This kind of thing is very prevalent in the Southeastern US. Lebanon, TN, for example, is pronounced “LEB-nen.” And there’s a city in Mississippi named Kosciusko, after the Revolutionary War hero. His name is pronounced “Ki-shoosh-ko,” but the Mississippi city is pronounced “Kozzie-ess-ko.”
The Des Moines in Washington State is pronounced “de MOYNZ,” unlike elsewhere.
And yet we make a game attempt at preserving something akin to the original French pronunciation, if not the precise spelling, of Pend Oreille. Strange.
The last syllable takes the primary stress and a “long” vowel, while the first syllable takes secondary stress. Comes out as “hurr-(schwa)-KANE”.
In my pronunciation of the word, that “hurr-” syllable has a more fully-fleshed “short-u” sound than in a word like “burr” or “fur”. Sounds exactly like the first syllable in “hurry” (the first vowel being like “u” in American English “cup”).
Odd New Orleans pronunciations (street names)
Burgundy: Bur-GUN-dee
Conti: CON-tie (rhymes with ‘pie’)
Calliope: CALLY-ope (although there is disagreement that this is incorrect)
FTR, this is how I would pronounce them in American English: BUR-gun-dee, CON-tee, ca-LIE-oh-pee.
Oh, and I pronounce Esplanade ESS-pla-nod. They pronounce it Ess-pla-nade. But that’s a common pronunciation.
Ach, silly me! I missed the ‘SD’ in the header line, so I thought it was about the name ‘Pierre’, and not the city in South Dakota, ‘Pierre’.
:smack:
It is? :dubious: When I lived in Dayton, the news stations pronouced it as “Bell-Fountain”.
Of course, in Michigan Charlotte is pronounced “Shar-LOT” and Montrose is “Mont-Rose”.
Quibble: It’s properly pronounced (approximately) “Kosh-CHUSCH-ko”
But the Kosciusko Bridge in New Jersey is usually pronounced “KOSS-kee-OSS-ko” by most people. Except those with Polish backgrounds.
Interesting the way they say it in Mississippi.
Thanks for the correction.
“Interesting” is a pretty good catch-all euphemism for a lot of things done in Mississippi. 
Ohio:
Delhi - DELL high
Versailled - Ver SALES
Lima - LYE ma
Bellefontaine - bell FOUNTAIN
Russia - ROO shuh
True that no one in New Orleans says “New or-LEENS”, and “plain folks” talking with one another say “new OR-l’ns”.
What was interesting to me when I moved there, though, was that local newscasters all used a three syllable (even a baby step closer to the French) pronunciation of “Orleans”, pronouncing it “New OR-lee-'ns” with the middle syllable the least stressed. I soon noticed this pronunciation shared by old money New Orleans types, as well as anyone trying to affect a more “proper” speech.
“N’Awlins” however, is just to be put on T-Shirts sold in souvenir shops.
Also, if you’re in Philly and talking about the State in the U.S. Northwest, you pronounce it “OR-ih-guhn” but Oregon Ave. is pronounced “AR-gen”.
Yep, Green-wich
Med-eye-na (Medina)
My-lun (Milan)
Down south, Rio Grande is Ryo Grand
My favorite, though, in Northwest Ohio is Huron. The locals pronounce it more like “yurrn”
In Columbus, the local secret is the pronunciation of Olentangy, the river. Locals use a soft “g”, furriners often employ a hard one.
Watching America’s Most Wanted this week, I was surprised to hear Boca Raton prounounced Boca Ra-Tone. I thought it was Ra-Tahn. (Or maybe it’s the other way around, I forget.)
Kamrar in Iowa is Kammer to the locals.
I chuckle at the mechanical pronunciations from the NOAA weather radio. Some are indecipherable, partly because the recorded “voice” gives no emphasis to the syllables.
Certainly that’s the local pronunciation, but “OR-l’ns” is not anything like the original French, is it? Wouldn’t that be something like “OR-lay-ohn”?
On the same topic, Virginia happily mangles other languages in its place names. Fauquier County is “Faw-keer,” and the little town of Buena Vista is pronounced “Byoo-nah.”
Charlotte, Vermont is pronounced Sha-LOTTE (named after the wife of George III). Unfortunately, no one other than the locals understand that pronunciation, so people tend to say Shar-LOTTE, which is definitely wrong, although not so much so as SHAR-let.
Lafayette, Alabama (close to where I went to college) is “La-FAY-it”. Makes my skin crawl - perhaps it’s my Walloon genes.
Add a generous dollop of southern accent to the “FAY”, too.
I could have sworn my friend was saying her mom lived in New Bronvuhls, TX.
Then I found out it’s New Braunfels.
Just below Canton, OH.(that’s CAN tun), there’s a small town with an Amish furniture store. I kept asking for directions, but could never find the exit to
BALL-a-ver, Ohio. Only took me 10 years to discover it was Bolivar. :rolleyes:
I was born and raised in New York and I still don’t understand why Houston St. is pronounced House-tin. My children always pronounce Illinois Ill-in-wa. Because they’re smart asses.
Then there’s the Van Wyke expressway. A traffic reporter on a local station always pronounces it Van W-eye-k. Apparently I was not the only one annoyed by this because one day she announced, “In answer to all of the e-mails, I pronounce it that way because that’s the way the family wants it pronounced.” The poor family, everybody else calls it the Van wick, like in a candle.
And Hurricane, UT is HERR-er-kunn. Teach us to learn standard English now, huh?