Mis-pronouncing your Destination
 

I should be used to this, coming from the Northeast with towns like Leominster, MA (Lemon-stir), and Worcester (Woos-tah, or Wiss-tah for some locals).

Now I'm travelling and the local newscasters are talking about all the Arkansans (Ar-KAN-sans) here in Arkansas (Ark-en-saw).

Evidently, the state name is pronounced that way by law:

But if that's the case, why in the world wouldn't they call their residents Ark-en-saw-ens, or something?


Don't even get me started on Versailles, IN (Ver-sales).


Are there any other US places that FTers just can't make themselves pronounce like a local?

Or better yet, any Arkensawens care to explain your home state's fascination with not being like Kansas?

There's a Versailles, KY (Ver-sales) too. The locals explained it to me that when the city was founded, the Irish hated the French so mispronounced it on purpose, just to drive them nuts. Not sure if that's true...

Oh...

proper names that are pronounced counterintuitively

There's a suburb up the road from me called Reservoir which for some reason the locals insist on pronouncing "Reserv-oar". As an expat Brit I have tried to reeducate them but to no avail.

Have also tried telling them you clean carpet by "hoovering" not "vacuuming", that the large purple shiny things are "aubergines" not "eggplants", and the colour is called "maroon" rather than "maroan" but find I get very short shrift:(

I've been here nine years now and every now and then I still come up against the "language barrier" despite the fact that the two nations apparently both speak English!

My first trip to Australia I pronounced Cairnes CARNS.

How about Des Plaines, IL. Pronounced exactly like it's spelled, sort of.

Did you at least remember the correct pronunciation for Brisbane: Brisvegas??:p

Oh, there's also Launceston (Tasmania) - if you pronounce it "Lawnceston" the locals get quite uppity - it's "Lonceston".

There's Versailles, PA also, along with Charleroi (which starts out well, but collapses into Shar-le-roy) and Dubois (Dew-boys) - all of which perplexed my Belgian guests.

I still refuse to pronounce the 'r' in Washington, PA, as my mother, grandmother, mother-in-law, and other western PA native family members do.

(And I still get a chuckle from the FedEx commercial with a young kid trying to ship to "puh-hoe-nicks - you know, the capital of Arizona")

I might understand this, if I had any clue what "shrift" is.

http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-sho2.htm

I grew up in Paso Robles, CA--full, legal name "El Paso de Robles" (The Pass of [the] Oaks--Oak Pass, I suppose).

I knew of no non-Hispanic people there who didn't pronounce it "PASSuhRUBBles." ;)

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (SymbianOS/9.1; U; en-us) AppleWebKit/413 (KHTML, like Gecko) Safari/413 es61i)

Visitors to Scotland must have a terrible time. For starters, there's Edinburgh, which perplexes many (Edin-bruh).

But as for Milngavie, Strathaven, Kirkcudbrught... (Mull-guy, Stray-vun and Kir-coo-bree), not so simple. And that's without even getting a 'ch' in there to mangle.

Still easier than Wales, though. It takes years of practice to get the 'll' sound. Visitors may struggle with Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysilio gogogoch.

My nearest airport is Norwich (NWI). KLM staff in Amsterdam generally know that it's pronounced "Norrich", but in most other places they will insist on telling me that my bag has been checked to "Nor-witch". Can't really blame them, I guess.

(Oh, and just to confuse the issue, there is another pronunciation, "Nah-rich", which is used (a) in Norfolk dialect and (b) by people making fun of Norfolk dialect)

One of the little pleasures of life is hearing the attempts of the English, in particular, to pronounce Welsh place names.

The alphabet is very different, there are no X, Z, J or K; W and Y are vowels; written pairs of letters like CH, RH, LL, DD, FF all go into one square in crosswords or Scrabble and have specific sounds, so it's understandable.

When I was in college in Swansea in South Wales I remember two particular examples of being asked directions.

One lorry driver asked me how to get to 'Ruddy Deaf-Aid'

I needed a bit of time to work out Rhyd Y Defaid - pronounced 'Reed Er Day-Vide' and meaning ford of the sheep.

The other, which I had to see in writing before being able to help, was an enquiry for 'C. A. Ten'. Written I could see that it was Caio, pronounced Kye-Oh.

I went to Uni at Swansea!!

I thought it very quaint when I was first there how signage everywhere is translated into Welsh.

I eventually found myself with quite a Welsh lilt - an interesting accomplishment for a "Saarf" London girl.

Now that I've been here in Australia nine years my accent and pronunciation has changed again so that I generally pass unnoticed amongst my fellow Aussies, as long as I don't lapse and say something like "traffic warden" when I mean "parking attendant".

mr HUGE
 

SQ some years back in biz Was asked Head sex mr huge ? i heard they ment head set mr hughes? also always love to hear the Balinese call out the Quantas flts in DPS

gordon ramsy
 

old Gordon did a great show in Lampeter Wales his best imho and his welsh speeking atempts were the best.

i often joke that the arkansas river is the only river in the world that changes its name when it crosses a political boundary (from KS to OK).

another fun one: what is the proper pronunciation of "arkansas city" (in southern kansas)?
answer: "ark city." in all my years in wichita, i never heard anyone ever refer to it by its full name.

There a few in Illinois that are odd, such as Marseilles (pronounced Mar-Sails). My favorite one is a small town in central IL, San Jose (pronounced San Joes).

The capital of South Dakota - Pierre - is pronounced Peer by So. Dakotans and I love Peabody, Mass. - Peebudy with a very short budy.

There is Russiaville, IN pronounced as Rouxsaville and DE has Hockessin which is pronounced as hoe kessin. Tucson, AZ is to son not tuc son ;)

My home town is not New Or-leens. It's either New Or-luns, or if you are an older native, it can be New Aw-yuns. I grew up saying New Aw-yuns, but got tired later in life of hearing people say, "huh?" Now, I say New Or-luns. "Huh?'. :D

pronounced as a native, no one understands baltimore md.

baw-mur mur-ln. only accent is on baw.

what about all them forn cities. no outsider gets them right. i feel very foolish when in washington dc to be talking about par-ee, ve netz iah, fi re en ze..

i also do not claim to have gone to skool in baas tn.

Prescott, Arizona. They say "Press-kit to ryhme with Biscuit" as a way of teaching out of towners.

Louisville
Louaville
Louieville
Louville
........

San Pedro, California
 

San Pedro is a industrial port suburb of Los Angeles to the south of LAX. Locals always call it "San PEE-dro". Really grates on me because there is no pee in Spanish name for St. Peter.

(Correctly in Spanish pronounced as "San PAY-dro")

(Also, the "San" in any California city name should sound like the "a" in "lawn" and not the "a" in "sand".)

I always thought it was Loua-vul. And, of course, there's Naw-lins.

Don't forget Tronto, from our friends up north (at least those from the US).

And I thought I had my Hawaiian down, even tossing in the okina, but Hawi threw me when I found it was Ha-vee

The town of Amherst, Mass., has a silent "h:" "Amerst." Most Boston-area newscasters, reporting on the eponymous college, the UMass campus, or anything else there get it wrong.

The city of Quincy, Mass., is pronounced "Quinzy." Most people who learned about our sixth president, John Quincy (pronounced "Quin-see") Adams, get it wrong.

The city in Spain is Gre-NAH-da, but the Caribbean island is Gre-NAY-da. Most pseudo-sophisticates get the latter wrong.

Interesting one, yes. The locals pronounce the first syllable to rhyme with "Don", whereas everywhere else in Australia most people pronounce it as if it's "Lawn".

The Cornish town of Launceston is pronounced as just two syllables, however: <Lawnston>

I've tried hard to pronounce New Orleans the way the locals do (or some approximation of it), but I can't get it. So I've given up and now just say it the way I would naturally say the two words. Fortunately, people seem to know what I'm talking about.

Occasionally, I hear this as Tronno.

I always thought it was (mis)pronounced like the start of Tyrannosaurus Rex.

Wasn't there a (almost certainly apocryphal) story, at the time of the collapse of the great Albanian pyramid scheme, that there was panic in Canada as a result of breaking news reports of 'widespread unrest and violence in Tirana'?

It's Brizbin, not Brisbane ;) As I found out.

Boca Raton is Boca Ratone not ton.

Not really a destination but my current city - Chisago City. On the phone, everyone will pronounce it "Chicago". We have a rich history of Swedish cultures here, but because we tend to live in an area where there was a lot of Native Americans at one time, THEY named it “Ki-Chi-Saga”, which means “fair and lovely and large waters.” The name has been changed slightly through the years. It creates problems such as, I was booking a trip this week and the travel rep said to me, "Ok we have you leaving "Chicago" da da da. "Uh, no, I actually need to leave from Mpls"

Ketchikan is really not that hard to pronounce, yet I manage to totally confuse every call center agent. The same with Metlakatla. Some interesting names in my areas. I like Naukati the best (Naah-ki-ti). Of course, we have Knudson Cove and no the K is not silent. Don't ask me why!

Ah, yes. Working in the tourism industry in Alaska, you hear all kinds of crazy ones.

Talkeetna: tall-KEET-nuh. I've heard tal-KIT-nuh, tal-uh-ka-LIT-nuh, and about anything else you could imagine.
Seward: like sewer with a D. Everyone from Outside calls it SEA-ward.
Kenai: KEY-nye/KEEN-eye. Tourists can't help but call it ki-NYE/kin-EYE.
And nearby Soldotna is always mangled to sol-id-oh-DIT-na or something (the least wrong I've ever heard was sole-DOTE-nuh). It's sole-DOT-na.
Kotzebue: I have NEVER heard anyone pronounce this correctly. It's KOTZ-uh-byoo (Kotz for short). I've heard kotz-eh-BWAY and kotz-uh-BOO-ee.
Valdez: it's val-DEEZ, not val-DEZZ or bal-DAYSS (we're not hispanohablantes here ;)). (Cordova was [indirectly] named after Córdoba, Spain, but it's cor-DOHV-uh.)
And yes, we really do have a Tatitlek up here, right between Valdez and Cordova. It's pronounced just like you'd think. :p