Unusual pronunciations of place names

I’ll believe you - but Multimap doesn’t :wink:

I grew up in Indiana, and I always heard that county name pronounced “pull-ass-key.”

Also in Indiana, there’s a place named Versailles, prounounced “Versayles.”

And Milan, Indiana is prounced MY-lan. (The film Hoosiers was based on a true story of a high school basketball team from Milan, although they renamed it in the movie. My first college roommate’s grandfather was on the actual team the movie was about. How’s that for boring trivia?)

Hoosiers just love to take world-famous cities and butcher the names. :smiley:

From our trip out west:

Puyallup, WA: “PEW-lup”

Sequim, WA: “Skwim”

Vlad/Igor

It probably wouldn’t qualify as a place, but from the 1950s until recently Montgomery, AL had a locally famous restaurant called “The Elite”, pronounced "ee-LIGHT’. (The name supposedly came from a 1950s good-ol-boy state legislator who pronounced it that way not being facetious and it stuck.)

Ohio
Oregon: OR-i-gin (hard g, sometimes final vowel is more schwa-like)
Lima: Lime-uh

Montana
Helena: HELL-len-ah (NOT hel-LEEN-a)
Havre: HAVE-er
Bozeman: BOWS-men (long o like rainbow)

And Meagher county is pronounced, “MAR”, not “Meager”.

And in the esoteric Montana place names, Makoshika state park is pronouned, “Mah-koh-she-ka” although you’ll get to see a local laugh if you call it “Mac-o-she-ka”.

whistlepig, who wishes he was in Andaconda.

In the West and Southwest, you get all kinds of screwy inconsistent Spanish… too many to count…

Bexar County, Texas = “Bear” not “BEX-ar”

San Pedro, CA = “San PEE-dro” by many even though I much prefer “PAY-dro”

Vallejo, CA = In Spanish, it should be “va-YE-ho.” In English it should be “val-LE-jo.” Instead, we have a hybrid “val-LE-ho.”

Cudahy, CA = “KUD-a-hay” not “KUD-a-hee”

Tsawwassen, BC = “TWA-sen” (or so I’ve heard)

Toronto, ON = “TRA-na”

Nevada = “nev-A-dah” not “nev-AH-dah”

Del Norte County, CA = “NORT” not “NOR-tay” (or so I’ve heard)

Does a town like Paris, Texas count? The natives definitely don’t pronounce “Paris” the same way that folks in France do. But, then again, what English speaker does?

Which makes me wonder, how do francophones in Canada pronounce “London” (the one in Ontario, if it makes any difference)?

Have a look three miles south-west of Haltwhistle…

The “-haugh” suffix tends to be added and removed from the main root, but given that the name dates from 1200 it’s not suprising that place names have changed since.

New York -

NYC area - there’s Houston Street. Pronounced Howston, not like the man or the city in Texas.

Rochester area - the towns of Chili and Charlotte. Chili is pronounced with two long I sounds - heaven help you if you ask for directions to the town, and pronounce it like something you’d cook. Charlotte is pronounced more Cha-lotte, with the emphasis on the first syllable.

Further south there is Nunda. Which is pronounced Nunday. I broke up my boss while I was travelling sales, when I asked where Nunduh was.

Charlotte, Vermont, is properly pronounced Cha-LOTTE. Supposedly, the town was named after George III’s wife, Queen Charlotte.

There’s a town in Nevada called Ely. Looks like it should be pronounced “E-lye”, right? Nope, it’s “E-lee”. I got that wrong the last two times I drove through there.

Oh, yeah, then there’s Lewes, Delaware. Looks like it should be one syllable, right? Nope - it’s two: Lewis.

I’ve lived in Utah for the vast majority of my life and I have never heard it pronounced like that. I’m not saying your wrong, but I really haven’t.

Hurricane = Her-eh-cun.

Other funny Utah towns:

Tooele = Too-el-uh

Duchesne= Doo-shane

Taliaferro, Georgia = Tolliver

Beaufort, South Carolina = Byoo-fert (I’ve heard it pronounced Bo-Fort)

No no no no no…

Pew-al-up
You got Sequim right, though.

Buena Vista (GA) = BYOO-nuh VIH-stuh

And of course, Biloxi (MI) = Bih-LUX-ee

PS: I’ve seen people come near to blows over the pronunciation of Albany, GA – but the folks I know from there say it the way Sampiro has it… or more closely all-BIN-ee.

Buena Vista, Colorado is apparently not pronounced the way most people just reading it would pronounce it.

I’m curious how to say it though. Anyone from Colorado, I would like to know. :slight_smile:

Oh, I’ve had great discussions with friends over the pronunciation of various Lafayettes.

There’s:

Louisiana: fairly French pronunciation: “LA-fey-ette”
Georgia: La-FAY-et (probably very close to the Alabama pronunciation).

I know there’s one in Indiana, but I don’t know how it’s pronounced. Then there’s also Fayetteville, NC - FAY-et-ville, but I don’t think that really counts.

Anyone want to chime in with other pronunciations of the town name?
Mirasol, I’m now in OH, and I give myself away everytime I mention North Lima. I’ve also learned that the town of Campbell is pronounced Camel. East Palestine is some other odd pronunciation that I can’t think of right now…I know I’ve been told about more, but I can’t remember what they are at the moment.