Towns that are not pronounced as they’re written

[webny99]

So...  In order to conform to your expectations, the name Reading should be able to be pronounced two different ways, depending on its grammatical verbal tense?

No, I'm just saying it's not unreasonable to expect it to be pronounced like the word reading, as I thought it was for most of my life.

[Rothman]

Street in NYC came before the silly city in Texas...

[mgk920]

Here in northeast Wisconsin, the surest way of all to tell the locals from the tourists (and Illinoisians) - "Shawano" (city and county).  It is 'SHAW-no'.  *NOT* 'sha-WA- no'.



Mike

[Ted$8roadFan]

Worcester, MA - "Wooster"

You're not wrong, but many in Massachusetts pronounce it "Woosta" .

[Bruce]

Sequim is pronounced closer to "Sk-wim"
Skagit is "Ska-jit", with no "g" sound
Spokane is "Spo-CAN", not "cane" as some people try to say
Poulsbo is "PAULs-boh"

A few more examples are in this neat quiz from The Seattle Times (which has audio clips): https://projects.seattletimes.com/2015/pronunciation-quiz/

[kphoger]

Skagit is "Ska-jit", with no "g" sound

That might only throw us off because we process it as a compound word:  skag-it.

However, git is pronounced as jit in words such as the following:
digit
legitimate
agitate
fugitive
longitude (US pronunciation)
Sagittarius
regurgitate

[english si]

I had to pick up my daughter at a friend's house on Leicester Street. Everybody who lives on the street calls it Lie-Chester and if I hadn't started watching Premier League soccer I'd have never known better.

The worst thing about Leicester's 5000-1 Championship is that it means that the shibboleth to see whether the American you are talking to in London is a tourist or an immigrant has pretty much gone.

If you say Lie-cester Square, you will get the tourist treatment. If you correctly say Les-ter Square, your Americanness will be overlooked and you'd be treated slightly differently as if you are capable of thicker accents, slang, some knowledge of the city, etc.

Many town and city names in the UK ... anything ending in -gate is pronounced "-git".

Err what? Some UK accents might have it, but it's normally 'gate'. It's not here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_irregularly_spelled_English_names#Place_names

Unlike: -borough / burgh ('-bra'), -bury ('-bri'), -cambe ('-com'), -cester ('-ster'), -ham ('-um'), etc, it's not on the list. It's an alternative for a couple of the -gate places I've looked at, but not really how they are said.

Worcester, MA - "Wooster"

You're not wrong, but many in Massachusetts pronounce it "Woosta" .

The IPA for UK/MA cities is /ˈwʊstər/ and Wikipedia's pronounciation guide is "WUUS-tər" (w as in wine, uu as in book, s as in sigh, t as in tie, ər as in letter). While non-rhotic accents like the Massachusetts one (or mine) have apparently merged ər as in letter and ə as in comma, I assure you we are saying the former, even if the latter sounds identical (though I feel there's a slight difference in the way I say them*). The r is considered to be pronounced, even if it's not the way that those with rhotic accents would pronounce it.

*Perhaps it's like Southern English English dialects only putting one-r in graph, despite (non-rhotic) northern English people thinking we southerners are adding one and saying grarf. I'm saying /ɡɹɑːf/ (or 'graaf' if you want), they are saying /ɡɹæf/ or 'graef'. They cannot hear the difference between the broad-a and ar as they don't use the broad-a /ɑː/, only the flat-a /æ/ - the difference is small, and not noticeable unless you do the same thing

[Rothman]

I had to pick up my daughter at a friend's house on Leicester Street. Everybody who lives on the street calls it Lie-Chester and if I hadn't started watching Premier League soccer I'd have never known better.

The worst thing about Leicester's 5000-1 Championship is that it means that the shibboleth to see whether the American you are talking to in London is a tourist or an immigrant has pretty much gone.

If you say Lie-cester Square, you will get the tourist treatment. If you correctly say Les-ter Square, your Americanness will be overlooked and you'd be treated slightly differently as if you are capable of thicker accents, slang, some knowledge of the city, etc.

Many town and city names in the UK ... anything ending in -gate is pronounced "-git".

Err what? Some UK accents might have it, but it's normally 'gate'. It's not here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_irregularly_spelled_English_names#Place_names

Unlike: -borough / burgh ('-bra'), -bury ('-bri'), -cambe ('-com'), -cester ('-ster'), -ham ('-um'), etc, it's not on the list. It's an alternative for a couple of the -gate places I've looked at, but not really how they are said.

Worcester, MA - "Wooster"

You're not wrong, but many in Massachusetts pronounce it "Woosta" .

The IPA for UK/MA cities is /ˈwʊstər/ and Wikipedia's pronounciation guide is "WUUS-tər" (w as in wine, uu as in book, s as in sigh, t as in tie, ər as in letter). While non-rhotic accents like the Massachusetts one (or mine) have apparently merged ər as in letter and ə as in comma, I assure you we are saying the former, even if the latter sounds identical (though I feel there's a slight difference in the way I say them*). The r is considered to be pronounced, even if it's not the way that those with rhotic accents would pronounce it.

*Perhaps it's like Southern English English dialects only putting one-r in graph, despite (non-rhotic) northern English people thinking we southerners are adding one and saying grarf. I'm saying /ɡɹɑːf/ (or 'graaf' if you want), they are saying /ɡɹæf/ or 'graef'. They cannot hear the difference between the broad-a and ar as they don't use the broad-a /ɑː/, only the flat-a /æ/ - the difference is small, and not noticeable unless you do the same thing

Pfft.  In American, it's not a harsh STAAH, but it definitely not "ster."  The ending is swallowed.

[GaryV]

(Fixed your formatting, because [Preview].)

The "oo" sound is not the sound |CtrlAltDel| mentioned.  Nor is it the sound I mentioned.  The word hew is pronounced hyo͞o.

The "oo" sound is not the sound of the ou in Houston.  To put it another way, I'm betting you don't say L-yoo-iss, nor do you say Hoo-ss-ton.

Sorry about the formatting. My mouse has taken upon itself a mind of its own, and the cursor jumps to a new position from time to time.

I thought you were only talking about the vowel sound, oo vs ow.

[abefroman329]

Here in northeast Wisconsin, the surest way of all to tell the locals from the tourists (and Illinoisians) - "Shawano" (city and county).  It is 'SHAW-no'.  *NOT* 'sha-WA- no'.



Mike

And in Illinois, people seem to have a hell of a time with Des Plaines (duh-SPLAINES)

[steviep24]

Chili, NY (in the Rochester area) is not pronounced like the food or the country Chile.

We say it as ChI-lI (with long I's).

[Brandon]

Here in northeast Wisconsin, the surest way of all to tell the locals from the tourists (and Illinoisians) - "Shawano" (city and county).  It is 'SHAW-no'.  *NOT* 'sha-WA- no'.



Mike

And in Illinois, people seem to have a hell of a time with Des Plaines (duh-SPLAINES)

Living along the actual river as I have since 1980, it's des-PLAINS.

[webny99]

...

Many town and city names in the UK ... anything ending in -gate is pronounced "-git".

Err what? Some UK accents might have it, but it's normally 'gate'. It's not here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_irregularly_spelled_English_names#Place_names

Unlike: -borough / burgh ('-bra'), -bury ('-bri'), -cambe ('-com'), -cester ('-ster'), -ham ('-um'), etc, it's not on the list. It's an alternative for a couple of the -gate places I've looked at, but not really how they are said.

I guess I shouldn't have made such a blanket statement because I was thinking of Harrogate specifically; I'm not as sure about other "-gates". From my own experience (I have family/friends that live not too far away), it's definitely not "gate" as Americans would pronounce it with the hard "a"... it sounds more like "git", or perhaps "gut" would be more precise.

[skluth]

Here in northeast Wisconsin, the surest way of all to tell the locals from the tourists (and Illinoisians) - "Shawano" (city and county).  It is 'SHAW-no'.  *NOT* 'sha-WA- no'.



Mike

And in Illinois, people seem to have a hell of a time with Des Plaines (duh-SPLAINES)

Living along the actual river as I have since 1980, it's des-PLAINS.

Americans are really bad with French names. The St Louis suburb of Des Peres is pronounced Day Pair, reasonably close to the original. De Pere, the similarly-named suburb of Green Bay is pronounced Dee Pier (or Deep Ear said really fast).

FWIW, my mom was born in Shawano. And yes, it was hysterical watching the guest celebrities visiting for telethons try to pronounce it when I was growing up. Their butchering of the longer tribal names like Winneconne and Weyauwega were almost as funny.

[mgk920]

Here in northeast Wisconsin, the surest way of all to tell the locals from the tourists (and Illinoisians) - "Shawano" (city and county).  It is 'SHAW-no'.  *NOT* 'sha-WA- no'.



Mike

And in Illinois, people seem to have a hell of a time with Des Plaines (duh-SPLAINES)

Living along the actual river as I have since 1980, it’s des-PLAINS.

Americans are really bad with French names. The St Louis suburb of Des Peres is pronounced Day Pair, reasonably close to the original. De Pere, the similarly-named suburb of Green Bay is pronounced Dee Pier (or Deep Ear said really fast).

FWIW, my mom was born in Shawano. And yes, it was hysterical watching the guest celebrities visiting for telethons try to pronounce it when I was growing up. Their butchering of the longer tribal names like Winneconne and Weyauwega were almost as funny.

Yes, good ol' De Pere, WI.



Anyways, the national network radio and TV sports guys get Green Bay wrong all too often, too.  It is 'green bay' (Equal soft emphasis on both words).  *NOT* 'GREEN bay'.



Mike

[CoreySamson]

One of my favorites is Refugio, TX (pronounced re-FYOOR-ee-oh).

[CtrlAltDel]

Americans are really bad with French names. The St Louis suburb of Des Peres is pronounced Day Pair, reasonably close to the original. De Pere, the similarly-named suburb of Green Bay is pronounced Dee Pier (or Deep Ear said really fast).

To say nothing of the decidedly un-French pronunciation of Illinois. There are even people out there, literate and grown up and everything, that take it to the next level and pronounce the s.

[Flint1979]

Au Gres, Michigan is pronounced Aww Gray.

Grand Marais, Michigan is pronounced Grand Muh-Ray.

Mackinac is pronounced Mackinaw and also spelled that way at times.

[Scott5114]

One of my favorites is Refugio, TX (pronounced re-FYOOR-ee-oh).

Any town with a Spanish origin, I'll pronounce according to Spanish pronunciation rules, and the residents can be mad about it.

[Takumi]

Gqeberha, South Africa. Pronounced "Port Elizabeth" .

[roadman65]

Louisville, OH and Louisville, KY are not pronounced the same. Ohio says it likes it's written.  The city in Kentucky doesn't.

[Big John]

DeKalb IL is how it is spelled.  DeKalb GA omits the "l".

[Techknow]

New Orleans, LA - the locals pronounce "Orleans" with the e silent. I have verified this myself with a coworker who traveled there couple weeks ago.

The Bay Area has several cases of this:

San Rafael - The e is silent
Vallejo - The j is silent (but still differs from Spanish pronunciation)
Ygnacio (Valley Road) - "ig-nay-sho", not "ig-na-see-o"
Concord, CA is pronounced like "conquered" unlike Concord, PA and other east coast cities of the same name

[Rothman]

New Orleans, LA - the locals pronounce "Orleans" with the e silent. I have verified this myself with a coworker who traveled there couple weeks ago.

The Bay Area has several cases of this:

San Rafael - The e is silent
Vallejo - The j is silent
Ygnacio (Valley Road) - "ig-nay-sho", not "ig-na-see-o"
Concord, CA is pronounced like "conquered" unlike Concord, PA and other east coast cities of the same name

San Rafael is San Ra-fai-el (not San Rafall or something like that).  E's not silent.
Vallejo is Val-ay-ho.  Not sure what you meant by the j being silent, but it isn't.  Just has the h sound.
I lived in Clayton and heard Ygnacio both ways, but sho was more common.
Concord is pronounced conquered in the East more frequently than Con-cord (e.g., better known cities like in MA and NH).  Concord, PA is a tiny backwater. If they say Con-cord, so be it.

[1995hoo]

Bumpass, Virginia, is not pronounced as though you're referring to a collision with someone's rear end; rather, it's pronounced like the last name of Ralphie's neighbors in the BB gun movie, the people whose dogs stole the turkey–"bump us."

Rio Road in Charlottesville is pronounced with a long "I"  sound, like "rye"  with an "o"  on the end. There are various explanations and nobody seems to know which one is true (if any).

I'm sure we've had this discussion before because I'm sure I've mentioned those two names.