It's pronounced how?!

[SnowyMacie]

So, I've found always local place names that people only from your area/region can properly pronounce. It can be a Native American word for a location, or just something that everyone thinks was basically just trolling everyone when they named the place. What are some places that only local can pronounce properly? If you want, you can include a spoiler that phonetically spells it out.

Here's some examples...

Spoiler: (street in Houston) Kuykendahl

Kirk-in-doll

Spoiler: (suburb of Houston) Humble

Um-bull

Spoiler: (town in Texas) Gruene

Green

Spoiler: (town in Texas) Boerne

Bernie

Spoiler: (town in Texas) Mexia

Muh-hey-uh

Spoiler: (town in Texas) Waxahachie

Woks-uh-hatch-ee

 

[ReesePiece23]

Does anyone have that one friend who mispronounces things, despite hearing everyone else say it correctly?

 

[alsughasoughaiuyfygh]

.

 

[ReesePiece23]

I'm one of those people. It bugs a friend of mine to no end whenever I say s'mores. I always pronounce as 'Shmores'.

Why do you do it? lol

 

[alsughasoughaiuyfygh]

.

 

[dzheremi]

The only one of those around here that I can think about Cotati, which is pronounced kə-tɔ-ti with stress on the middle syllable ("kuh-TAW-ti", often with the final t voiced to d due to being intervocalic, so "kuh-taw-di"), and not koʊˈtɑːtiː (as it says on the wikipedia page for the town), which has the wrong vowels (for those who can't read IPA characters, that's the "o" as in "code" and the "a" as "father", which are both wrong -- the actual vowels are a schwa and "a" in "saw", respectively). The way I've heard non-locals pronounce it is more like ko-tad-i (with the name "Tad" in the middle), which actually does have the "a" from "father" in it (tæd)...obviously wrong, but what you'd expect if you pronounced it more like it's written.

 

[Subduction Zone]

Just about every state in the U.S. has some oddly pronounced areas since the rules of pronunciation of native words are not consistent.

I live in Washington state where we have Sequim (Skwim) Puyallup (not even gonna try) Tulalip (too-lay-lip) though Puyallup has an "a" similar to "has".

 

[kittysbecute]

One of the local cities here siri doesn't understand it unless I pronounce it completely different.
I guess there's a lot of local names that people not from around here wouldn't know how to pronounce. But some places even here they are pronounced various ways because not everyone knows the "correct" way to pronounce them.

 

[Cute Tink]

Does anyone have that one friend who mispronounces things, despite hearing everyone else say it correctly?

My coworker does that with a few words.

My oldest does too, but that's mainly because he gets those words from reading and never hears them pronounced out loud, nor does he look up the pronunciation.

 

[Gnarwhal]

Just about every state in the U.S. has some oddly pronounced areas since the rules of pronunciation of native words are not consistent.

I live in Washington state where we have Sequim (Skwim) Puyallup (not even gonna try) Tulalip (too-lay-lip) though Puyallup has an "a" similar to "has".

Heh, my old roommate lives in Puyallup and my ex's sister lives in Sequim. A girl in my program at school right now is from Seattle, she shared a video a while back of us Californians trying to pronounce Washingtonian names... pretty funny stuff.

Also, awesome username.

A few things here in California that outsiders tend to get wrong:

Spoiler: La Jolla (Suburb of San Diego)

LUH HOY-UUH

Spoiler: Ojai (Town in Ventura County)

OH HI

Spoiler: Suisun Bay/Suisun City (in the Bay Area)

SUH-SOON, or rarely SOO-SOON.

Spoiler: El Cajon (City in San Diego county)

EL KUH-HONE, not "Cajun"

That's just a couple off the top of my head.

 

[Citanul]

There are probably some simpler South African place names that get mispronounced, but I give you Tweebuffelsmeteenskootmorsdoodgeskietfontein

I'm not even going to try to break that up phonetically, but you can hear how it should be said by going here and listening to the Dutch pronunciations (the first two are the best as the third one doesn't sound quite right to me).

 

[Subduction Zone]

Heh, my old roommate lives in Puyallup and my ex's sister lives in Sequim. A girl in my program at school right now is from Seattle, she shared a video a while back of us Californians trying to pronounce Washingtonian names... pretty funny stuff.

Also, awesome username.

A few things here in California that outsiders tend to get wrong:

Spoiler: La Jolla (Suburb of San Diego)

LUH HOY-UUH

Spoiler: Ojai (Town in Ventura County)

OH HI

Spoiler: Suisun Bay/Suisun City (in the Bay Area)

SUH-SOON, or rarely SOO-SOON.

Spoiler: El Cajon (City in San Diego county)

EL KUH-HONE, not "Cajun"

That's just a couple off the top of my head.

\\
Suisun got me there. The rest are basic Spanish.

 

[Servant68]

Lots of places around here that people have a hard time with. A lot of Native American names, some French, some just pronounced differently.

My home town is Moscow, ID. It's pronounced moss-coe and not moss-cow.

Town I live in now is Palouse. Up North is Coeur D'Alene.

Other odd names around here:

Wawawai
Dworshak
Orofino
Lapwai
Waha
Washtucna
Cocolalla
Chatcolet

 

[blackribbon]

Beautiful MACKINAC BRIDGE (you say that MACK IN NAW)

 

[blackribbon]

New Orleans, Lousiana (noo-OAR-linz, Lose-ee-ann-a)

 

[Ada Lovelace]

Does anyone have that one friend who mispronounces things, despite hearing everyone else say it correctly?

One of my friends often studies at the "liberry". Whenever she's texting the noun she spells it properly, but always mispronounces it when speaking.

ETA: So many people mispronounce the word gif that when the creator of it, Steve Wilhite, accepted a lifetime achievement award at the Webbys he did this:

 

[Chesterton]

Spoiler: (suburb of Houston) Humble

Um-bull

Is that right? I've got friends in Humble, I've never noticed them pronounce it that way.

I live in Bexar County, pronounced just like "bear". We have a major street named San Pedro which we pronounce differently from how the pronounce the city of San Pedro, California. Some other towns around here that aren't pronounced how they look:

Manor, pronounced may-ner
Buda, pronounced byoo-dah
Leakey, pronounced lakey
Sodom-on-the-Colorado, which for some reason is pronounced "Austin".

 

[Chesterton]

ETA: So many people mispronounce the word gif that when the creator of it, Steve Wilhite, accepted a lifetime achievement award at the Webbys he did this:[/MEDIA]

Really? Your trophy for lifetime achievement is presented to you by a guy in jeans and grey hoodie? Saddest awards show ever.

 

[blackribbon]

Is that right? I've got friends in Humble, I've never noticed them pronounce it that way.

I live in Bexar County, pronounced just like "bear". We have a major street named San Pedro which we pronounce differently from how the pronounce the city of San Pedro, California. Some other towns around here that aren't pronounced how they look:

Manor, pronounced may-ner
Buda, pronounced byoo-dah
Leakey, pronounced lakey
Sodom-on-the-Colorado, which for some reason is pronounced "Austin".

They call it Umble on the local news....

 

[Ada Lovelace]

Really? Your trophy for lifetime achievement is presented to you by a guy in jeans and grey hoodie? Saddest awards show ever.

Haha, you've got a point. Though...... the Webbys are for honoring excellence on the internet, and some of the icons of the internet are / were famed for dressing casually, like Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg. I live in Silicon Valley and am accustomed to seeing businessmen in their 30s and well beyond dressed the same as the guys on my college campus. David Karp, the guy in the jeans and hoodie, is the founder of Tumblr, and has a very high net worth. He only looks like a slacker.