# Versailles, Kentucky **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [April 30, 2000, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/versailles-kentucky/18178 "2000-04-30T17:54:31Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![DoctorJ](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/doctorj/32/2904_2.png) [@DoctorJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DoctorJ)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2000, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/versailles-kentucky/18178/1 "2000-04-30T17:54:31Z")
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? Dr. J ---
**Author:** ![johnpriest](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f0a364/32.png) [@johnpriest](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/johnpriest)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2000, 6:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/versailles-kentucky/18178/2 "2000-04-30T18:15:09Z")
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. ---
**Author:** ![bibliophage](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bibliophage/32/7615_2.png) [@bibliophage](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bibliophage)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2000, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/versailles-kentucky/18178/3 "2000-04-30T19:55:57Z")
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. ---
**Author:** ![VaHermit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/ed655f/32.png) [@VaHermit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VaHermit)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2000, 10:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/versailles-kentucky/18178/4 "2000-04-30T22:01:59Z")
Many local examples come to mind, but I won’t bore you with them here. Didn’t Unca’ Cecil answer this or am I thinking of another column? The correct pronunciation of any location is the one used by the residents. Hell, it’s their town, no use arguing. ---
**Author:** ![Dystopos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e79b87/32.png) [@Dystopos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dystopos)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2000, 4:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/versailles-kentucky/18178/5 "2000-05-01T04:19:37Z")
> [@](#): > > The correct pronunciation of any location is the one used by the residents. Hell, it’s their town, no use arguing. 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](http://www.straightdope.com/columns/000317.html) and from [http://mapping.usgs.gov/www/gnis/bgn.html](http://mapping.usgs.gov/www/gnis/bgn.html) > [@](#): > > The guiding principle of the U.S. Board on Geographic Names for the names of places, features, and areas in the United States and its territories is to adopt for official Federal use the names found in present-day local usage. An exception to this principle occurs when a name is shown to be highly offensive or derogatory to a particular racial or ethnic group, gender, or religious group. In such instances, the Board does not approve use of the names for Federal maps, charts, and other publications. > > The Board, however, is conservative in this matter and prefers to interfere as little as possible with the use of names in everyday language because attitudes and perceptions of words considered to be pejorative vary between individuals and can change connotation from one generation to another. Geographic names are part of the historical record of the United States, and that record may be either distorted or disrupted by the elimination of names associated with particular groups of Americans. Such unwarranted action by the Board could, in time, be a disservice to the people the process is meant to protect. ---
**Author:** ![Quadzilla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/a4c791/32.png) [@Quadzilla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quadzilla)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2000, 2:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/versailles-kentucky/18178/6 "2000-05-01T14:04:28Z")
> [@](#): > > I suspect it’s just a mispronunciation of an unfamiliar foreign name. 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. ---
**Author:** ![system](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/original/2X/e/e489c3b7d8fce19c4b355dd4fc3f88cc39c34b87.png) [@system](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/system)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2000, 6:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/versailles-kentucky/18178/7 "2000-05-01T18:52:01Z")
FWIW, here in Illinois we have: 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. ---
**Author:** ![Lance\_Turbo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lance_turbo/32/6156_2.png) [@Lance\_Turbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lance_Turbo)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2000, 7:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/versailles-kentucky/18178/8 "2000-05-01T19:02:30Z")
I’ve got better things to do than wonder about the way native Kentuckians pronounce words. ---
**Author:** ![Geenius](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/f475e1/32.png) [@Geenius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Geenius)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2000, 8:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/versailles-kentucky/18178/9 "2000-05-01T20:43:08Z")
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. ---
**Author:** ![thirdwarning](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ecccb3/32.png) [@thirdwarning](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thirdwarning)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2000, 9:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/versailles-kentucky/18178/10 "2000-05-01T21:49:09Z")
Notthemama: 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. ---
**Author:** ![BobT](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/8e8cbc/32.png) [@BobT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobT)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2000, 9:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/versailles-kentucky/18178/11 "2000-05-01T21:56:53Z")
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. ---
**Author:** ![Dystopos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e79b87/32.png) [@Dystopos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dystopos)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2000, 4:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/versailles-kentucky/18178/12 "2000-05-02T04:11:47Z")
well, a soft ‘g’ but a very hard ‘h’ 🙂 -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