There was a car ad a couple of years ago that annoyed a lot of people in this state. It was for the Concorde. A mother and daughter are talking about how the daughters got their names, and it turns out that the baby was named for the place she was concieved in “Concord, New Hampshire.” The mother hurriedly said.
Um, nope. Concorde and Concord are not pronounced the same. Concorde is “con-cord” the state capital is pronounced the same as the word conquered: more like “curred” than “cord”.
People who aren’t from around here mangle Coos county’s name (it’s co-os, not the sound a baby or dove makes), most of the lake names, many of the mountain names, all the cities they passed through in MA (there’s no haver-hill on the MA/NH border) on their way here…
There was a cute radio ad for a regional Long Island bank that ran a few years back that started with phony telephone conversation supposedly with the national-chain competitors trying to answer questions from a customer::
“I’m sorry the ATM is out of order, shall I direct you to another one nearby? Let’s see, you’re at branch 655 in Coppidge? I see there’s one on Ronk-On-Coma Road, or are you closer to Hope-adge?”
(Those would be Copaigue [COE-peg], Ronkonkoma [Ron-KONK-uh-muh], and Hauppauge [HAW-pog], respectively]
Pronouncing all the syllables in “Saskatchewan” is usually a good way of telling someone hasn’t spent much time in the province, especially putting the emphasis on “skatch”. Most locals have it down to about 1 1/2 syllables, “S’skatchwin”.
I worked wit a woman in SoCal who was of Mexican descent, but was definitely a SoCal Girl. She lived in San Pedro, and got all bent out of shape when people pronounced it San PEH-dro. It’s San PEE-dro.
There are loads of pronunciation traps in New Orleans for the uninitiated:
Tchoupitoulas Street (Chop-ih-TOO-las)
Calliope Street (Kal-ee-OPE)
Burgundy Street (Bur-GUND-ee)
Iberville Street (IB-er-ville)
Bonne Carré spillway (Bonnie Carry)
I’ll admit to having wrecked a few pronunciations here in Illinois. I’m learning, though. How the hell am I supposed to know that “Palos Heights” is pronounced “PAY-luss Heights”?
Not a mispronunciation, but I remember hearing some beer commercial in the Bay Area where people talk about driving up “the PCH”. (Pacific Coast Highway.)
Um, no one in Northern California calls it the PCH. We call it Highway One. Way to try to save money and make one ad to play in the entire state. We know what you’re doing, advertising company, you don’t fool us.
I’m on a one-woman campaign to get people in the Midwest to prounounce Oregon correctly. It’s “ORE-igun”. NOT “or-eh-GONE”. Shudder.
In L.A., it’s called PCH – not the PCH. On the other hand, it’s the [freeway]. e.g., ‘the ten’ or ‘the four-oh-five’. Also used is ‘the Santa Ana Freeway’ or ‘the Santa Monica Freeway’. As a native of southern L.A. County and having lived in the City of Los Angeles proper for 17 years before moving to the PNW, I can’t remember hearing anyone who lived there saying ‘eye-four-oh-five’ or ‘eye-five’.
Whatever! I can’t keep your crazy ways of naming the freeways straight. I’ve managed to avoid LA for a year and a half now, and if I have my way (highly unlikely) I’ll never have to worry about the Los Angeles freeway system again.
Well, if I call you Al, you have to call me Betty.
Anyway, in the first episode of Ken Burn’s Civil War series, he pronounces Philippi, (West) Virginia as “FIE-lu-pie” instead of the correct “FILL-i (as in bit)-pee.”
