar to the vowel in Kate. “Loss Angel-S” (/lɒs ˈejndʒələs/) would sound wrong. \*Yes, I know that there is more than one pronunciation for the word “man” across the US (and the anglosphere in general), but the slashes indicate a phonemic transcription. So that level of precision is unnecessary. ---
**Author:** ![Pleonast](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pleonast/32/1183_2.png) [@Pleonast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pleonast)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2018, 3:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronounciation-of-los-angeles-by-anglos/809584/65 "2018-02-27T15:02:32Z")
Can we have more discussion about pronunciation and less about how to represent it? It’s like arguing about using equations in a physics thread. I’m a native of Ohio who’s been living in LA since the turn of the century. I pronounce the city name “Los Angeles” as /lɑːs ˈændʒɛlɛs/ from my native Ohio accent. (Note that I don’t distinguish between /ɑ/ and /ɔ/.) I find myself drifting towards /loːs ˈɑːnʒɛlɛs/. Other Spanish place names I tend to pronounce more in a Spanish way, probably due to my high school Spanish teacher’s sight-drills. So “San Pedro” is /sɑːn ˈpɛdɾo/, “El Segundo” is /ɛl sɛˈgundo/, etc. ---
**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 27, 2018, 3:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronounciation-of-los-angeles-by-anglos/809584/66 "2018-02-27T15:53:21Z")
> [@Pleonast](#): > > Can we have more discussion about pronunciation and less about how to represent it? It’s like arguing about using equations in a physics thread. > > I’m a native of Ohio who’s been living in LA since the turn of the century. I pronounce the city name “Los Angeles” as /lɑːs ˈændʒɛlɛs/ from my native Ohio accent. (Note that I don’t distinguish between /ɑ/ and /ɔ/.) I find myself drifting towards /loːs ˈɑːnʒɛlɛs/. I still have no idea how you pronounce Los Angeles. ---
**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 27, 2018, 4:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronounciation-of-los-angeles-by-anglos/809584/67 "2018-02-27T16:28:56Z")
> [@Fear\_Itself](#): > > I still have no idea how you pronounce Los Angeles. The “Los” part is like the “ah” sound as in “cot” rather than the “aw” sound as in “caught.” (The problem being, of course, that if your dialect merges those two sounds, like his and about half the dialects in America do, they’re the same vowel sound.) The other IPA pronunciations in this thread have the “los” pronounced as “loss” rather than “lahss”. When they say their pronunciation is drifting towards /loːs/, it means that it’s becoming something like “lows” with an “s” sound at the end, but not a “z” sound (as in the actual word “lows.”) In other words, the vowel is becoming a “long o.” The “angeles” part is like “ANN-jel-ess,” with clear “short e” sounds rather than schwas, and the final sound is an “s” rather than a “z.” ---
**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 27, 2018, 4:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronounciation-of-los-angeles-by-anglos/809584/68 "2018-02-27T16:34:46Z")
> [@BigT](#): > > Of course a thread about pronunciation is going to have people using the single most common method of transcribing sounds. Exactly. And it someone wants to use IPA in addition, then they should use the most common method to explain what it says. ---
**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 27, 2018, 4:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronounciation-of-los-angeles-by-anglos/809584/69 "2018-02-27T16:39:24Z")
> [@Johnny\_L.A](#): > > Exactly. And it someone wants to use IPA in addition, then they should use the most common method to explain what it says. Part of the issue is that many people don’t realize just how varied vowel sounds are from dialect to dialect. I looked it up, and 40% of Americans merge the vowels in “cot” and “caught,” so words like them, or Don and Dawn, are pronounced exactly the same, and describing “Los” as being pronounced with the the vowel as in “thought” or “caught” or “loss” doesn’t accurately describe the vowel in question. ---
**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 27, 2018, 4:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronounciation-of-los-angeles-by-anglos/809584/70 "2018-02-27T16:56:16Z")
Or, put it this way, I could use simplified descriptions within my dialect, because I know how words are pronounced here (although there’s even variation locally), but it’s rather inexact to do so on an international message board with people speaking all sorts of varieties of English, where pronunciations vary in significant ways. And even keeping the international part out of it, North American English is quite varied. I still try to give a non-technical explanation whenever I veer into IPA because it can be a bit esoteric, but I’m never certain that a person is hearing the same sounds in their head as I’m trying to explain. And this has confused me in the past when people were trying to explain a sound to me and it was not at all what I had in my head given their explanation. (One that immediately comes to mind is a UK dictionary describing the Hungarian word _köszönom_ as being pronounced “KUR-sur-nurm” or maybe “KER-ser-nerm.” What the fuck is that? There are no "r"s in there at all. It was only years later that I realized it was a UK dictionary, and they were writing in a non-rhotic accent, so the “r” was not pronounced, but rather “colored” the vowel preceding it. So if a British person with a non-rhotic accent pronounced it, it was sound reasonably close to the Hungarian pronunciation. But for anyone with a rhotic accent that pronounces the “r,” it was a mess of a pronunciation.) ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2018, 4:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronounciation-of-los-angeles-by-anglos/809584/71 "2018-02-27T16:57:15Z")
> [@Johnny\_L.A](#): > > Exactly. And it someone wants to use IPA in addition, then they should use the most common method to explain what it says. Doesn’t work for me. No matter how much IPA I drink, I can’t figure out what those symbols mean. More to the point, if I can’t find those symbols on my keyboard, I’m not motivated to find out how to use them. Or to decipher anyone else’s use of them. ---
**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 27, 2018, 5:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronounciation-of-los-angeles-by-anglos/809584/72 "2018-02-27T17:04:35Z")
> [@kaylasdad99](#): > > More to the point, if I can’t find those symbols on my keyboard, I’m not motivated to find out how to use them. Or to decipher anyone else’s use of them. Right. That’s pretty much what I said. Use IPA if you must, but also use the most common method to describe to non-IPA speakers what it means. ---
**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 27, 2018, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronounciation-of-los-angeles-by-anglos/809584/73 "2018-02-27T17:18:39Z")
> [@pulykamell](#): > > Part of the issue is that many people don’t realize just how varied vowel sounds are from dialect to dialect. I looked it up, and 40% of Americans merge the vowels in “cot” and “caught,” so words like them, or Don and Dawn, are pronounced exactly the same, and describing “Los” as being pronounced with the the vowel as in “thought” or “caught” or “loss” doesn’t accurately describe the vowel in question. In the West, where _proper_ English is spoken, the vowel “Los” sounds exactly like the vowel in “laws”. That is the correct way to pronounce it (the regional shibboleth). However, many Westerners do not even hear any difference between “hawk” and “hock”, so saying it the Midwestern way will not really be noticed most of the time. ---
**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 27, 2018, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronounciation-of-los-angeles-by-anglos/809584/74 "2018-02-27T17:30:00Z")
> [@eschereal](#): > > In the West, where _proper_ English is spoken, the vowel “Los” sounds exactly like the vowel in “laws”. That is the correct way to pronounce it (the regional shibboleth). However, many Westerners do not even hear any difference between “hawk” and “hock”, so saying it the Midwestern way will not really be noticed most of the time. I’m not sure I’d necessarily characterize it as “Midwestern.” The Great Lakes region of the Midwest is particularly resistant to merging “cot” and “caught.” It’s actually [the western half of the US](http://i.imgur.com/g2rEZAL.png) (and the extreme Northeast) where they are most likely to merge the vowels. So I’m actually not even 100% sure your “laws” sounds like my “laws.” It sounds like, given your post, you do distinguish the sound of the two vowels, but it also looks like most people from your general part of the country do not, and probably pronounce “laws” closer to what would be “lahs” in my dialect. ---
**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 27, 2018, 5:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronounciation-of-los-angeles-by-anglos/809584/75 "2018-02-27T17:35:14Z")
ETA: [Here’s another map](http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-02QBAQo0Qsc/Tbc4g6dVC1I/AAAAAAAAAWQ/_Ab0i9wlgdk/s1600/don-dawn2.jpg) that shows there is a localized part of Northern California (Bay Area, it looks like), where “Don” and “Dawn” are distinct. ---
**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 27, 2018, 5:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronounciation-of-los-angeles-by-anglos/809584/76 "2018-02-27T17:43:55Z")
> [@eschereal](#): > > However, many Westerners do not even hear any difference between “hawk” and “hock”, so saying it the Midwestern way will not really be noticed most of the time. Actually, now that I re-read this, perhaps I’m misunderstanding this sentence, and you are saying that “the Midwestern” way is to distinguish the vowels, as it’s more likely for someone who merges the two sounds not to distinguish between them than it is for someone who doesn’t merge the two sounds to distinguish them. If that’s the case, then perhaps you do merge the two vowel sounds? I’m confused.Saying that the “Los” sounds like the vowel in “laws” doesn’t really disambiguate. If you are part of the merger, you’re saying something like “ah” in my dialect. If you’re not, you’re saying something like “aw” in my dialect. ---
**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 27, 2018, 5:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronounciation-of-los-angeles-by-anglos/809584/77 "2018-02-27T17:56:15Z")
I am saying that “ah” and “aw” are the same vowel sound. Westerners rely heavily on context (and perhaps tone) to distinguish what similar words mean. You cannot tell the difference in the first word of “Los Angeles” vs. “Las Vegas” when you hear a Westerner say those names. ---
**Author:** ![DPRK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4491bb/32.png) [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2018, 6:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronounciation-of-los-angeles-by-anglos/809584/78 "2018-02-27T18:30:34Z")
When I click on various consonants and vowels in [this IPA chart](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Phonetic_Alphabet_chart), the page that comes up often (but not always) has a recording of the sound in question, so you don’t really need to memorize hundreds of different symbols or what a velar ejective affricate (or whatever) sounds like just in case somebody uses the odd IPA symbol. ---
**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 27, 2018, 6:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronounciation-of-los-angeles-by-anglos/809584/79 "2018-02-27T18:40:57Z")
> [@eschereal](#): > > I am saying that “ah” and “aw” are the same vowel sound. Westerners rely heavily on context (and perhaps tone) to distinguish what similar words mean. You cannot tell the difference in the first word of “Los Angeles” vs. “Las Vegas” when you hear a Westerner say those names. Got it! So, I did initially misunderstand, but I got your point now. That said, I am apt to pronounce “Las Vegas” as “loss Vegas” instead of “lahss vegas,” so with the same vowel as “Los Angeles” in my dialect. But I don’t seem to do it with other words. (For example, there’s a Mexican joint around here called “Las Asadas,” in which I definitely say “lahss” instead of “loss.”) ---
**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 27, 2018, 11:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronounciation-of-los-angeles-by-anglos/809584/80 "2018-02-27T23:58:17Z")
> [@Johnny\_L.A](#): > > You miss my point. The point is that _everybody_ can read plain text, and _most_ speakers of American English would not find **Rick Kitchen** ’s example to be particularly ambiguous. On the other hand, virtually _no_ Americans know any more greek than π, and so they would have to look up the Greek letters and other symbols every time someone posted something in IPA. (And from my minuscule knowledge of Greek, I don’t see how æ is pronounced short-a as in ‘hand’, when it is pronounced ‘ee’, or sometimes ‘ay’.) Here’s the problem right here. You believe that most people (by which I guess you mean Americans, not speakers of British or Australian or Indian or any other variety of English who might be reading this board) reading Rick Kitchen’s post will pronounce his respelling the same way. I am 100% sure this is untrue, even for Americans. English spelling is not phonetic. But even if what you say were true, what’s the point of trying to have a discussion about the details of pronunciation when only MOST of the readers know what you’re talking about? Why not use a system which is completely unambiguous, and trivially easy to read even if you’ve never seen it before? (Just look at the key I linked to.) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronounciation-of-los-angeles-by-anglos/809584.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronounciation-of-los-angeles-by-anglos/809584.md?page=5)