Unpronouncable (by non locals) town names

It’s hard to beat Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch

Here’s how you say it.

Ah, but Welsh is pronounced exactly the way it’s spelt - provided you know the spelling rules for Welsh.

I would instinctly pronounce it like “combo” anyway…?

Oddly, though this is what I and any Brit would say for the city in Spain, I distinctly remember my mother talking about SEV-ille oranges (the bitter oranges used for marmalade). I don’t know whether that was just her, or an older pronunciation from times when people only knew such names from written sources rather than hearing people who had been there.

I am uncertain how Hoquiam (WA) is pronounced. I have heard a rumor that, to the locals, there is no “w” sound in it.

Another Briton here: per my more or less lifelong experience, in the UK it’s “suh-VILL” for the city, but “SEV-ille” for the type of orange.

For what it’s worth, in the 19th-century Tennyson’s ballad The Revenge – about a dramatic naval encounter in the bitter war in Elizabethan times between England and Spain – there’s this pair of lines:

“Let us bang these dogs of Seville, the children of the devil;
For I never turn’d my back upon Don or devil yet.”

Here, the pronunciation is obviously “SEV-ille”; but that might just be so as to make the rhythm and rhyme work.

Ouachita Baptist University, good luck guessing that one. :wink: Its in Arkadelphia Arkansas. Across the street from Henderson State University. Mike Huckabee is an alumnus of Ouachita Baptist University.

Wash-a-ta

El Dorado Ark ** is not** pronounced El-Do-rha-do. Its El-do-ray-do It rhymes with Laredo.

I grew up in South Ark and know the local pronunciations.

Ohio has one of these too. Also a Rio Grande with a long I.

A couple from Eastern NC:

Shallotte is pronounced shuh-LOAT (rhymes with “boat”), not like the onion.
Washington is called “Little Washington” to differentiate it from D.C.

Cairo, IL, pronounced KAY-row
Peru, IL, pronounced PEE-roo
Gratiot, MI, promised GRA-shit (leading to the inevitable joke about how to pronounce “Bultiot”).

All in Indiana:
Peru = PEE-roo
Milan = MY-lan
Versailles = ver-SALES
Carmel = CAR-mel
Advance = AD-VANCE (equal stress on the syllables)

Rumor was Michael Jackson liked it there.

We have one of those in the Pittsburgh area.

Also, Luis in this case is not the Spanish pronunciation either. It’s pronounced like the name Louis. Or, skip the whole pronunciation problem altogether and just say SLO (“slow”). Saves time too.

I never understood why in the Boston area Worchester is pronounced “Wuh-ster” but Dorchester is “Door-chess-ter”.


My SO laughs every time I refer to Advance (MO) pronounced AD-vance. He thought I was pulling his leg, until he overheard my mother say it just like that.

Also the Courtois River, Coataway, as in float away on the Coataway.

The pronunciations which you cite, are in fact correct copying of “English English” practice in this matter. Per my atlas, the W-city in Massachusetts which you cite, is actually spelt “Worcester” – like the English city from which it (presumably) takes its name. Dorchester, Mass., spelt like the English original Dorchester.

There are numerous towns in England whose names end in -cester, -chester, or -caster. These name-endings indicate that the place concerned was, during the time when the Romans were in Britain, a Roman encampment or fort – from the Latin castrum, signifying that function. The Latin word was taken over in time, by the Anglo-Saxons, via whom it changed to Old English ceaster – fort, or military establishment. Many towns were given varying names, but with ceaster as a suffix – the Old English word variously mutating, as above. For some reason (or none), it seems that on the whole, where the suffix has become -chester or -caster, the name is usually pronounced as spelt – as in Dorchester, above. Where it’s become -cester: in pronunciation-versus-spelling, a syllable gets cut out pronunciation-wise. Thus Worcester, above – in England as with you, at least approx. “Wuh-ster”. We likewise pronounce Gloucester as “Gloster”. Variously further east and north in England, Bicester is “Bister”; Towcester, “Toaster”; and Rocester, “Roaster”.

I’ve no idea why this should be – Googling, if one were interested enough, might at any rate come up with some theories.

(Emphasis mine)
That’s one that I intentionally mispronounce, thanks to the most awesome singer of all time. Wisconsin also has KEnoSHA, but that doesn’t lend itself so easily to mispronunciation for my purposes.

I lived just about 20 minutes from Omro. Just a speedbump on the way to the greatest store ever, Fleet Farm.:slight_smile:

I did add “sounds so nice had to say it twice” 'Tosa in the OP, but in the text, rather than the list.

I think Missouri is one of those names that varies depending on which part of the state you are from. On the east side, the name ends in “-ee” while on the west side it ends in “-uh”. I could be mistaken about that.

But if you are more than about a thousand miles from Oregon, you will probably not be able to pronounce “Oregon” correctly. It is not a noble gas.

Yeah, it doesn’t really fit into this thread well, because most non-Spanish speaking people will pronounce it that way. The locals pronounce it (approximately) Seh-VEE-eh.

Oh, and Yachats, Oregon is pronounced is pronounced YAH-hahts. And for those in the Midwest, its OR-i-gun, not Or-i-GON.