My wife and I spend a week in Wooster, OH, every summer, for the Ohio Light Opera.
There’s no accounting sometimes for pronunciations. Cosham and Bosham are two small places within just a few miles of each other in Hampshire, England. One is pronounced Cosh-um, the other Bozz-um.
Daventry is another English example, pronounced Daintry. It wouldn’t surprise me though if that has changed. The Say-It-As-It’s-Spelled tendency in the UK has changed many pronunciations of not just place-names but other terms in the last half-century.
Not quite, in re DeKalb County, Georgia - it’s pronounced “D’Kab”.
I was there in August for The Countess Maritza.
Refugio, Texas - rih-FYOOR-ee-oh
Albany is another example.
Albany NY, where I’m from, is ALL-ben-ee. So is Albany CA.
Albany GA, is more like al-BINN-ee. Maybe not that heavy on the second syllable. So I’m told by a friend who lived there.
Bangor ME: Cool, so it’s BANG-GORE. Thanks for that.
I drove by Puyallup on a road trip, and every time I saw the sign I wondered how it’s pronounced. I think I heard it once or twice. Is it PWALL-ip?
And what about Sequim?
In my 20s I lived in Pacifica CA and the local high school kids called it Pa-syphilis.
Some others from across the miles and the years… If any of these are butchered, corrections are appreciated.
Boise ID: the locals say BOY-cee (or BOY-see), not BOYZEE like others often do.
Oregon: ORE-e-GINN, like ORE-again; not ORE-e-GONE
Weiser ID: WEE-zer, as eclipse visitors like myself now know
Mooselookmeguntic ME: MOOSE-look-meh-GUN-tik!
Oquossoc ME: near Mooselookmeguntic, o-QUOSS-ik, and the first o is like the first syllable of aquatic. Hey, they rhyme, cool.
Shoshone ID: and Shoshone Falls. This is an interesting one. I’ve heard locals say both shuh-SHOWN and shuh-SHOWN-EE. But I believe the correct tribal pronunciation is shuh-SHOWN-EE. That’s what I use.
Tehachapi CA: I’d butcher that every time until I learned that it’s teh-HATCH-a-PEE. And yes I did take a pee in Tehachapi. Haha.
Sepulveda Blvd, in the L.A. area: se-PULL-vi-DAH
Gruene TX: GREEN. Nice old dance hall, too.
Olathe KS: o-LAY-thuh
Salina KS: suh-LINE-uh
Kearney NE: CAR-nee
Ogallala NE: owe-GLOLL-uh
Chickasha OK: CHIK-a-SHAY
Rotan TX: ROW-TAN, where Sammy Baugh now rests
Coeur d’Alene ID: KOOR-duh-LANE
Tsawwassen BC: TWAHH-sun. One of my favorites. Technically it’s not in the USA, but it’s on the border.
The E is silent.
Similarly, the C is silent in Yachats: Yah-HAHTS
And so were we. (We also saw everything else.) Back in 1981, I was in the first American production of Mariza that hadn’t been “improved” by Tin-Pan Alley, and it was also my first professional show in NYC, so it’s very important to me. This was our 25[sup]th[/sup] summer in Wooster.
Even the locals are a little unsure of that one.
I grew up less than an hour away from Louisa, Kentucky and I never heard anyone pronounce it with a long I sound. It was always pronounced loo-ee-za, with a slight accent on the second syllable.
There’s a Wooster St. just off Houston (pronounced house-tn) St. in lower Manhattan. There is a baseball player named Huston (pronounced like Houston) Street. The Schuylkill (pronounced skook-l) river running through Philadelphia. There is a street in Atlantic City named Arkansas, pronounced ar-KAN-sas, Ave. And I just learned today that the Arkansas River is pronounced ar-KAN-sas in Colorado, but like the state further east. The Arkansas legislated the proper pronunciation of the name of the state in the late 19th century.
Schuylkill and Schuyler.
The Schuyler Mansion in Albany NY is SKY-ler. So Schuylkill and Schuyler are SKOOK-l and SKY-ler — interesting.
How about some simple ones for us non-Americans.
Why is Arkansas not pronounced like Are-Kansas?
Where’s the second C in Connecticut?
Why is Las Vegas pronounced Los Vegas, as in Los Angeles?
Why is Oregon not pronounced like organ?
These are just major ones, just the beginning.
4. Why is Las Vegas pronounced Los Vegas, as in Los Angeles?
Answer: Both come directly from Spanish. Of the two, Las Vegas (‘the meadows’) is pronounced closer to proper Spanish. A good while ago, Los Angeles got its name shortened from its original name ('the pueblo of our Lady, Queen of the angels, of the little portion"). (Where “the little portion” came from is a little uncertain.)
Around the middle of the last century, there was local debate about whether the proper pronunciation of L__ A__ should be slightly mangled from Spanish or more mangled. More mangled won out.
It depends on how you say organ I guess, but it should be close.
Note the origins of the name are under dispute but as of right now the first documented spellings were:
The map spellings start out as Origan but then change to Oregan in about 1790. It wasn’t until about 1870 that the philological societies started to really standardize spelling.
But this is this the way you expect it to sound? ORE-uh-g’n, like “organ” with an “uh” sound.
If someone told you it rhymes with "gone" or starts with an "ah" they were mistaken.Because the spelling and the pronunciation are both French. Illinois, on the other hand, has French spelling and English pronunciation. It happens a lot; consider how Hebrew Yeshua, evolving from Hebrew to Greek to Latin to English turned into Jee-zuss, or how Moskva, passing from Russian to Polish to German to English, turned into Moss-cow.
It is, in the state of Kansas, through which the Ar-KAN-zas river flows. :rolleyes:
Note, Aus is full of places that sound something like “Loogalarrooga”, and everyone knows the English spell funny, so…
I lived near a place called El th um. Years later I heard an English migrant pronounce it Elt Ham, and thought ‘oh’. Which made me wonder about Co th am. Is there an English place called Cot’m?
Many problems with pronunciation are caused by dragging words/names from other languages and then attempting to pronounce them as a speaker of English would.
The weird pronunciations in England are largely due to eliding sounds and making them contractions.
Arkansas is a French spelling and French pronunciation of a mangling of a Quapaw Indian word for a different tribe of Native Americans, the Kansa people. Kansas is derived from the same tribe, but an English pronunciation of an English spelling of a different mangling of the tribe name.
It is elided, i.e. dropped in a contraction, spelled in whole but pronounced as elided. Conne’ticut.
Do you say it “Lohs Vegas” or “Lahs Vegas”? 'Cause I do the second. Whereas Los Angeles is the one that should be pronounced “Lohs”.
Are you asking why it is three syllables instead of two? Original spellings always had three syllables as shown by rat avatar.