There was a disagreement on how to pronounce Arkansas; the first two US senators from Arkansas disagreed on how to say it.
Congress ended up having to request the Arkansas legislature in defining how to pronounce the state name.
If you want people to call you Arkansaw, don’t spell it Arkansas. Thankyou for coming to my TED Talk.
French language be like:
Why not just ask the fucking Quapaw tribe they stole the name from?
I, an east coaster, once bought a car from Texarkana. When I learned it was literally on the border of Texas and Arkansas, I think my brain broke. Great share, thanks!
Wait till you hear where Calexico and Mexicali are.
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You won’t believe where Kanorado is located.
Well, which Texarkana did you buy it from?
Arkansas side. Drunken ebay purchase out in the sticks that amazingly worked out. '72 olds 98 that sounded like a c47 on approach. Thanks for listening to my lame nonsense.
Here’s the really crazy thing.
Ark City, KS is located on the Ar-KAN-sas River. But this is the same river that flows through Little Rock under the name AR-kan-saw.
We come through and destroy an entire native civilization, and as a final “fuck you” we butcher their dead languages and name military equipment after them.
Oh, don’t forget putting towns named after some of the military officials that subjugated them on their reservation land.
The Mackinac Bridge connects the lower and upper peninsulas of Michigan. It is in Mackinaw City. There is a nearby island, Mackinac.
The bridge is mackin-awwh.
The city is mackin-awwh.
The island is mackin-awwh.Michigan has a Maine accent…
Y’all come to New Orleans and try to pronounce a single street name “right.”
Bourbon Street
It’s pronounced “urinal.”
Are you saying “boo” or “boo-urbon”?
There’s a Newark NJ and a Newark DE.
The Jersey one is pronounced Newurk and the Delaware one is pronounced New Ark. It’s mildly inconvenient.
The little town in Texas is also “New Ark”.
Some of my other favorites:
Texas
- Montague = mon-TAYG (hard ‘g’)
- Italy = IT-lee (2 syllables)
- Buda = BUD-duh (EDIT: or is it BYOO-duh ?)
Georgia
- Vienna = VYE-eena
- Cairo = KAY-roe
Canada (less experience here, tbf)
- Newfoundland = NEW-fin-LAND (do NOT slur the “land” part. Enunciate!)
That’s some certifiable insane shit.
Arab, Alabama. (Ay-rab)
See also: Lafayette (Le-FAY-it)
When I was there they pronounced it la-FET
Texas has so many. Bogota pronounced buh-GO-duh
Arkansas has a Lafayette county pronounced luh-FAY-it even though that county literally borders Louisiana.
Don’t even get me started on Bowie, DeKalb, or Houston.
I’m gonna add one I love trotting out from Oklahoma.
There’s a Miami, Oklahoma. It’s pronounced My-am-uh.
I’ve got about a billion from Oklahoma specifically.
There’s a Miami in Arizona the locals pronounce the same way.
Ah yes. “Hoo-ston” and “How-ston” are definitely both things.
“De-kab” and “De-kalb”
Haven’t run into the Bowie one.
In Texas it’s Boo-wee. That was the man’s name as is the knife that bears it. Outside of Texas people mispronounce it as Bow-ee like Ziggy Stardust.
If you’re talking about David (rest in power) Bowie, then it’s Bow-ee. But the knife is Boo-wee.
Company I work for is based in Buda but everyone pronounces it “byooduh”.
I defer to you then. I just know it’s not Booduh like it god damned well should be. Was reminded elsewhere in this thread that we also have a Ne-VAY-duh in Texas, to say nothing of the Native American placenames that almost every state has specifically to fuck with newcomers, even though they undoubtedly moved from a state that has its own examples.
Lol, that’s what I thought it was until they corrected me on the phone. I don’t live anywhere near there but that’s how they say it to me.
There’s also a Newark Ohio which is pronounced something like ‘nu-urk’ or even ‘nurk’ by some (the latter I always took as people being silly, but I don’t even know anymore).
Arkansas is pronounced Arr-Kansas already though. ;)
TBH, I’m a native Kansan and have only ever heard it called “Ark City.”
That makes sense. It’s like back in Morocco, how Morocco Mole is just called Mole.
And in Brazil, Brazil Nuts are just called nuts.
And on Long Island, it’s just called “tea”.
You’ve got it.
They’re actually called Castanha do Pará (Pará Nuts), but whatever.
What do they call the in Pará then?
Brazil nuts
Fuck if I know, I’ve never been there lol.
(X) Doubt
Ohio is great for shit pronunciations of town names.
Bellfountaine - bell FOUN’n (the t drops there in most dialects, some would say ‘fountain’ with the the first syllable stressed).
Versailles - verSAILS
Medina - muhDYEnuh
We have “verSAILS” in Indiana too. Also:
Peru - Pee-roo
Russiaville - Roosha-vil
Lebanon - Leb’nun
My favorite though is that there are two spellings for the Wabash river: Wabash and Ouabache. And despite being in a town that is on the Wabash River, the local Oabache Elementary School is pronounced: Wah-bat-shee.
The pronunciation of Lebanon you called out may sound like it came from a hayseed, but it’s closer to the way people in the country of Lebanon pronounce it than the mainstream American pronunciation.
Right down the road from Versailles is the town I grew up in and the movie Hoosiers is based off of. Milan (pronounced my - lan)
I think y’all also have KAY-row (Cairo) if I remember right. (or maybe that’s Illinois?)
There’s a Miami, Oklahoma. Pronounced, “My-am-uh”
I submit: Gallipolis, Ohio.
or rio grande (rye-oh grand).
I’m not sure how Gallipolis should actually be pronounced. The ~polis suffix seems sensible enough, but not sure on the first part.
I’ve heard people pronounce it as “galli-PO-lease”
I would say the Ohio version gal-uh-puh-LISS and I think that’s how people I knew from there said it, but it’s been a couple decades, heh.
Your stylization is more correct than mine.
My extended family is from a tiny Ohio hill town named Antioch, pronounced “annie-OCK”.
I’ve been there a couple of times. I say the ‘t’ in anti, but I guess the locals don’t
That’s some high tier psychological damage right there.
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Natchitoches, Louisiana (/ˈnækətəʃ/ NAK-ə-təsh), or “Nakadish”
Yet Nacogdoches, Texas is more or less how you would think, Nack-uh-doe-chiss.
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Well, I reckon that phrase “more or less” that I put in my previous comment is having to do a fair bit of work.
That’s how they pronounce Nevada County in Arkansas. Also, Dierks is Dereks. I’m sure there are more that will come to me
I learned that from the Big Bang Theory!
