Not only that but…when Artie Shaw was putting together his last band, he hired Dick Johnson, a Boston-born clarinetist, to play for him and organize a roster. One of Johnson’s tasks was ordering custom music stands to read: THE ARTIE SHAW ORCHESTRA.
Trouble is, he placed the order by phone, to a company across the country. And he had a strong Boston accent. And it had been decades since Artie Shaw had been a household name.
So when the stands arrived they read: THE OTTIE SHORE ORCHESTRA.
Newark, New Jersey is ‘NOOrk’
Newark, Delaware is ‘NOO-arc.’
It seems like the ultimate xenophobic inside-joke trick is to come up with a bizarre pronunciation for your home range. That way, you can feel smarter than all the visiting chuckleheads who can’t possibly know how you pronounce it.
“Gee, your town Smithville is very nice.”
“Sheesh, you’re a rube. It’s SmithVILLY. How dumb can you be?”
And let’s not forget Trenton. In NJ, the second “t” is nasalized, and takes the “o” with it, so the pronunciation sounds like:
Tre’nn
Elsewhere, people probounce each letter in the word.
Tren-ton
Usually closer to “Nork.”
Ah, lest we forget: It is New Jersey. Jer-see. Anyone who refers to it as Joy-see is likely from New York. Please don’t do this*.
*I originally meant ‘don’t pronounce the state name this way’, but I like that accidental ambiguity.