Unpronouncable (by non locals) town names

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

Inspired by Johnny LA’s thread about deliberately mispronounced words, I was thinking about the towns in my native Wisconsin.

Wisconsin is filled with unpronouncible towns. I love taking my wife back there and having her try to get the names correctly. I’m amazed at how non-intuitive the pronunciations are for non-natives.

In the 70s, there were movie ads for American International Pictures, and the announcer would list the cities and towns where the films would be playing. But the announcer obviously was not from around there. His mispronounciations were so legendary, I still use some of them.

Note: It is a law* that all towns in Wisconsin have to have a “wau” sound in there somewhere. Wauwatosa (wah wah TOE sa) doubled down on that!

Here are some of the tougher ones - try and see if you get them correct:

(The “wah” sound is like the beginning of “wanna”)

Shawano (SHAW-no)
Ashwaubenon (ash WAH bi non)
Waupaca (Wah PACK a)
Wausau (WAH saw)
Wautoma (wah TOME a)
Waukau (WAH caw)
Waupun (wah PON like up on)
Waukesha (WAH ka shaw)
Waunakee (wanna key)
Kewaskum (key WAH scum)
Manitowoc (MAN it ta wok)
Manawa (MAN a wah)

Mukwanago (muck WAN a go)
Neceda (neh SEE da)

Nekoosa (neh KOO sa)
Winneconne (winna connie)
Beloit (Be LOIT - the T is pronounced)
Berlin (BER lin, not Ber LIN like the German capital)
Fon du lac (like “fondle ack”)

In Arizona, if you are familiar with Spanish pronunciation, you can get by. Except for the Mogollon Rim, which, for some unknown reason is pronounced “muggy-on”.

What town names by you give visitors the fits?

*Well, it seems like there is!

2

Here in Missouri (aka “missour-ah”) we have

New Madrid, pronounced MAD-rid
Japan, pronounced JAY-pan
Nevada, known as Nev-AY-dah
Bellefontaine, pronounced bell-fonton
Des Peres, which even the locals can’t decide to pronounced DAY pair or dah PAIR
Gravois, which we call GRAV-oy

and a host of others

Meanwhile, my wife is from Cleveland, and none of her relatives can agree on how to pronounce “Cuyahoga.” I’ve heard everything from a carefully enunciated Kye-ah-HO-gah to something like “kwogga.”

3

I think even a lot of locals are unsure how to pronounce Auxvasse, MO. I think it’s something like “aw VAHZ” or “uh VAHZ”. I saw one site that said it was close to “of Oz”. I grew up in Missouri and currently live not too terribly far from Auxvasse, but I still don’t know. It’s a tiny town, so luckily it doesn’t come up in conversation all that often.

4

No one but locals get Valatie, NY right.

5

Near my home town in Michigan:

Ypsilanti (referred to by locals as “Ypsi”)

[SPOILER]IP su lan tee

and shortened

IP see[/SPOILER]

6

Glad to see it isn’t just WI. I think I’d fail the “Missour-ah” test!

I know about Cairo (kay-ro) IL, and Miami (my am ah) OK.

And I’d heard Ypsilanti pronounciated enough growing up to get that one. But it’s a good one!

7

In Washington:

Sequim is pronounced ‘skwim’.
Puyallup is pronounced ‘pyoo-allup’.

8

I should add that one to your thread - I always say “pulley-up”.

9

I once lived near a little town in the Gulf Coast region of south Texas, not all that far from Corpus Christi. The name of the town is “Refugio.”

The Spanish pronunciation of the world is “ruh-FYOO-hee-oh,” with the last two syllables blended to the point where they sound like one syllable.

The White People pronunciation of the word is phonetic, “ruh-FYOOJ-gee-oh,” with four distinct syllables.

The locals pronounce the name of their city, “ruh-FURY-oh.” No one seems to know why.

10

We live in Hawaii.

'nuff said…

11

Valasha.
And Coxsackie.

12

Stanislaus County, Ca. Nobody seems to know for sure if the final s is pronounced or silent. The name is derived from the earlier Spanish-era name Estanislao. I myself don’t even know for sure what the correct pronunciation is.

San Luis Obispo, Ca. Clearly a Spanish name (but of a French bishop, who did much of his ministry in Spain). A lot of people seem determined to give “Luis” a French pronunciation, Looee.

(Cecil did two articles on Saint Louis the Bishop, one discussing his life, and one discussing his after-life, but they seem not to be on-line. Google isn’t finding them.)

13

Pennsylvanians can’t even pronounce DuBois correctly (they say it “Dew-boyz”) so the chances of them getting the several hundred Indian place names and towns right are pretty much nil.

14

You already mentioned mine, sort of, in the OP. I live in Milwaukee, which is very close to New Berlin. New BERlin, the opposite of the way you’d pronounce it if you live in Germany. But living here I have to think about which one is which all the time. BerLIN?, wait, no, that’s the other one.

After all these years, they both sound right to me and I really have to think about it.
Another one is Oak Creek. I think that one’s actually harder for the locals. If you only see it written, it’s easy enough, but people that grow up around here and just hear the name (as a neighboring city) think it’s O’Creek, or something along those lines. I’ve had many friends that didn’t realize it was Oak Creek until they were in their teens. Usually because that’s about when they started driving and saw a sign for the city or their High School team played that the Oak Creek team.

Then there’s the Racine. People that live there say Ray-seen. But they all say it wrong, it’s Rah-seen. Buncha backwards hillbillies.

Also, second hand knowledge tells me the people that live in Kissimme, FL is pronounced kiSIMme (not kissIHme).

15

Cranston RI. It has to sound like Fran Drescher is saying it.

16

Wow, true story…I was doing some work in Holt’s Summit, not far from Auxvasse, and somebody stopped to ask us how to get to “Assvest.”

Took us a couple times to figure out wtf.

17

Pequea, PA – pronounced PECK-way
Bogota, NJ – pronounced buh-GOAT-uh

18

oh-VAHZ

Although the natives will overlook it if you say oh-VAHSS.

19

Streets in New Orleans:

Calliope: CALLY-ope
Conti: KON-tye
Burgundy: Bur-GUN-dee
Tchoupitoulas: CHOP-uh-TOO-lis

20

Nowhere near me, but New Zealand has a town called Wakatane (sometimes Whakatane) whose name is apparently pronounced “Far-car-tar-neigh”.

My theory is that the Maori were jealous of all the confusion the Welsh got.