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I did hear Jack Cafferty on CNN say Missouri is pronounced Missourah and that no one pronounces it Missouree. I went to the Truman Library once a long time ago and listened to audio of him giving a speech, and he said Missouree more than twice. I can attest that many of us do pronounce it Missourah, but none of them lives in St. Louis, Columbia or Kansas City. Most of the state south of Intersate 70 is occupied by Confederate sympathisers. Missouri north of I-70 is basically an extension of Iowa, where they know how to pronounce Missouri properly but are a stern and circumspect people. Anyway, I just brought this up to show that Jack Cafferty is a moron.

w/o language, verbal communication is just hooting & hand-gestures - but then dialect gets in the way to add confusion.

's just as bad in text-only forums, i see lots of 'tow the line's & 'here, here's. i read a memoir by a famous transplant surgeon in which he would often 'pour over' results, likewise my copies of Aubrey/Maturin are chock full of mis-spelled words. drag those editors out into the alley and shoot them in the head!

but rilly i should just lighten up, it's not like i don't know what they mean, ntm that i type in dialect m'self, ignoring some standard capitalization rules.

ORIGINAL: AW1Steve

ORIGINAL: Icedawg

This is nothing. What about all of those people in Maryland who pronounce our nation's capital as "Warshington"? Where do they get that "r" from?

Actually it seens like everyone in the west does too. It's funny but in over nine years of living and working there , I never heard a native call it anything but "D.C." ,or "the district". [:)]

I lived in Cecil and Harford counties (Maryland) while I was in grad school at the University of Delaware. The entire five years I was there, I can hardly recall any local calling it anything other than Warshington. The students/staff not from Maryland pronounced it properly, but the locals all insisted on adding that r. Maybe it's some king of eastern Maryland thing.

Enough of warsh. I am constantly bedeviled by puns popping up in my head, and am forced to inflict them on others. Here's some from today:

What was the division of Poland in '39?

a faux pax

What was the D-Day invasion?

a faux Pas de Calais

What are impressions in the mud confused with cat's feet?

fox paws

What is a station break on the GOP cable network?

a Fox pause

Uh Oh, I think some are coming on related to horse doovers. [8|]

Don't get me started on Keogh Paddies.

I read something years ago about how vowels migrate from southwest to northeast, and consonants (particularly Rs) from northeast to southwest. This gives rise to Hav-vuhd and New Joisey while the Texan tends to his erl wells.

If you want to talk about messing up the French-origin names, look at Des Moines (mispronounced both in Iowa and in Washington), Marseilles (pronounced Mar-sayles) in Illinois, and Versailles (Ver-sayles) in Indiana. Illinois, by the way, is of Indian origin and is actually pronounced almost correctly (well, except for the heathens that pronounce the S on the end).

And, as Bill will probably be happy to tell you, there is no such state as Ore-gahn. The city in Illinois is pronounced that way, but out here it's Or-e-gun.

In the end, of course, the correct pronunciation is whatever the locals say it is.

ORIGINAL: CaptDave

I read something years ago about how vowels migrate from southwest to northeast, and consonants (particularly Rs) from northeast to southwest. This gives rise to Hav-vuhd and New Joisey while the Texan tends to his erl wells.

If you want to talk about messing up the French-origin names, look at Des Moines (mispronounced both in Iowa and in Washington), Marseilles (pronounced Mar-sayles) in Illinois, and Versailles (Ver-sayles) in Indiana. Illinois, by the way, is of Indian origin and is actually pronounced almost correctly (well, except for the heathens that pronounce the S on the end).

And, as Bill will probably be happy to tell you, there is no such state as Ore-gahn. The city in Illinois is pronounced that way, but out here it's Or-e-gun.

In the end, of course, the correct pronunciation is whatever the locals say it is.

Wow, I guess I'm guilty of mispronouncing "Oregon". All these years I thought my aunt from Washington state was a moron for calling it Or-e-gun. I guess I'm the numbskull for saying "Ore-gahn".

I guess I shouldn't have busted on those Marylanders who think the US capital is "Warshington"!

ORIGINAL: Bullwinkle58

ORIGINAL: AW1Steve

ORIGINAL: Icedawg

This is nothing. What about all of those people in Maryland who pronounce our nation's capital as "Warshington"? Where do they get that "r" from?

Actually it seens like everyone in the west does too. It's funny but in over nine years of living and working there , I never heard a native call it anything but "D.C." ,or "the district". [:)]

Truman said it that way. It's everywhere.

I missed an opportunity earlier on this. Maybe 25 or 30 years ago I went to the Truman Library in Independence, Missouri. At the time and still to this day there is a debate about whether it is pronounced Missour-ee or Missour-ah. The correct answer is both. In the more settled areas like St. Louis, Columbia and Kansas City, no one says Missour-ah. But in the rural areas, especially south, they do say Missour-ah. Anyway I was at the Truman Library and they had a machine on which you could listen to his various speeches. I listened to one (that was of some import) and he pronounced it Missour-ee three times.
There is another issue I've exposed here besides simple pronunciation. At the time of the Civil War St. Louis was full of Deutsch immigrants and it didn't matter much how they pronounced it. Missouri to this day is a divided place, everything to the north of I-70 is indistinguishable from Iowa, and at the root is sympathetic to the Union. Everything to the South might as well be part of Arkansas except that it's a mite (and only a mite) more sophisticated. This area is also strongly sympathetic with the Confederacy. In part as a consequence (and I don't remember which) Missouri either has more Civil War battlefields than every other state, or, more than any other save Virginia. Whichever, we've got a lot, and they were'nt insignificant. The Capital, Jefferson City, was definitely in the Confederate camp, but the Union was somewhat better prepared to handle Missouri than the Confederates.
For those of you interested, Hannibal, the home of Huckleberry Finn, is in the Northern part.

I forgot to mention the Simpsons episode where Bart was on a raft heading up the Missouri, and passed a sign saying "you are now leaving Missouree" then passing a sign saying "you are now entering Missourah". [:D]

OK, I'm from Iowa, and it's always been "cash" to me. However, I've worked in aerospace companies where 95% of the people say "LIE-a-son" engineer for liaison engineer, and many of them also say "I seen" for "I saw."

Also, the U.S. military screws up a lot of geographical pronunciations. If I hear another squid say "yuh-KOO-skuh" for Yokosuka (which should be "yo-ko-skuh") or flyboy saying "kuh-DEE-nuh" for Kadena ("kuh-day-nuh") I'll chunder.

EDIT: I lived in the St. Louis area for six months and never heard the "Missourah" pronunciation. That said, I did hear that in a lot of rural parts the "ah" was common, which jibes with what you guys are saying.

Cheers,
CC

There's another one I apparently mess up. I didn't realize the u in Yokosuka was silent. I thought the "su" was pronounced like the woman's name, Sue. So rather than four syllables, it only has three?

ORIGINAL: Icedawg

There's another one I apparently mess up. I didn't realize the u in Yokosuka was silent. I thought the "su" was pronounced like the woman's name, Sue. So rather than four syllables, it only has three?

I don't know much about the Japanese language, but this is one of the few things I do know. There are always exceptions, of course, but usually the u is silent in the "su" combination. As another example, sukiyaki is pronounced "skee-yah-kee".

Some decade when I have money for such things, I'd like to learn to speak Japanese!

Heh.. you want difficult to pronounce names, come visit Oklahoma:

Miami - My-AM-Ugh
Nowata - No What Ugh
Okmulgee - Oak Mull gee (soft g, not Gee)
Muskogee - Musk Oh gay
Chouteau - Show Toe
Honobia - Hoe Nubbie

And then there's Sakakawea. As in Lake Sakakawea. How is it everyone outside of the Dakota's pronounce it with an extra syllable Sakakajawea. Look at the map.[8|]
I won't even go into my last name.[:D]

I failed to post this when I originally read this post. ... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Sor9lT4bNc...

The Who- Cache Cache An odd song to go along with the odd topic

OH! Also, we have thousands of streets here that are horribly pronounced. Two of the worst offenders in my opinion are:

Melpomene (typical local pronunciation is Mel-PO-mean) This is one of the 'muses' streets and it is more correctly, Mel-pom-O-nee.

Calliope (locals like to say, Call-ee-OAP) This one really drives me bonkers Note that this is also a 'muse' street.

Easily the runner up is yet ANOTHER 'muse' street! [8|]

Clio (some locals call this CL-10, no kidding). Kly-o is considerably more correct.


We have so many French and Spanish named streets that are rather mangled, but the above examples are ones that really make me wonder... I mean I know when typing on forums my grammar and punctuation can be weak, but I do manage to at least speak correctly.

When I am typing on forums, I tend to quickly 'text' even though I probably shouldn't. It doesn't always strike me that typing on forums IS my speaking! Gah! Certainly, the quality of the answer is highly dependent on the quality of the question.

ORIGINAL: Schanilec

And then there's Sakakawea. As in Lake Sakakawea. How is it everyone outside of the Dakota's pronounce it with an extra syllable Sakakajawea. Look at the map.[8|]
I won't even go into my last name.[:D]

I can tell you that the Commonwealth of Virginia taught its youngsters for at least a generation and maybe more that her name was Sack-uh-jow-uh.

OK how do I say this, I am the exact opposite of a racist, to me there is only one race, Homo Sapiens Sapiens. I need to be able to make fun of the way some people pronounce things, and in this case I am fortunate in that most anyone from southern Mississippi talks this way, white or black or anything else. Imagine the Sheriff from Live and Let Die were in court as a witness in a trial, and for some reason it was permissible for the Defense Attorney, say, to ask the following questions:

"Ah say Suh, could you please use the word fascinate in a sentence?"

"Yes Ah can. Ah gained some weight lately, and when Ah put Mah shirt on, I can only fassensix. Ah used to be able to fassenate."

"Very good, Sheriff. Now, could you use the word fortify in a sentence?"

"Ah surely can. Just yesterday, Ah was drivin along, and Ah saw this pretty gal on the sidewalk. Ah drove up to her and said "Hey thea honey, how much you be? She said, 'Ah be fortify dollah'"

[8|]

ORIGINAL: Icedawg

There's another one I apparently mess up. I didn't realize the u in Yokosuka was silent. I thought the "su" was pronounced like the woman's name, Sue. So rather than four syllables, it only has three?

Yep, the "i" is also silent in Yamashita. Usually you pronounce each vowel pretty much like in Spanish, but not when in a combination like that. I took Japanese a while ago, and not being a natural linguist, it was a bit tougher than quantum mechanics for me.

Fortunately, I'll be heading to Tokyo tomorrow for a couple of beer festivals. Kampai!

Cheers,
CC

ORIGINAL: geofflambert

I was born in W.Va

a good friend of mine from way back, moved to Chicago from West Virgina when he was 14, now he knew that W.Va. had a heavy accent and at 14 he did not want to be made fun of, so he took it upon himself to learn proper English before he moved to the big city, so he started to imitate the accent on the BBC. The skinny kid from west Virgina with the giant red-hair Afro did not want to be made fun of talking like a fake Brit.

At least in this general region the most commonly butchered name is probably the Atchafalaya Basin. Most outsiders pronounce it Atch-uh-fil-lay-uh and locals pronounce it Chaff-uh-lie-uh.

Haha wadail heard that plenty of times...