How do you pronounce Missouri?

[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.

[bad hammy]

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

Same as a street in my current city, without the accent.

After growing up near Lafayette (LA fee et) CA I was humored in my Tennessee days to find myself down the road from Lafayette (luh FAY et). My guess is that they pronounce it totally differently in France.

[Marlow]

My guess is that they pronounce it totally differently in France.

lahf'-ay-et.

[Conor Dary]

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

Massachusetts tends to follow UK pronunciations. Thus the h is silent in Birmingham, Nottingham, Amherst, Framingham etc.

[br]

My guess is that they pronounce it totally differently in France.

lahf'-ay-et.

'Lafayette' pronunciation in French.

http://www.howjsay.com/index.php?word=lafayette

Sounds like Lah-FI-ette

[gh]

And I've heard Natchitoches, Louisiana, expressed as nasha-toosh

[br]

Fortunately, Coxsackie (Cook-SOCK-ee), New York, is not pronounced phonetically.

[bambam]

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

Massachusetts tends to follow UK pronunciations. Thus the h is silent in Birmingham, Nottingham, Amherst, Framingham etc.

The hell it is - I grew up in Framingham, went to Framingham North HS, and we always pronounced the h.

Concord, NC = con-cord
Concord, MA or NH = conk-urd

[bambam]

And the one I can never remember, which is embarrassing, having lived in this state now for over 30 years -

Beaufort, NC = bow-furt
Beaufort, SC = bew-furt

I had to look it up to be certain!

[gm]

And I've heard Natchitoches, Louisiana, expressed as nasha-toosh

Nacco-tish

[Conor Dary]

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

Massachusetts tends to follow UK pronunciations. Thus the h is silent in Birmingham, Nottingham, Amherst, Framingham etc.

The hell it is - I grew up in Framingham, went to Framingham North HS, and we always pronounced the h.

Concord, NC = con-cord
Concord, MA or NH = conk-urd

Well I heard both ways when I lived in Boston for Framingham, but as you mention it the h being sounded does sound familiar. Or is that just Rawson pronouncing it during the Boston Marathon. But the Brits do drop the H.

You should try Shrewsbury, England, where the locals, who don't always get their way, call it as in Shrew, while the BBC has it Shrowsbury.

[Halfmiler2]

Of course, certain names are pronounced differently in different places:

Newark, NJ (one syllable) versus Newark, DE (two syllables)
Arkansas (state) versus Arkansas (river)
Houston (the street in NYC) versus Houston, TX
NYC Mayor Ed Koch versus the runner Marita Koch

[Marlow]

Of course, certain names are pronounced differently in different places:

Heteronyms! English is rife with them.
(and then there's homophones and homonyms)

bow (bend over)-bow (front of boat)-bow (that you tie)-bow (shoots an arrow)
Then there's bough and bow wow.

"You don't know diddly!" said Bo.

[tandfman]

Of course, certain names are pronounced differently in different places:
Arkansas (state) versus Arkansas (river)

Apparently, even the river is pronounced differently in different places:

Name pronunciation varies by region. Many people in midwestern states, including Kansas and Colorado, pronounce it /ærˈkænzəs/ar-KAN-zəs,[8] while people in the state of Arkansas typically pronounce it /ˈɑrkənsɔː/AR-kən-saw according to a state law passed in 1881.[9]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arkansas_River

[j-a-m]

Arkansas (state) versus Arkansas (river)

Didn't Les Miles go with the ar-KAN-zəs pronunciation a few years ago when LSU played Arkansas?

[tandfman]

I've been to 5 or 6 meets in Fayetteville, and I don't recall ever having heard it pronounced ar-KAN-zes.

[lonewolf]

Ar-kan-sas City, Kansas .....Fayetteville, Ar-kan-saw,

The river changes pronounciation accordingly at the state line.

[502CD]

The hell it is - I grew up in Framingham, went to Framingham North HS, and we always pronounced the h.

Concord, NC = con-cord
Concord, MA or NH = conk-urd

I used to work in Framingham and always pronounced the H as well.

What's comical though is the H is not pronounced in Amherst but it is pronounced in Northampton the next town over.

[gh]

as I recall both Wichita State and Ouachita Baptist trace their lineage to the same tribe of native Americans.

[Halfmiler2]

I also recall one of the first times I announced at a track & field meet, I almost got my head handed to me for pronouncing Cardinal Dougherty H.S. of Philadelphia as DAHR-er-tee. Of course, it is DOCK-er-tee.

[Marlow]

as I recall both Wichita State and Ouachita Baptist trace their lineage to the same tribe of native Americans.

I'm still confused by the distinctions among the Dakota, Lakota and Nakota Indians!

[lonewolf]

as I recall both Wichita State and Ouachita Baptist trace their lineage to the same tribe of native Americans.

Not exactly. It is a bit confusing.

The Ouachita (pronounced Wash-ita) were a NE Louisiana tribe that assimilated into the Nachitoch tribe and is now included on the Caddo, a dominant tribe in East Texas and Western Louisiana, tribal rolls.

Curiously, the Caddo reservation was/in SW Oklahoma.

Ouachita is a Choctaw word. The Choctaws, of course, were one of the Five Civilized Tribes that force migrated from SE USA in the 1840s Trail of Tears to reservation in Eastern Oklahoma, with present capital at Durant in SE OK.

The Ouachita Mountians in eastern Oklahoma/western Arkansas are geomorphically /metamorphosed/ troubled sedimentary mountains.

The Wichita were a plains tribe that roamed the Central Plains in Texas Oklahoma and Kansas: akin to the Kiowa, Comanche, Cheyenne, Arapahoe..
Wichita Falls, Texas and Wichita, Kansas were influenced by this plains trib.

The Wichita Mountains in Southwestern Oklahoma are uplifted granite exposures of the Amarillo Uplift which plunges underground in the Texas Panhandle and mark the southern flank of the Anadarko Basin in SW Oklahoma.

Strangely Washita County in SW Oklahoma is presumably named for the Ouachita tribe of eastern Oklahoma with the French spelling imported from Louisiana corrected.

[Marlow]

Not exactly. It is a bit confusing. . . . . followed by a lot of very cool info about Plains Indians.

Lonewolf, you truly are a fo(u)nt* of interesting knowledge!

* = I had to google that to see it's spelled both ways - who knew!

[lonewolf]

Us'uns knew. I have both eastern (Choctaw/Creek) and western (Comanche) ancestors.

[Marlow]

Us'uns knew. I have both eastern (Choctaw/Creek) and western (Comanche) ancestors.

Lord willing and those pesky Creek don't rise again!

[lonewolf]

Us'uns knew. I have both eastern (Choctaw/Creek) and western (Comanche) ancestors.

Lord willing and those pesky Creek don't rise again!

The Creek are pretty passive.. its the Comanches you have to worry about.

[Marlow]

Us'uns knew. I have both eastern (Choctaw/Creek) and western (Comanche) ancestors.

Lord willing and those pesky Creek don't rise again!

The Creek are pretty passive.. its the Comanches you have to worry about.

From all the westerns I watched as a kid ( ), it wasn't the Sioux or Apache or even Comanche that we had to steer away from, it was the ARAPAHO!!!

[bambam]

Us'uns knew. I have both eastern (Choctaw/Creek) and western (Comanche) ancestors.

Lord willing and those pesky Creek don't rise again!

The Creek are pretty passive.. its the Comanches you have to worry about.

From all the westerns I watched as a kid ( ), it wasn't the Sioux or Apache or even Comanche that we had to steer away from, it was the ARAPAHO!!!

I don't think the Arapaho count as a separate tribe - they don't have a casino, which I believe is the modern definition.

[lonewolf]

Them too.

Arapaho is a distinct tribe that aligned with Southern Cheyenne in signing the third treaty of Medicine Lodge, circa 1867, giving up traditional hunting grounds from Kansas border to the Arkansas River in exchange for a "forever" reservation in west-central Indian Territory between the Canadian River and Kansas ... things got nastier as the government repeatedly and unilaterally violated the treaty in squeezing the tribes south of the Cimarron River.

Cheyenne-Araphoe currently have a very prosperous casino in Canadian County on what is left of their land. County Seat is at El Reno, site to the Fort Reno remount station.

Arapahoe is the county seat of Custer County, OK. It is a virtual ghost town with little more than the courthouse, Post Office and convenience store, across the river about four miles north of the much larger town of Clinton (pop 10,000).

I saw the Cowboy and Indian Saturday afternoon serials in my youth too.. don't remember the Injun's tribe being mentioned.. just them savage redskins..

[Marlow]

just them savage redskins..

Of course one of all of our favorite western characters was Tonto, and I can't wait to see what Johnny Depp does with him in next summer's blockbuster (not that he's a Native American! )

[gh]

I'm surprised Becca never weighed in with one from her neck of the woods: Sequim, Washington, pronounced "squim"