Just up the road from my home in Lexington, there is a moderately-sized town called Versailles. To the horror of non-natives, it is universally pronounced “Ver-sayles”.
Despite the fact that Kentucky also boasts the towns of AY-thens and CAY-ro, everyone around here insists that there’s a very good reason it’s Ver-sayles and not Ver-seye. One version says that when the town was named, its settlers were split between Versailles and another name, and compromised by agreeing to the name but “pronouncing it American”. Another version says that it was Ver-seye for a long time, until some action by the French (supporting the Confederacy in the Civil War, perhaps?) encouraged the town to rebel and corrupt the name intentionally.
I find the second story more plausible, but neither strikes me as dripping with accuracy. Anyone have the Straight Dope?
I’m not sure about Versails, but a lot of French names are from Canadian trappers, which had split linguisticly from Parisian French hundreds of years ago. In those days there was no one “received” French pronunciation of anything, and France was more a collection of duchies than a unified country. Each duchy had it’s own localisms, just as Welshmen, Scots, and the Cornish sounded quite different from Londoners in the 1600’s.
I suspect it’s just a mispronunciation of an unfamiliar foreign name. In Maine we have Calais (pron. Callous) and Madrid (pron. MAD-rid). In New Hampshire there is Berlin (pron. BER-lin), and Milan (MY-lin). Admittedly, the last 3 examples are just cases of misplaced accent. There’s no consistency here; Paris, Maine, isn’t pa-RIS, but PAR-is. In WWI, American doughboys pronounced Ypres as “Wye-pers”, IIRC. According to my Geographical Dictionary, all US place names spelled Versailles are pronounced ver-sayles. There are towns, villages, boroughs, or cities of that name in Connecticut, Indiana, Missouri, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, in addition to Kentucky.
Even if they pronounce ‘Negro Creek’ according to the pre-1967 spelling? That can’t be right.
What about Arab, (rhymes with Ahab) Alabama? Does an intentional (maybe) pronunciation imply a slight?
So it’s “New Yawk” and “Bastin” instead of New York and Boston from now on?
I’m not sure I can think of any instance in which the local pronunciation shouldn’t be considered “correct” - but I thought I’d try anyway.
References: http://www.straightdope.com/columns/000317.html
I’m inclined to agree with biblio. I’m a college student (French major, incidentally) not horribly far from Versailles, MO, and I went to high school for 2 years in southern MO. The first time I was looking at a state roster of some form or another, I remarked about “Ver-saye”, Missouri. About 10 people promptly turned and said, “That’s Ver-sails.” I still cringe every time I hear it.
Joliet, pronounced “Joe-lee-ETTE”
Havana, pronounced “ha-VAY-nah”
Eldorado, pronounced “El-do-RAY-do”
Tolono, pronounced “Ta-LOW-nah”
McLean, pronounced “Mc-LANE”
Berlin, pronounced “BURR-lin”
Vienna, pronounced “Vie-ENN-ah”
Toledo is pronounced “Tah-LEE-doh”, not “Toe-lay-do” (yes, there’s a Toledo, Illinois).
Paris is pronounced “PAIR-iss,” not “Pair-EE.”
Teutopolis is pronounced “Tee-ah-TOP-ahlis”, not “Too-TOP-ahlis”.
Wabash is pronounced “WAW-bash” not “Wabb-ash”.
And of course, it’s “shi-CA-go,” not “tchi-CA-go”.
P.S. A certain oil town in Texas is pronounced “HYOO-ston”, not “HOUSE-ston”, as I once heard some dang furriner mispronounce it.
Ohio has Bellefontaine, pronounced “Bell-fountain” (!).
The one that always scratched my blackboard was Buena Vista Drive in Evansville, Ind. I was working on the copy desk at a newspaper down there, and I sat within earshot of the police scanner. There was one dispatcher who always pronounced it “BEW-na VISS-ta.” I’m really amazed that I managed to refrain from smashing that radio for two whole years.
You forgot about:
“MY-lin” (Milan)
“Mar-SAYLES” (Marseilles)
I don’t know if it’s true, but I was told years ago that the pronunciation of at least those two and Berlin was changed during or after WWII.
I don’t think that has anything to do with the Cairo (Karo) thing, though.
Most Spanish place names in the US are mispronounced in some way, even in areas where there are a lot of Spanish speakers. If you compare TV news reporters on English and Spanish language stations, you can hear the differing pronunciations of places like El Monte or Costa Mesa.
Of course, nobody says “los ahn-he-less” for L.A. Not even Spanish speakers. It’s become a hard “g” sound for everybody.
-I think it’s time to mention some street names in New Orleans:
Corondelet - kuh RON duh lett
Burgundy - ber GUN dee
Chartres - CHAR turs
Melpomene - MEL puh meen
Milan - MY lan
Terpsichore - terp SIK uh ree
Clio - see ell TEN
