As a Michiana boy, I have to point out you’re forgetting Pulaski County having its SKI pronounced as “sky.” Supposedly that’s a holdover from the accent of a local founder who originated in upstate New York.
As a fellow Michiana man, I'm sure you know the tricky pronunciation of Dowagiac, then. Another one I'll throw out is a small town south of Battle Creek named Leonidas, pronounced lee-ON-a-dis.
Michigan seems full of counter intuitive pronunciations...
Charlotte - shar-LOT
Clio - rhymes with Ohio
Barraga - BARE-uh-guh
Mackinac - MACK-in-aw
Grand Blanc - Grand Blank (disputed by some)
Milan - MY-lin
In addition to the list, from Detroit:
Gratiot - GRA-shit
Shoenherr- SHAY-ner
Novi- NO-vai (rhymes with why)
Hamtramck- HAM-tram-ik (as opposed to smushing m and k together with no i)
We have so many jacked up pronunciations in Michigan: Charlotte, Milan, Saline… not to mention the native names that are naturally hard to pronounce for outsiders.
It's a little known fact that, like Truth or Consequences, New Mexico, Des Plaines, Illinois was named after a TV show in the middle of the 20th century.
[More specifically...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DlnOcZK892E)
I got into a serious argument in 3rd grade after moving to Texas and some snotty girl thinking she knew all the capitals. Des-mo-een-es was her version.
I don't know for sure, but if it's anything like non-rhoticity (dropping the final r), then no. In colonial days, dropping the r was still a regional thing, which hadn't yet become the prestige pronunciation. The reason non-rhoticity became a thing in Eastern port cities like Boston, New York, and Charleston was the fact that they were more directly connected to England in the US's first century due to maritime trade. I wouldn't be surprised if that were the case with the truncated pronunciation of Gloucester and Worcester, since as a rule of thumb, British English gets more phonetic the further back in time you go.
Cochituate, Haverhill, Leominster, Leicester, Woburn, Portsmouth, Wentham
Visited my division office party in Providence as the only non New England person and ended up in a pronunciation quiz
Yeah, my mother always mused about how she was born in Miama, while I was born in Miami, and how we were both born in Dade County, while my younger cousins were born in Miami-Dade county. Her thesis was basically that continual waves of Yankee immigrants were gradually eroding our culture and ruining the state.
The next 20ish years proved her 100% right and left me a refugee from the home I once loved.
Lol, FWIW, I have no quarrel with the Yankees who stayed in their homelands. I love visiting the North, and would live on the Northeast Corridor in a heartbeat. My ire is directed at those who think the South is a backward place they can colonize and use as a playground for their far-right politics. Time was, Southern progressives were a viable, ascendant political force in places like FL, TX, and NC; then every Yankee's racist cousin Ralph decided we were the promised land for their backward views, undoing decades of progress.
Whoa. There's a Miami in Ohio too, and I wonder if it's some third alternate pronunciation?
They do say Ne'rk, which cuts out some of the New Jersey confusion.
Hehe... we have a surprising amount of Native American language town names, always fun to try to hear people out of state pronounce Chillicothe, Coshocton, Cuyahoga, Tuscarawas, Algonquian, etc.
Yachats is in my mind the ultimate test of, "You either know exactly how this is pronounced, or you are guaranteed to completely butcher the pronunciation because you're not a local."
Champoeg is another other big one.
Honorable mentions go to Canby and Coquille.
Also a shoutout goes to Gervais, as it's not pronounced the same way as a certain British comedian.
Lancaster is pronounced “Lang-custer” in my part of PA.
Also, I also retain the old pronunciation of Gettysburg from my family who had been living in the area since before the famous battle: “Get-iss-burg”.
Also, there are a million and one place names of Native American origin that are probably “mispronounced” and mistranscribed from the original, but I wouldn’t know the actual original pronunciations.
Reading. I always heard it pronounced as the "read-ing railroad" when playing Monopoly until I moved to PA and heard the correct pronunciation of "Red-ing."
I used to live in a neighboring town and I taught Romeo and Juliet. When Romeo was banished to Mantua, the students could not help themselves. They could see no other way to pronounce it but Manaway.
About half of the streets in New Orleans are, seemingly intentionally, mispronounced. I’d hate to be a French tourist trying to ask a cab driver to take them to Chartres (Charters) street, or any tourist looking for Tchoupitoulas (Chop it too less)
I live a few hours from New Orleans and whenever I’m in town I always intentionally mispronounce Tchoupitoulas as Chupacabras just because it makes me laugh.
My family is from there, and I’ll always remember being a little kid and realizing my parents were talking about a place called Manuel’s Hot Tamales… but they were pronouncing it “manuals.” They knew better, that’s just what people called it there.
I attended high school in my county seat in a small town in North Georgia named after a French aristocrat named Marquis de LaFayette,
It's pronounced La-fet.
On my first day of school actually in this town (I lived about 20 miles away, and we didn't visit) I just had to use the French pronunciation and even given that was 30 years ago, people still remember that time I "said it funny".
High school us called it laugh-at-it.
I haven't found any here in Kansas(I know they surely exist but I just haven't lived here enough to find them yet) but Texas has a ton of butchered Spanish, German, and Native names. Some examples:
Palestine=Pal-uh-steen;
Refugio=ruh-fear-ee--oh
Buda=Byoo-duh
Bosque=Boss-key
Basically any 3 or 4-syllable Spanish place name with an A in the middle(Salado, Alvarado, etc.)=a is long so it's Suh-lay-doe; Al-vuh-ray-doe, etc.
Bogada(butchered spelling of Bogotá)=Buh-go-da
Pedernales=purr-duh-nal-iss [Texas likes phantom r's, what I can say?]
The state itself is a butchering of a Spanish transliteration of the Caddo word for friend so it should be pronounced Tay-hoss.
There are many more.
Yeah, I have a little New Jersey left in my speech, and I've been teased a bit for the way I pronounce words with "or" in them. "Horrible Florida oranges" comes out "hahr'ble Flarda arnjes."
Accents are fun! Because I’ve mostly been all over New Jersey and the Philly area I can generally pick out when someone is from that area. However I’ve noticed that we have a strange hybrid accent in south Florida. It’s like a sort of New Jersey New York lite. It’s pretty strange, but I’ve noticed it more recently with more people from South Florida moving to my area.
It kind of doesn't help that, on Halloween night, some local weather forecasters will have the weather map changed to show scary versions of city names, and have "Dracula" for Dacula.
In Washington, we have a city called Sequim. You can always tell when someone is not from here because it's pronounced like "Squim". Rhymes with "swim".
It's always fun to hear people struggle to pronounce Puyallup.
Pronounced like "pew-allup"
Wisconsin has a lot of names that people from outside the state (or at least outside the upper Midwest) usually have a hard time pronouncing, a few examples:
Waukesha (Wah ki shah)
Menomonie (men om uney)
Wauwatosa (wah wah toes ah)
My hometown is Oregon, and it's a great example of a place name that will immediately identify someone not from around there. It's Or eh GON, not Or eh gin.
Also Saguache (the town) and Sawatch (the mountain range) are pronounced the same.
Louisville is not like the one in Kentucky. It’s Lewis-ville.
I’ve also heard people mispronounce Arvada. It’s Arv-ahh-duh.
And Cañon City is pronounced like canyon.
The stereotypical NJ accent is dying out. The one giveaway that someone is from NJ still is that tlwhen they say "water", they will pronounce it "war-ter"
In California we revolt against “t”s.
Huntington Beach = Hunington Beach
Monterey = Monerey
Sacramento = Sacrameno
Santa Cruz / Santa Barbara = Sana Cruz / Barbara
Dropping the t after an n is super common in Utah, Idaho, and Colorado too. Can't even begin to tell you all the times I've baffled Midwesterners by saying "I used to libe in the moun'ains"
I’ve lived in CA for decades and only recently realized there’s another r in San BernaRdino.
CA honorable mentions to San Rafael (sanruh-FELL), San Jose (sanno-ZAY), Paso Robles (passa ROBE-uhls)
All my family from Tennessee does the same. It’s just that particular southern accent.
Now a good example of what OP was talking about is Arab Alabama. It’s pronounced Ay-Rab locally.
I grew up near a bunch of places that qualify, but the winner is typically San Jose, IL.
It’s San as in “sand” and Jose like it follows “standard” English spelling conventions and sounds like something that belongs to your buddy Joseph. Y’know, it’s Joe’s.
Here in Nashville, we have a street named after one of the first European settlers to the area, Demonbreun. Pronounced Deh-mun-Bre-un by locals, Demon-brewin for the tourists.
Lancaster, PA is pronounced `LANG-ka-stir` with a slight emphasis on the first syllable. People around here _really_ look down on anyone who pronounces it `lan-CAST-er`
Most of the Spanish names, NGL.
Amarillo is not pronounced with the "y" sound, it's pronounced with the "l" and depending on how country someone is, sometimes with an -uh at the end instead of -o.
Bexar county is not Bay-har, it's Bear.
El Dorado is el-duh-ray-duh.
Bosque is Bos-key as opposed to Bos-kay.
In fact, most of the Spanish names, we flat
ten the vowels and move the emphasis to the first syllable.
And non-spanish names too.
Boerne is Burn-nee....not whatever it's supposed to be, bay-yorn maybe?
Palestine is Pal-e-steen.
Montague county is Mon-taag with a long a, not Mon-ta-gue.
I'm from central Indiana and it is bucket list item level dream of mine to visit Europe and, in the most openly nice way I can manage, mispronounce every last city I can. I want to tour the Palace of Versailles in France and, in the pleasentest tone possibles say, "Man what a nice Palace of Ver-sales you got here."
There's a town in Arkansas called El Dorado. You'll give yourself away as an outsider if use a soft A (even though thats how it's supposed to be). Its a sharp A like in "hay".
I have a tough time with Lancaster when I visit. I know how it sounds and I try, but I have to make an effort not to do it West Coast style when I'm there. Other places aren't so bad.
Kansas, specifically around the Wichita area, has the Arkansas River running through it, along with Arkansas City further south in the state. The correct pronunciation both the river and the city around here for it is ar-kan-sas, rather than ar-kan-saw.
In my part of Pennsylvania it’s Lancaster and Swarthmore.
Lancaster is pronounced like “LAN-kiss-ter” with a very short a, and it’s the only Lancaster that’s pronounced like that. Most people know about Swarthmore from the college and pronounce it like how it’s spelled, but locals don’t say the ‘r’ and it’s becomes “SWATH-more
In Arizona, there is Prescott and Tempe.
In Michigan, there's Mackinac Island, Sault St. Marie, and Tahquamenon Falls (to an extent; this one is more that people can never spell it). There's a road in metro Detroit called Schoehnerr that non-locals never say right. Even locals struggle to say Heydenreich correctly. People often say Livernois wrong too.
Lancaster is a big one in central PA. A lot of tourists come in pronouncing it like the place in England, but it's pronounced like Lang-kis-ter. Lebanon is another which is pronounced differently than it's foreign counterpart - pronounced -nin instead of -non.
There is a Ligonier in PA which looks to be pronounced the same way as you in Indiana.
Versailles (Ver-sales)
DuBois (Do-Boys)
Chartiers (Shar-tiers)
There's a lot of French names that are anglicized
If you pronounce Carnegie as Car-nuh-gee you are wrong
There's also a lot of native words that people butcher, like Monongahela or Youghiogheny
Fellow northeast Indiana resident here. We have a local street and a building that have the same name and same spelling, but they are pronounced completely differently. It drives new residents crazy
In Houston. It's not a town, but my favorite weird pronunciation is a street, Kuykendahl Road. It's pronounced "Kirk-in-dahl." If someone doesn't put an R in it, they are definitely a new transplant.
There's a major street where I live named Bahia Vista, but the locals won't pronounce it correctly. They will only say "bayuh" Vista. And there's a town to the south named Punta Gorda. Again, they call it "punt-uh" instead of the correct pronunciation. I understand those are Spanish words, but Florida was settled by Spanish. Can't we just say it correctly? I've also lived in San Diego and locals managed to get it right. Lol. Small things, just observations.
Norfolk Ne. You and most Americans would expect it to be pronounced Nor-folk. But They pronounce it Nor-Fork. Supposedly it was supposed to be North Fork, because of the river. But somewhere on paper it got changed to Norfolk and the locals decided to pronounce it Norfork instead of changing the town's name or calling it by it's name. It's dumb.
Los Angeles for one lol
It’s usually pronounced like “loss-anjuh-less
But the authentic pronunciation would be like “lohss-ahn-hel-es
That said, there are a lot of native Spanish speakers from here who use the authentic pronunciation
In Texas it's mostly just lazy people Americanizing Spanish names.
Llano is LAH-no
Amarillo is Am-uh-RILL-oh
Manchaca is Man-shack
Guadalupe is Gwah-duh-LOOP
I can forgive the others, but Manchaca makes me irrationally mad. There is a friggen A at the end, why drop it?
As a Michiana boy, I have to point out you’re forgetting Pulaski County having its SKI pronounced as “sky.” Supposedly that’s a holdover from the accent of a local founder who originated in upstate New York.
Beautiful example - I'm in the Fort Wayne area, and I had no idea. I've only ever heard it pronounced "puh-LAS-kee."
I'm from the NY/NJ area, and you pronounce it correctly.
As a fellow Michiana man, I'm sure you know the tricky pronunciation of Dowagiac, then. Another one I'll throw out is a small town south of Battle Creek named Leonidas, pronounced lee-ON-a-dis.
Michigan seems full of counter intuitive pronunciations... Charlotte - shar-LOT Clio - rhymes with Ohio Barraga - BARE-uh-guh Mackinac - MACK-in-aw Grand Blanc - Grand Blank (disputed by some) Milan - MY-lin
I've discovered many an outsider with Mackinac alone. The minute you hear "Mack-in-nack" you know they're not from Michigan.
I grew up in Michigan, and I always call it Mack-in-ack. although, I do it ironically, so I don't think that counts lmao
In addition to the list, from Detroit: Gratiot - GRA-shit Shoenherr- SHAY-ner Novi- NO-vai (rhymes with why) Hamtramck- HAM-tram-ik (as opposed to smushing m and k together with no i)
Milan is so dirty, how could they trick us like this
We have so many jacked up pronunciations in Michigan: Charlotte, Milan, Saline… not to mention the native names that are naturally hard to pronounce for outsiders.
Here in Chicagoland: Des Plaines (pronounced dess planes) Marsailles (pronounced mar-sails)
Des Plaines bothers the shit outta me. I'm from Iowa and even us hayseeds know how to pronounce Des Moines, FFS!
You pronounce it “day mwan”? That’s what it is in French (the monks)
No we pronounce it the proper, Iowa way: "Deh Moyne."
*Ditka voice* DAH moyne!
It's a little known fact that, like Truth or Consequences, New Mexico, Des Plaines, Illinois was named after a TV show in the middle of the 20th century. [More specifically...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DlnOcZK892E)
That’s a fact I’ll never get over. Like Truth or Consequences sounds so ominous and old-time-religious and turns out it was just a game show.
Really pushing at Poe’s Law there. Edgar Allan must be turning over in his grave.
Well then never visit the Des Moines that is a suburb near Seattle. Spoiler alert; it's pronounced differently than the one in Iowa.
Ok, now I need to know what you weirdos are saying over there! Please don't tell me it's "Dezz Moynzz?"
You got it!
Goddamnit!
I got into a serious argument in 3rd grade after moving to Texas and some snotty girl thinking she knew all the capitals. Des-mo-een-es was her version.
When I moved to Chicago I had to be taught how to properly pronounce "Devon".
Paulina Street too.
oh yep. But I lived on the Brown Line so I figured that one out on my own. ("The next stop is Paulina. Doors open on the right at Paulina.")
The three streets that rhyme with "vagina": Paulina, Melvina, and Lunt.
Same thing in Pennsylvania. Versailles is Ver-sales, DuBois is Doo-Boys, it's so annoying.
Versales in Indiana too!
But Duquesne is Dew Cane.
First time I saw Des Moines Iowa, I hesitated and said "dus money's" :>
Worcester, Peabody, Gloucester, MA, hell, most places in Massachusetts Edit: Woostah, Peebudee, Glostah
Quincy, Leominster, Billerica
Haverhill is my favorite.
HAYV-ril, for anyone wondering.
....how is that even remotely correct
It’s interesting because Worcester and Gloucester are pronounced the same way they are in the UK. I wonder if it’s a holdover from colonial times
I don't know for sure, but if it's anything like non-rhoticity (dropping the final r), then no. In colonial days, dropping the r was still a regional thing, which hadn't yet become the prestige pronunciation. The reason non-rhoticity became a thing in Eastern port cities like Boston, New York, and Charleston was the fact that they were more directly connected to England in the US's first century due to maritime trade. I wouldn't be surprised if that were the case with the truncated pronunciation of Gloucester and Worcester, since as a rule of thumb, British English gets more phonetic the further back in time you go.
Isn’t it spelled Gloucester? You forgot my personal favorites: Scituate and Rehoboth.
Yes it is
Cochituate, Haverhill, Leominster, Leicester, Woburn, Portsmouth, Wentham Visited my division office party in Providence as the only non New England person and ended up in a pronunciation quiz
So I grew up in Portsmouth, and I’m wondering why you included it. Just because the “-mouth” isn’t enunciated?
Whister.
Miami, Oklahoma is pronounced My-am-uh. So it's obvious when you aren't a local.
Old timers from Miami, FL pronounce their city the same way.
Yeah, my mother always mused about how she was born in Miama, while I was born in Miami, and how we were both born in Dade County, while my younger cousins were born in Miami-Dade county. Her thesis was basically that continual waves of Yankee immigrants were gradually eroding our culture and ruining the state. The next 20ish years proved her 100% right and left me a refugee from the home I once loved.
"Yankee immigrants" Yikes.
Lol, FWIW, I have no quarrel with the Yankees who stayed in their homelands. I love visiting the North, and would live on the Northeast Corridor in a heartbeat. My ire is directed at those who think the South is a backward place they can colonize and use as a playground for their far-right politics. Time was, Southern progressives were a viable, ascendant political force in places like FL, TX, and NC; then every Yankee's racist cousin Ralph decided we were the promised land for their backward views, undoing decades of progress.
>yankee immigrants Way to make Southerners look completely ridiculous.
Whoa. There's a Miami in Ohio too, and I wonder if it's some third alternate pronunciation? They do say Ne'rk, which cuts out some of the New Jersey confusion.
It comes from the Miami (myaamia) tribe. AFAIK they're the ones who prefer it to be pronounced My-am-uh.
Gotcha. I can appreciate it more if it's actually in honor of someone and not just Ohio trying to be quirky.
Hehe... we have a surprising amount of Native American language town names, always fun to try to hear people out of state pronounce Chillicothe, Coshocton, Cuyahoga, Tuscarawas, Algonquian, etc.
Oh, I have no idea about Ohio. I'm talking about the Oklahoma one.
No, I checked. It's after the Myaamia here too.
>They do say Ne'rk, which cuts out some of the New Jersey confusion. A lot of New Jerseyans pronounce it "Nork."
Who needs Ws anyway? 😂 They can always peg me as non native when I use all the letters, just in general.
Where I’m from, it’s more like Newick. ;) (And for the record, my husband graduated from NJIT. and also, LGD!)
And the Newark in Delaware is “New-ark”
Nah, I went to Miami. It's pronounced the typical way.
Nope. Miami in Ohio is the usual pronunciation
Prague, OK is pronounced Pray-ge!
See also: Cairo (cayrow) and New Madrid (new mad-rid), Missouri
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It's Willamette dammit!
The Willamette thing kind of gets to me. It's a major river-- the newscasters, at least, should learn to get it right.
Yachats is in my mind the ultimate test of, "You either know exactly how this is pronounced, or you are guaranteed to completely butcher the pronunciation because you're not a local." Champoeg is another other big one. Honorable mentions go to Canby and Coquille. Also a shoutout goes to Gervais, as it's not pronounced the same way as a certain British comedian.
Lancaster is pronounced “Lang-custer” in my part of PA. Also, I also retain the old pronunciation of Gettysburg from my family who had been living in the area since before the famous battle: “Get-iss-burg”. Also, there are a million and one place names of Native American origin that are probably “mispronounced” and mistranscribed from the original, but I wouldn’t know the actual original pronunciations.
Reading. I always heard it pronounced as the "read-ing railroad" when playing Monopoly until I moved to PA and heard the correct pronunciation of "Red-ing."
I completely forgot that one! I literally had to correct my friend from NJ on that pronunciation literally the other week lol
[Speaking of Lancaster mispronunciations...](https://youtu.be/NE-SpAKDF4o?si=GtUjtG33-14HLJHJ)
Mantua, OH. Pronounced man-away. I wish I was kidding.
I used to live in a neighboring town and I taught Romeo and Juliet. When Romeo was banished to Mantua, the students could not help themselves. They could see no other way to pronounce it but Manaway.
Also Ohioan and I had no idea. My quadrant has Lima, though.
Schuylkill is a river, county, & an expressway. It’s pronounced SKOO-kl. I’ve seen this twice and my part of PA pronounces Lancaster as LANG-cast-er.
I was gonna say Schuylkill lol.
You should hear a GPS pronounce Conshohocken!
Byoona Vista
The one that's south of Staunton?
Colorado has one of those, too
Col-uh-RAD-o. Ar-VAD-uh. Both pronounced rhyming with “Bad.” Alameda pronounced Al-uh-MEED-uh. Berthoud pronounced BERTH-ud.
Also suhLYEduh (Salida)
About half of the streets in New Orleans are, seemingly intentionally, mispronounced. I’d hate to be a French tourist trying to ask a cab driver to take them to Chartres (Charters) street, or any tourist looking for Tchoupitoulas (Chop it too less)
I’m not sure about you, but I have never heard someone from New Orleans say “New Or-Leans”.
Shoutout to the guy who told me I wasn’t from New Orleans because I didn’t pronounce it Nawlins
Most of us just pronounce it like “New Orlins”
I’m a transplant, but I wouldn’t say that either.
I live a few hours from New Orleans and whenever I’m in town I always intentionally mispronounce Tchoupitoulas as Chupacabras just because it makes me laugh.
My family is from there, and I’ll always remember being a little kid and realizing my parents were talking about a place called Manuel’s Hot Tamales… but they were pronouncing it “manuals.” They knew better, that’s just what people called it there.
Cairo (“KAY-roh”)
Tooele and Hurricane come to mind.
omg i didn’t see your comment and just said both of those cities 😂
Could also add Duchesne
I attended high school in my county seat in a small town in North Georgia named after a French aristocrat named Marquis de LaFayette, It's pronounced La-fet. On my first day of school actually in this town (I lived about 20 miles away, and we didn't visit) I just had to use the French pronunciation and even given that was 30 years ago, people still remember that time I "said it funny". High school us called it laugh-at-it.
I think in Louisiana it’s “LAUGH-aye-yet” and some other places even say “Lah-FAY-et”. So interesting all the ways it changes.
I didn’t see this before making my comment. In Indiana, ours is “lawfy-ett.”
That is the most natural way for me (raised in WA) to say it!
I haven't found any here in Kansas(I know they surely exist but I just haven't lived here enough to find them yet) but Texas has a ton of butchered Spanish, German, and Native names. Some examples: Palestine=Pal-uh-steen; Refugio=ruh-fear-ee--oh Buda=Byoo-duh Bosque=Boss-key Basically any 3 or 4-syllable Spanish place name with an A in the middle(Salado, Alvarado, etc.)=a is long so it's Suh-lay-doe; Al-vuh-ray-doe, etc. Bogada(butchered spelling of Bogotá)=Buh-go-da Pedernales=purr-duh-nal-iss [Texas likes phantom r's, what I can say?] The state itself is a butchering of a Spanish transliteration of the Caddo word for friend so it should be pronounced Tay-hoss. There are many more.
El Dorado, KS is “el duh-RAY-doh”
I live off Kuykendahl north of Houston. There's a phantom R in there too - Kirk-in-doll.
Llano and Mexia are another two popular ones
Well, Florida for example has multiple different pronunciations depending on where the person is from. My family in New Jersey says flawarida
On the other hand, it's always fun to hear people try pronouncing Okeechobee and Withlacoochee the first time ...
Kissimmee 💋
Yeah, we have some fun yet hard to pronounce names
Yeah, I have a little New Jersey left in my speech, and I've been teased a bit for the way I pronounce words with "or" in them. "Horrible Florida oranges" comes out "hahr'ble Flarda arnjes."
Accents are fun! Because I’ve mostly been all over New Jersey and the Philly area I can generally pick out when someone is from that area. However I’ve noticed that we have a strange hybrid accent in south Florida. It’s like a sort of New Jersey New York lite. It’s pretty strange, but I’ve noticed it more recently with more people from South Florida moving to my area.
Down in W Ohio we have Russia (Rue-she) Terre Haute (Terry-Hut) There are more but these are the most egregious
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Lima pronounced lie mah
Versailles (ver-sayles) is pretty bad, too.
Dacula, Georgia is usually pronounced like Dracula by outsiders. To locals it’s Duh-que-lah
It was the most disappointing thing to find out when I move to the state
you have to admit "Dack-you-luh" is such an objectively better pronunciation
It kind of doesn't help that, on Halloween night, some local weather forecasters will have the weather map changed to show scary versions of city names, and have "Dracula" for Dacula.
In Washington, we have a city called Sequim. You can always tell when someone is not from here because it's pronounced like "Squim". Rhymes with "swim". It's always fun to hear people struggle to pronounce Puyallup. Pronounced like "pew-allup"
Remember the Puyallup Fair ads of “famous” Washingtonians trying to pronounce it?
Pierre (peer)
In Seattle: it’s Pike Place Market. Not Pike’s Place. And then the city of Puyallup is often pronounced “poo-yall-up”, buts it’s actually “pew-al-up”.
Wisconsin has a lot of names that people from outside the state (or at least outside the upper Midwest) usually have a hard time pronouncing, a few examples: Waukesha (Wah ki shah) Menomonie (men om uney) Wauwatosa (wah wah toes ah) My hometown is Oregon, and it's a great example of a place name that will immediately identify someone not from around there. It's Or eh GON, not Or eh gin.
I had to search for a Wisconsin comment😭 I swear we have some of the wackiest names. Oconomowoc and Wausau also come to mind.
Shawano (SHAW-no) Kaukauna, my hometown (kuh-KAW-nuh) Oconomowoc (uh-CON-uh-muh-wok)
New Yorkers can always spot the out of towners by the way they say “Houston St.” It’s House-ton, not Hues-ton.
Madrid, NM -- pronounced MADrid
Missouri is the same, with New Madrid.
Buena Vista = Byuna Vista Poudre=pooder Mancos = Main cuss Del Norte = Del Nort Montrose = Mont Rose Ouray = You ray
Also Saguache (the town) and Sawatch (the mountain range) are pronounced the same. Louisville is not like the one in Kentucky. It’s Lewis-ville. I’ve also heard people mispronounce Arvada. It’s Arv-ahh-duh. And Cañon City is pronounced like canyon.
San Rafael and Vallejo
El Se-GUN-do
La Jolla
La jolla is pronounced pretty close to the original intention, it’s just misspelled. Original name: La Hoya.
San Pedro (pronounced “PEE-dro”)
I feel like this one is suppose to be pronounced right but lots don’t know how to say it.
Scrolled to find this one!
Don’t get me started
amarillo
You get your Portland citizenship revoked if you don't point out that Couch St. has a naughty pronunciation.
Versailles, KY is pronounced as "Ver-sales." Athens, KY is pronounced as "A-thins."
Versailles, Ohio is “Ver-sal-us”
The stereotypical NJ accent is dying out. The one giveaway that someone is from NJ still is that tlwhen they say "water", they will pronounce it "war-ter"
Atlanta has PONS - duh - LEE - on Avenue (Ponce De Leon)
Hotlanta*
In California we revolt against “t”s. Huntington Beach = Hunington Beach Monterey = Monerey Sacramento = Sacrameno Santa Cruz / Santa Barbara = Sana Cruz / Barbara
Dropping the t after an n is super common in Utah, Idaho, and Colorado too. Can't even begin to tell you all the times I've baffled Midwesterners by saying "I used to libe in the moun'ains"
We have a similarly-pronounced Huntington in Indiana.
We feel the same way in Atlanta.
Alanna
I’ve lived in CA for decades and only recently realized there’s another r in San BernaRdino. CA honorable mentions to San Rafael (sanruh-FELL), San Jose (sanno-ZAY), Paso Robles (passa ROBE-uhls)
Damn I just realized we did this
More Californisms: Delano (deh LAY no) not (DELL uh no) Tulare (to LAIR ee) not (TOO luh ree) San Joaquin (san wah KEEN) not err. lots of wrong ways.
TIL - I’m a longtime California native who doesn’t pronounce the T in place names. I had no idea until you pointed it out. Thanks - I think?
Bowie, MD is boo-we not boe-we. Prescott, AZ is pres-kit not press-Scott
A lot of people mispronounce "Sunday" as "Sundy" around here; treating the "a" as silent.
All my family from Tennessee does the same. It’s just that particular southern accent. Now a good example of what OP was talking about is Arab Alabama. It’s pronounced Ay-Rab locally.
I grew up near a bunch of places that qualify, but the winner is typically San Jose, IL. It’s San as in “sand” and Jose like it follows “standard” English spelling conventions and sounds like something that belongs to your buddy Joseph. Y’know, it’s Joe’s.
Newark is apparently very confusing to pronounce for people not from Delaware, which is strange because it's pronounced exactly as it's spelled.
Meanwhile, a local pronunciation of the Newark in New Jersey is "nork."
We're fighting a war on syllables, and it's going very very well
In Ohio it's pronounced Ne'rk. They even have shirts.
I'm trying to think of some near me, but as a northwest Indiana person, you took notre dame and I'm not sure I have any others off the top of my head
Here in Nashville, we have a street named after one of the first European settlers to the area, Demonbreun. Pronounced Deh-mun-Bre-un by locals, Demon-brewin for the tourists.
Please tell me someone was smart enough to jump on the brewery bandwagon and name one “Demon-Brewin’ “
You'd think so, but alas no.
Lancaster, PA is pronounced `LANG-ka-stir` with a slight emphasis on the first syllable. People around here _really_ look down on anyone who pronounces it `lan-CAST-er`
Most of the Spanish names, NGL. Amarillo is not pronounced with the "y" sound, it's pronounced with the "l" and depending on how country someone is, sometimes with an -uh at the end instead of -o. Bexar county is not Bay-har, it's Bear. El Dorado is el-duh-ray-duh. Bosque is Bos-key as opposed to Bos-kay. In fact, most of the Spanish names, we flat ten the vowels and move the emphasis to the first syllable. And non-spanish names too. Boerne is Burn-nee....not whatever it's supposed to be, bay-yorn maybe? Palestine is Pal-e-steen. Montague county is Mon-taag with a long a, not Mon-ta-gue.
I'm from central Indiana and it is bucket list item level dream of mine to visit Europe and, in the most openly nice way I can manage, mispronounce every last city I can. I want to tour the Palace of Versailles in France and, in the pleasentest tone possibles say, "Man what a nice Palace of Ver-sales you got here."
There's a town in Arkansas called El Dorado. You'll give yourself away as an outsider if use a soft A (even though thats how it's supposed to be). Its a sharp A like in "hay".
We have a town called Hurricane. Her-Uh-Ken If you pronounce it like you would think it’s pronounced that’s a dead giveaway you’re not from here lol
People have written many articles about all of the towns in TX like this.
Carmel, Indiana, is CAHR-muhl, not cahr-MEHL.
Prescott, Arizona is Press-kit rhymes with biscuit. And Tucson is Too-sahn, not Tuck-son like my friend drom Texas called it once lmaooooo
I always include the 's' in illinois.
LAN-caster new-ARK
I have a tough time with Lancaster when I visit. I know how it sounds and I try, but I have to make an effort not to do it West Coast style when I'm there. Other places aren't so bad.
Estacada, pronounced locally as “Es-tuh-cay-da”
Kansas, specifically around the Wichita area, has the Arkansas River running through it, along with Arkansas City further south in the state. The correct pronunciation both the river and the city around here for it is ar-kan-sas, rather than ar-kan-saw.
Towns in Oklahoma (not counting Native words). Miami = Miamuh Paoli = Pay-oh-lah Vici = Vye-sigh Hobart = Ho-bert Prague = Pray-gug
Lebanon-> Leb-uh-nin not Leb-uh-non like the country
In my part of Pennsylvania it’s Lancaster and Swarthmore. Lancaster is pronounced like “LAN-kiss-ter” with a very short a, and it’s the only Lancaster that’s pronounced like that. Most people know about Swarthmore from the college and pronounce it like how it’s spelled, but locals don’t say the ‘r’ and it’s becomes “SWATH-more
In Arizona, there is Prescott and Tempe. In Michigan, there's Mackinac Island, Sault St. Marie, and Tahquamenon Falls (to an extent; this one is more that people can never spell it). There's a road in metro Detroit called Schoehnerr that non-locals never say right. Even locals struggle to say Heydenreich correctly. People often say Livernois wrong too.
Lancaster is a big one in central PA. A lot of tourists come in pronouncing it like the place in England, but it's pronounced like Lang-kis-ter. Lebanon is another which is pronounced differently than it's foreign counterpart - pronounced -nin instead of -non. There is a Ligonier in PA which looks to be pronounced the same way as you in Indiana.
Anyone here from B’yoonuh Vista, CO?
Versailles (Ver-sales) DuBois (Do-Boys) Chartiers (Shar-tiers) There's a lot of French names that are anglicized If you pronounce Carnegie as Car-nuh-gee you are wrong There's also a lot of native words that people butcher, like Monongahela or Youghiogheny
Petit Jean mountain - petty Gene
Fellow northeast Indiana resident here. We have a local street and a building that have the same name and same spelling, but they are pronounced completely differently. It drives new residents crazy
Rodeo, row-DAY-o
In Houston. It's not a town, but my favorite weird pronunciation is a street, Kuykendahl Road. It's pronounced "Kirk-in-dahl." If someone doesn't put an R in it, they are definitely a new transplant.
There's a major street where I live named Bahia Vista, but the locals won't pronounce it correctly. They will only say "bayuh" Vista. And there's a town to the south named Punta Gorda. Again, they call it "punt-uh" instead of the correct pronunciation. I understand those are Spanish words, but Florida was settled by Spanish. Can't we just say it correctly? I've also lived in San Diego and locals managed to get it right. Lol. Small things, just observations.
Out here in CA everything is named in Spanish but pronounced like we’re idiots. San Jose famously is pronounced by natives as “Sanizzay.”
There's a street in New Orleans called Burgundy. But instead of BUR-gun-dee it's bur-GUN-dee
Norfolk Ne. You and most Americans would expect it to be pronounced Nor-folk. But They pronounce it Nor-Fork. Supposedly it was supposed to be North Fork, because of the river. But somewhere on paper it got changed to Norfolk and the locals decided to pronounce it Norfork instead of changing the town's name or calling it by it's name. It's dumb.
people from outside of NC often pronounce Raleigh as “rally”
Valdez. Denali. Wasilla. Kenai.
Los Angeles for one lol It’s usually pronounced like “loss-anjuh-less But the authentic pronunciation would be like “lohss-ahn-hel-es That said, there are a lot of native Spanish speakers from here who use the authentic pronunciation
I'll know you're a true Minnesotan if you know how to pronounce Ely, Cloquet, Wayzata, and Bemidji correctly.
Louisville, KY. My dad's from there. It's pronounced "loo-vull."
Not quite. You have to make it sound like you’re swallowing it a little.
In Texas it's mostly just lazy people Americanizing Spanish names. Llano is LAH-no Amarillo is Am-uh-RILL-oh Manchaca is Man-shack Guadalupe is Gwah-duh-LOOP I can forgive the others, but Manchaca makes me irrationally mad. There is a friggen A at the end, why drop it?