mckay@princeton.UUCP (08/20/83)
I have always been amused at the way pronunciation of a name changes depending
upon where you are. The biggie, of course, is Par-EE (in France), which we
English-speaking types have "prostitue (accent aigue)" as the French say, to
Par-IS. There is a legitimate Paris, pronounced "Paris", in Tennessee,
however. Another one is Cairo (Cay-roh) Illinois; the original, of course
is pronounced Ky-roh. My personal favorite is Versailles, KY, pronounced:
Vur-sayels, with acute Western Kentucky Twang. (I'm allowed to say that,
I grew up in Western KY) To get an idea of WK Twang, say, "I pinched my
finger", only pronounce it "I panched muh fanger". Anybody know any other
places with names that change pronunciation?
P.S. I refuse to get involved in the "how to hang the toilet paper" debate.
Anyone who is truly fascinated with it can get the microfiche of any
major newspaper that carries Ann Lander's column, and look back a couple
of years. As I recall, the debate lasted about seven months, until some
lady wrote in, in effect, "The printed flowerdy side only shows if you hang
it so it comes off the top. QED." I neither support nor refute this
statement.
Luv to all,
windy*
...princeton!mckaydee@cca.UUCP (Donald Eastlake) (08/22/83)
Then there is the rice wine drink spelled Sake, pronounced Saki in America but Sak-a in Japan. I was once at a restaurant in Tokyo where they almost delivered to the table something they thought was refered to as Saki until the confusion was cleared up. I always wondered what it was.
katz@beesvax.UUCP (08/23/83)
in utah, WEBER (weh-ber) is pronounced (wee-ber)
OQUIRRH is pronounced (ok-er)
SEVIER is pronounced (severe)
TOOELE is pronounced (too-el-ah)
in greenland, THULE is pronounced (too-lee)
and in nyc, 33rd is NOT ALWAYS pronounced (tirty-turd).aark@ihuxe.UUCP (08/23/83)
There is a town in the Rochester, New York area called Chili. It is pronounced with two long I sounds, like those in "flyby," rather than like "hilly." -- Alan R. Kaminsky Bell Laboratories, Naperville, IL ...ihnp4!ihuxe!aark
jsq@ut-sally.UUCP (08/25/83)
In central Texas, Elgin has a hard g, Guadalupe is Gwadaloop,
and Manchaca is manshack....
--
John Quarterman
{ihnp4,ut-ngp}!ut-sally!jsq, jsq@utexas-780.ARPA (soon to be jsq@ut-sally.ARPA)bentson@csu-cs.UUCP (08/28/83)
Whilst travelling through Pennsylvania we stopped for gas in DuBois. My wife asked a gas station attendent if the name of the town was pronounced dubwa or duboyce, the attendent said that he always thought of it as dubious. Randy Bentson bentson!csu-cs Colo State U - Comp Sci
grw@fortune.UUCP (Glenn Wichman) (09/01/83)
My brother & I were in Greendale Wisconsin in a hobby
store, when two of the natives (My bro' & I are from California),
saw a model of a Volkswagen Dune Buggy, called, of course,
a Baja Bug, after the Baja peninsula. We Californians pronounce
Baja [Bah - hah], but these wisconsinites pronounced it like
it's spelled. In great excitement, one said to the other,
"Look, Wally! A Ba-Ja Bug!". My brother and I couldn't
stop laughing, and the natives probably thought we were crazy.
-Glenngrw@fortune.UUCP (Glenn Wichman) (09/01/83)
This discussion is reminding me of a great movie starring
John Astin (you know, Gomez Adams). The movie was set in an
old western mining town called Molybdynum, which most of the
residents pronounced as "Molly B. Damn". Anyone remember the
name of the movie?
-Glenntakashi@rlgvax.UUCP (Takashi Iwasawa) (09/02/83)
I wonder what a Japanese restaurant will bring you if you ask for Sak-a?
Sorry, Donald Eastlake, but for those people who might actually go to a real
Japanese restaurant, I feel I should correct your article. The Japanese rice
wine is pronounced sa-ke; the 'a' is pronounced like the 'a' in "accent" or
"around", the 'e' is pronounced like the first 'e' in "eclectic" or
"essential". In general, Japanese words are rendered phonetically when
written in the Roman alphabet (because there is **NO** other way to do it).
Unforunately, even after you learn the rules for phonetic transcription,
you still have to figure out how to say it. I suppose it's inflection and
pitch (I don't know anything about phonetics), but depending on how you say
"sa-ke" you could get rice wine or salmon.
It's been twenty years but I still remember a little bit.
Takashi Iwasawa presley@mhuxj.UUCP (09/03/83)
Then we have most Americans pronouncing Honda as han-da instead of hone-da (long o). Maybe they're thinking of Henry Fonda? -- Joe Presley (...!mhuxj!presley, harpo!presley)
dce@tekecs.UUCP (David Elliott) (09/03/83)
Excuse me for being from the South, but I pronounce the 'a' in "accent" differently from the one in "around". The first is a low back vowel and the second is a schwa. Also, I pronounce the 'e' in "essential" as a high front vowel when I am stressing the word (which is not often, but enough to be confused by your example). In retrospect, it doesn't really matter to me how sake is pronounced, since I don't like salmon or wine of any kind. David