How do you pronounce Missouri?

[tandfman]

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/13/us/po ... -both.html

[Marlow]

Louisville = Loo'-uh-vul (very short u in vul)
New Orleans = Naw'lins
New York = N'yawk'
Boston = Bah'-stin
Oregon = Or'gan
Missouri = Miz-er'-ah

[tandfman]

Baltimore = Bawl-uh-more

No, that's wrong. It's more like Bawl-uh-mer. The middle syllable is buried. Sometimes sounds more like Bawl-mer.

[tandfman]

Oregon = Or'gan

I think it may be closer to OR-ee-gun

[Friar]

New York = N'yawk'

I'm glad Saratoga has largely been spared this atrocious ear assault.

I always thought the rule of thumb was St.Louis NE was Missouri and SL West was Missou-ra?

[Marlow]

Oregon = Or'gan

I think it may be closer to OR-ee-gun

That's how out-of-staters say it.

[Marlow]

I always thought the rule of thumb was St.Louis NE was Missouri and SL West was Missou-ra?

St. Louis = Saint Loo'-ee (but a little shorter than the ee as in heel)

[kuha]

Purely subjective, but I think there's some "rural" connection with Miz-our-rah vs. urban with Miz-our-ri.

[Marlow]

Purely subjective

Not subjective, per se, but certainly locally dialectic. In his Introduction to Huck Finn, Samuel Clemens, as Mark Twain, took pains to explain that the odd spellings of local Missouri dialects in the book were true-to-life variations on how people, perhaps only 50 miles geographically differentiated, said things differently.

[Conor Dary]

Oregon = Or'gan

I think it may be closer to OR-ee-gun

That's how out-of-staters say it.

Orygun!

[Conor Dary]

Of course we could do this for English towns:

Hereford, Shrewsbury, and Nottingham for instance.

Of course, Hereford St. is the penultimate street in the Boston Marathon, which Bostonians, for the most part get right.

[Marlow]

Of course we could do this for English towns

One of the funniest (and most bizarre) things that ever happened to me, happened in Towcester (pronounced "toaster" (!) ), England. I went into the local room-finder (that's a real thing in England!) and asked the guy for a room. He told me to pick up the white courtesy phone on the counter and explain my needs. I tried for TEN long minutes to explain that I just wanted a room for two for the night, but to no avail. In exasperation I gave the phone to the guy sitting there, who then said (allegedly) the same thing I had just said, but I could barely recognize the words as they came out of his mouth, even though they were the same 'words' I had just spoken. He just sheepishly shrugged his shoulders, and then gave me the info in perfectly enunciated Queen's English. Had I just witnessed Toasterese?

[kuha]

Of course we could do this for English towns

One of the funniest (and most bizarre) things that ever happened to me, happened in Towcester (pronounced "toaster" (!) ), England. I went into the local room-finder (that's a real thing in England!) and asked the guy for a room. He told me to pick up the white courtesy phone on the counter and explain my needs. I tried for TEN long minutes to explain that I just wanted a room for two for the night, but to no avail. In exasperation I gave the phone to the guy sitting there, who then said (allegedly) the same thing I had just said, but I could barely recognize the words as they came out of his mouth, even though they were the same 'words' I had just spoken. He just sheepishly shrugged his shoulders, and then gave me the info in perfectly enunciated Queen's English. Had I just witnessed Toasterese?

You were toast...but in a good way.

[cullman]

Toronto = Tronto (rhymes with pronto)

[tandfman]

When I was growing up, the only way I ever heard Florida pronounced was FLAHR-id-uh. I was probably 20 when I met a native Foridian (not a transplanted Northerner) and heard him say it, and I learned that they pronounce it FLOOR-ee-duh down there. Definite difference in first two syllables.

[jeremyp]

When I was growing up, the only way I ever heard Florida pronounced was FLAHR-id-uh. I was probably 20 when I met a native Foridian (not a transplanted Northerner) and heard him say it, and I learned that they pronounce it FLOOR-ee-duh down there. Definite difference in first two syllables.

Not to mention "Miama." I remember being in South Carolina for boot camp and our drill sergeant used to say "Roay" for road.

[lonewolf]

My paternal grandfather was born in "Mizz-zuruh" pronounced "Mizz-zoorie"

[gh]

Toronto = Tronto (rhymes with pronto)

not in my experience: it's Trawna.

[DrJay]

Then there's the category that's so far off the mark it's not just a slurring of the sounds or letters.

In KY, Versailles= "Versales" (Spoken with a twangy Southern accent.)

IN CO, Pueblo= "Pieblo"

[Marlow]

When I was growing up, the only way I ever heard Florida pronounced was FLAHR-id-uh. I was probably 20 when I met a native Foridian (not a transplanted Northerner) and heard him say it, and I learned that they pronounce it FLOOR-ee-duh down there. Definite difference in first two syllables.

Everyone I know here says: Flor'da. I never hear a middle syllable.
Out-of-staters always say the 'i' in the middle, however: Flor'-ih-da

[br]

Sam Yorty, the mayor of Los Angeles from 1961-1973, used to pronounce the name of his beloved city 'Los Ang-gah-leez'.

[Conor Dary]

Then there's the category that's so far off the mark it's not just a slurring of the sounds or letters.

In KY, Versailles= "Versales" (Spoken with a twangy Southern accent.)

Nearby Cairo, Illinois, the southern tip of the state is pronounced like the syrup, Karo.

[gh]

Roger Kingdom is from Vienna, Georgia (vye-enna, that is)

[Marlow]

Having lived outside of the City of Brotherly Love for a few years, I always got a kick out of how its denizens referred to it.

Fil-delf'-ya



Yo, Adrian!

***

Then there's the whole matter of how people near big cities refer to it.

Jacksonville = Jax
Tallahassee = Tally
Gainesville - G-ville
Chicago = Shy-Town
SanFran = (just) The City
Wash, DC = DC
Los Angeles = LA

[Pego]

My daughter lived in a Chicago area for 10 years. I never heard Shy Town.

[Marlow]

My daughter lived in a Chicago area for 10 years. I never heard Shy Town.

That's all my Navy buddies (stationed in Detroit) called it. Perhaps it was an affectation or belittlement.

[jhc68]

My dad was born and raised on a farm near Joplin in (as he said it) the state of Missourah. Then, again, he called Yucca Valley, California, Yawka Valley.
He was definitely rural and old school, having been born in 1897 or, as he invariably said, 18 AND 97. There was a grammatical shift at the turn of the century in my father's world... I was born in plain 1946 but he was born in 18 AND 97!!!

[gh]

My daughter lived in a Chicago area for 10 years. I never heard Shy Town.

That's all my Navy buddies (stationed in Detroit) called it. Perhaps it was an affectation or belittlement.

I've certainly heard Chy-Town many times.

[lonewolf]

[I've certainly heard Chy-Town many times.

Common trucker lingo from the CB days.

[gh]

One of my all-time faves, as told to me by the late Leonard Hilton... Refugio, Texas, is pronounced ruh-furr-eeo

[gm]

One of my all-time faves, as told to me by the late Leonard Hilton... Refugio, Texas, is pronounced ruh-furr-eeo

You beat me to it...spent many a summer there, one of (if not THE) greatest small towns in the country for producing T&F talent.

[tandfman]

In downtown Manhattan (NY, not Kansas), there's a major street called Houston Street. New Yorkers pronounce it HOW-ston, not HYOU-ston or YOU-ston

[preston]

it's kind of unfair to include Massachussetts cities in the list. It might be fair to block out all of New England (if all you speak is American)

Gloucester - ain't glou-ces-ter or glow-ches-ster
Medford and New Bedford - sound nothing like "ford"
Peabody - don't sound like any "body"
And Worcester? Well, let me re "spell" it fawr ya, "wuh-sta"

And, as for Georgia. Well Dahlonega is not a sister pronunciation to Talladega (AL)

[Marlow]

and the sentence "What's this, Worcestershire sauce?
is pronounced:
Whats-this-here-sauce?

[tandfman]

Speaking of Massachusetts, the h in Amherst is not pronounced. It's AM-erst.