Towns that are not pronounced as they’re written

[roadman65]

How is the US 68 control city here pronounced?
https://goo.gl/maps/eU4msgk6dxBqSvvd6

That always interested me seeing it on I-71 guides at US 68.

[kphoger]

How is the US 68 control city here pronounced?
https://goo.gl/maps/eU4msgk6dxBqSvvd6

ˈziːniə

[1995hoo]

Isn't there also a town where the name is two words, XXXX ZZZZ, but it's pronounced ZZZZ XXXX? I thought I read something about that somewhere.

I think you're thinking of Zzyzx, CA. It's pronounced Zy-Zix.

Does that phonetic spelling denote the "y" as a long "i" sound, a short "i" sound, or a long "e" sound? I assume not the latter and I'm guessing it's a long "i" due to the juxtaposition with an "i" that is clearly short in context.

[JayhawkCO]

Isn't there also a town where the name is two words, XXXX ZZZZ, but it's pronounced ZZZZ XXXX? I thought I read something about that somewhere.

I think you're thinking of Zzyzx, CA. It's pronounced Zy-Zix.

Does that phonetic spelling denote the "y" as a long "i" sound, a short "i" sound, or a long "e" sound? I assume not the latter and I'm guessing it's a long "i" due to the juxtaposition with an "i" that is clearly short in context.

From Wikipedia - Zzyzx (/ˈzaɪzɪks/ ZY-ziks)

[SSOWorld]

Lancaster: Lan-cast-er or Lank-ister.
Cairo - or Cay-ro (covered above)
San Pedro - how do you pronounce it in spanish, not San Pee-dro. Same is true for Los Angeles itself.
Waukesha - It's WAUK-eh-sha, not Wau-KEE-Sha.
Vilas County - not Vee-laas.

[kphoger]

Waukesha - It's WAUK-eh-sha, not Wau-KEE-Sha.

I don't think you can say either one is the more "natural" pronunciation.  In fact, I assumed it was pronounced WAUK-eh-sha without even knowing.

[roadman65]

Ponte Vedra Beach is pronounced the Spanish way, but Floridians pronounce the e in Vedra as ee not ayh.  E in Spanish is pronounced as ay not as ee.

[kphoger]

Ponte Vedra Beach is pronounced the Spanish way, but Floridians pronounce the e in Vedra as ee not ayh.  E in Spanish is pronounced as ay not as ee.

The letter e in Spanish is pronounced as eh–neither as ay nor as ee.  It's generally a little more closed than the English short-e sound in Ben, but it's quite a bit more open than the English long-a sound in bane.  Therefore, the pronunciation of the Spanish word ven (come here) is somewhere in between the two, but it's a lot closer to Ben than it is to bane.

In English, the ay sound (as in stay) is actually a borderline diphthong–two vowel sounds smooshed together:  eh→y.  (You may have noticed that the English long-a sound is often rendered as /eɪ/ in IPA representation, and this is why.)  This does not happen with the Spanish letter e, which is a true monophthong.

For example, if you say rr-ay-no, then you did not pronounce the word reno (reindeer).  Rather, you pronounced the word reino (kingdom).

Likewise, if you say the English word lay, it does not sound like the Spanish word le (indirect object pronoun).  Rather, it sounds more similar to the Spanish word ley (law).

The Spanish pronunciation of Vedra, then, would be similar to Beh-thdd-ah (with the dd as in the English word ladder).


Examples of the Spanish vowel e:

https://soundcloud.com/mimic-method/e-word-list-sp?utm_source=clipboard&utm_campaign=wtshare&utm_medium=widget&utm_content=https%253A%252F%252Fsoundcloud.com%252Fmimic-method%252Fe-word-list-sp

[roadman65]

Spanish is tricky because you have Spanglish that Puerto Ricans often use.  They say mommy over Madre to address their mother. Madre is Spanish for Mother.  Yet in the US most boys use mommy only to address their mother up until junior high, where mom or mother is the norm in Jr. and Sr. High. You would be picked on in High School if you said mommy still, but in the Hispanic community mommy is the norm forever..

Then it took two times to convince spell check that Madre is a word as once it changed it to Marge and another to made, to write this post.

[kphoger]

Spanish is tricky because you have Spanglish that Puerto Ricans often use.  They say mommy over Madre to address their mother.

Unlike English, where people in every country use the same word for mother.

[JayhawkCO]

Spanish is tricky because you have Spanglish that Puerto Ricans often use.  They say mommy over Madre to address their mother.

Unlike English, where people in every country use the same word for mother.

Not sure if you're being sarcastic. Knowing you, probably so. But just in case not, English mum vs. American mom vs. Scottish ma.

[kphoger]

Yes, that was sarcasm.

I was surprised once, on a Greyhound bus in Wisconsin.  The man next to me was from El Salvador, on his way to Green Bay to visit family.  He didn't speak any English.  But he referred to his children as "mis babies".  Then I learned later it was actually the colloquial Spanish word bebis.

[CNGL-Leudimin]

And continuing with Spanish, good luck finding one single town in Spain with a counter-intuitive pronounciation . Spanish is so regular, you are guaranteed to nail the pronounciation by just reading the name (dialectal sound shifts aside). Well, there's really one such town, but is more of a spelling irregularity: Aýna, in the province of Albacete (Southeastern Spain). Due to it retaining an archaical spelling, it is actually pronounced as it is were written "Aína", and with three syllabes instead of two (ah-ee-nah instead of eye-nah). Due to this, it became famous when a minor spelling reform added an acute to the Y, becoming the only instance of the character Ý in Spanish.

[Scott5114]

I think that putting diacritics on Y is pretty rare in any Latin-alphabet language.

Since English doesn't have any, I have a bit of a fascination with weird diacritics, like Norwegian Ã... and French Ã". I get the circumflex, but I've had a hard time finding a good explanation for what the difference between A and Ã... is.

[CtrlAltDel]

I think that putting diacritics on Y is pretty rare in any Latin-alphabet language.

Since English doesn't have any, I have a bit of a fascination with weird diacritics, like Norwegian Ã... and French Ã". I get the circumflex, but I've had a hard time finding a good explanation for what the difference between A and Ã... is.

The ¨ also appears on y in French, albeit only in proper nouns, such as the following, all of which are municipalities.
Aÿ-Champagne
Moÿ-de-l'Aisne
Faÿ-lès-Nemours
L'Haÿ-les-Roses

It is arguably not the least commonly used letter-diacritic combo in French, which could be ù, which is only used in the very common où, which means "where."

[lepidopteran]

Did anyone mention Bowie, MD?  Pronounced BOO-ee, unlike pop singer David Bowie.

Monsey, NY is pronounced the same as Muncie, IN and Muncy, PA (some think it's pronounced like MON-ster)

I've occasionally heard the city of Piqua, OH pronounced PIK-way rather than PIK-wah, though I'm not sure which is correct.  There did use to be a shoe store called Pic-way.
Chillicothe, OH is CHIL-i-KOTH-ee.  At least once I've heard it as chil-i-KOATH
Gallipolis, OH is pronounced GAL-ə-pə-LEES; I used to think it was GAL-ə-POLL-is.

In PA, Wilkes-Barre is generally pronounced wilks-BERRY, though wilks-BEAR might be acceptable as we.  Not sure if Wilkes can be 2 syllables.
The hamlet of Paxinos is pronounced pax-I-nəs, at least according to a radio commercial for a business located there.

How about Kissimmee, FL?  I used to think it was the jovial "KISS-a-me".  But it's apparently pronounced kə-SIM-ee.

As for pronunciation of non-town names, New York has a couple that no one seems to know for sure

• The Van Wyck Expressway.  Technically it should be a long-i (rhymes with bike) based on the original Dutch, but I've heard it as "wick" as well.
• The Goethals Bridge.  Not sure if it's GO-th, GOTH, GETH, or even GERTH

And for a time, LaQuinta hotels had a note on their site that it's pronounced la-KEEN-ta.

[Road Hog]

German is a fairly straightforward phonetic language as well. All "g's" are the hard G; all "h's" between vowels are silent and broaden the vowel ("i.e. "gehen"); and there are only three umlauted vowels that change pronunciation. "Zahlen" (to pay) and "zählen" (to count) are two different words.
There are some pitfalls, of course. The diphthong "äu" is equivalent to "eu" which in German is pronounced "oy." Except with the word "Jubiläum" (celebration), which is pronounced "you-be-LAY-um."

[Rothman]

My family goes back to the 1600s in PA and we are staunch Wilkes-Bear or Wilkes-Bar but never Wilkes-Berry team supporters.

[1995hoo]

My father's mother grew up in said Pennsylvania city and always said it more like "Wilks-Bar."

[roadman65]

How is Reheresburg, PA pronounced? It's a community on I-78 & US 22 in Berks County.

https://goo.gl/maps/HuyaJSANkt2PKHMK7

[CNGL-Leudimin]

The ¨ also appears on y in French, albeit only in proper nouns, such as the following, all of which are municipalities.
Aÿ-Champagne
Moÿ-de-l'Aisne
Faÿ-lès-Nemours
L'Haÿ-les-Roses

It is arguably not the least commonly used letter-diacritic combo in French, which could be ù, which is only used in the very common où, which means "where."

I can't write the names of these municipalities properly in all-caps, since my keyboard doesn't allow to put a diaeresis on an uppercase Y (it should, since it lets me to input ÿ), resulting in something like "A¨Y CHAMPAGNE" (n.b.: I drop dashes from French placenames), which looks weird.

[kphoger]

How about Kissimmee, FL?  I used to think it was the jovial "KISS-a-me".  But it's apparently pronounced kə-SIM-ee.

Nothing about Kissimmee demands that its first syllable be stressed.  So, no, I figure that one is pronounced exactly as it's spelled.

I can't write the names of these municipalities properly in all-caps, since my keyboard doesn't allow to put a diaeresis on an uppercase Y

Does your keyboard not allow you to type Alt+0159?

[SD Mapman]

Just to get slightly back on topic, Pierre, SD is not pronounced like it is in French, but like the word pier.

But, having said that, my submission is Norfolk, Nebraska.  Pronounced nor-fork.

Apparently, this is because the town started out as "North Fork" and the postal service made a clerical error at one point and the name stuck.

[Ted$8roadFan]

Bala Cynwyd, Pa = Bala kin-wid

[kphoger]

Bala Cynwyd, Pa = Bala kin-wid

That's very close to how it's spelled.  Both halves are named after Welsh locales, and that pronunciation matches Welsh decently well.