They say BYOO-NA VISTA here, too. Drives me crazy. It’s not like we don’t have hundreds of Spanish named towns that we can pronounce correctly, it seems to be just that one.
Also, the Denver suburb of Westminster is pronounced West Minister by about 50% of the locals. GRRRRR
In some places, the Chattooga river is pronounced “Sh-TOOG”.
Another Georgia town: Senoia = s-NO-ee
My mom pronounces Westminster like that as well, drive me crazy. It especially annoyed me when I was planning on going to Westminster College in Salt Lake City.
Well, there’s the old favorite, Sault Ste. Marie (Soo saint marie)
Peabody, MA (PEEbuhDEE
Valdez, AK (Val-deez’)
In New York, there’s Valatie, pronounced “vuh-LAY-shuh”
Worcester, MA – Wooster
On LI, there’s Cutchogue – pronounced CUT-chawg. Not too odd, but it’s just down the road from East Cutchogue – pronounced East cuh-CHAWG – the “t” dropped and the stress on the last syllables. Everyone in the area makes the differentiation.
I can’t think of any other way to say this. Except around here, it’s more like “PEEB-dee”. I live right near Peebdee, in Bevlee (Beverly). PANTHA POWAH!!
Golly, Mr. Peabody!
Speaking of which… down here, when locals hear a New Yorker say s/he’s from Long Island, it sounds to us like lon-GUY-lun. When we say it, it sounds more like Lawng-EYE-lun (with the g reduced to nearly nothing and no Y sound in the EYE part).
You might check the Spanish pronunciations of the Colorado communities of Granada, Salida, Pueblo, La Junta, and Canon City (and those are just the ones on U.S. 50) before you think we Coloradans pronounce most Spanish names correctly.
Speaking of Highway 50 in Colorado - The town of Montrose, Colo. pronounces the name of their town “Mont rose” instead of the traditional “Mon trose”. Not even the Denverites generally know this, and it is one of the ways the locals have of telling who the foreighners (anyone not from Mont rose) are. There is also a slight pronunciation difference on the “t” sound, but it is too complicated and anyway, I don’t want to give all the secrets away.
They do the same in the Panhandle of Texas for their Miami, but it is more a short “a” sound there at the end.
Madrid, New Mexico, a small town not far from Santa Fe, is pronounced “Mad rid”, as opposed to the more traditional pronunciation of “Ma drid.”
Now the town (and county) of Quay, New Mexico is pronounced just the way it is spelled, “Kway”. Of course, a good portion of the rest of the world pronounces it as, “Key”. But what can you say?
Still in New Mexico, there is a town called Des Moines, NM in the northeast corner of the state and while the “s” is silent in the “Des” they pronounce the “s” in “Moines.”
Just to complete the circle there’s a Norfolk here, pronounced NOR-fork, because the town was supposed to be named Northfork. It is alleged that the spelling was changed when the town got it’s post office by a Postal service functionary who thought they must have meant Norfolk.
So they say.
I spent 2.5 USAF years in Tacoma, and I had to be taught by a local to pronounce PEW-al-up. Still not sure I have it right.
I happened to be in the Olympics on a little bike trip, and asked how far it was to SEE-kwim. Boy, did I get a dirty over-the-glasses look from the convenience store clerk as she corrected me.
We also have a Cairo, but it’s more of a CARE-oh around here. Beatrice is pronounced be-AT-trice, although I sometimes say BEET-rice just to be contrary.
-mdf
AFAIK, most towns in the US called Concord are pronounced like the one in NH: “CON-kurd”. The one in NC is pronounced “CON-cord”, like it’s spelled. The old local joke:
“Is this place CON-kurd?”
“No, just outnumbered.”
or, alternatively,
“Hell, no, we surrendered!”
Two of the main streets in Rochester, NY are Chili and Lima Avenues - all of the i’s are pronounced as in high.
In Virginia:
Roanoke - pronounced “ROW-noke”. We won’t look at you funny if you say “ROW-uh-noke”, but we’ll definitely know you’re not from around here.
Staunton - prounounced “STANT-un”.
Botetourt - pronounced “BOT-uh-tot”. Asking for directions to “boat-uh-tort” is almost guaranteed to earn you either a laugh or a dirty look. If you use the actual French pronunciation – something akin to “Boat-TOOR” – odds are good nobody will know what the hell you’re talking about.
Norfolk - pronounced “NOR-fuck” (Norfolk sailors’ saying: “We don’t smoke, we don’t drink…Norfolk”.
Buena Vista - pronounced “BYOO-nuh VIST (rhyes with FIST) -uh”. As for inquiring about “BWEY-na VEE-sta”…you’re better off trying to get to Boatuhtort.
In Pennsylvania I used to live an hour’s drive from Dubois (DOO-boyss).
Now I live in Seattle, and I hear Puyallup pronounced pew-AL-up. (Al with a short a, like Al Capone.)
A radio station where I worked in the late '70s had a professional jingle package produced, and all of it was usable except one jingle, where they sang the name of the county where the station was located: Norfolk. Nope, we couldn’t have any people singing about Norfuck county on our airwaves.
More Louisiana towns:
Natchitoches–Nack-a-dish. Easily confused with Nacogdoches, TX, which, I think, is pronounced pretty much phonetically.
Iowa–I-o-way. I personally hate this, but I’m outnumbered.
More than this, I’m afraid to attempt.
Of course, “tronna” or “tronno” isn’t the only pronunciation; it’s just used in rapid speech. It’s perfectly correct to use a pronunciation with all the consonants in place.
Just like the one in England.
If anyone still doesn’t know this, Sault Sainte-Marie is pronounced “soo” – in fact, that spelling is used in a few places, such as the Soo Locks on the Great Lakes Waterway. In French, it would be pronounced “so.”
Anglos in Montreal come up with some great pronunciations for French street names, of which my favourites are avenue De l’Épée (in French, duh lay-PAY) as “deleppy,” accent on the second syllable, and rue Saint-Viateur (sehn vi-ah-TURR) as “Saint Vee-ayter” to rhyme with creator.
Don’t even ask about boul. Pie-IX and av. Lionel-Groulx.
Bellefontaine, Ohio - “Bell fountain”
I had a relative who married a Yankee from uh-HI-uh (Ohio). He drove us crazy calling Miami my-AM-uh.
He’s been dead about 20 years now. Any other Ohians pronounce their state this way… or was he just a freak?
Well, you can’t have a funny town names thread without Wayzata, MN (it’s pronounced “Why-zet-ah”)
GorillaMan, there is just a greater emphasis on the “loo” in “Waterloo” than one not from Iowa would reasonably expect. Another weird Iowa town is “Nevada” (pronounced “Ne-vay-dah”.)
I’m sort of confused about how else you would pronounce “Bozeman”. Bo-zee-man?
Here’s my question…why is the name of the state of Iowa (pronounced by most people, I assume, “Eye-oh-wah”) pronounced differently by the elderly of that state (“Eye-oh-way”)? It’s almost like they decided to change the pronunciation somewhere along the way, and there are just a few holdouts still alive.