Tucson - why "too-san"?
Podibanda Kuruppu
name that got me in serious trouble many years ago when I arrived in
the United States.
How do I go to "Tuck - son," I asked.
Of course the salesclerk at the 7-11 store stared at me for a good one
minute before he understood what I meant.
My question is, why "too-san" and not "tuck-son"?
Truly Donovan
Since there is no "k" in the word, the significance of the "c" is
undefined. So it's "too-sahn" because the people who live there say it
is.
--
Truly Donovan
reply to truly at lunemere dot com
John Doherty
(Podibanda Kuruppu) wrote:
| This may not have anything to do with English usage, but this is a
| name that got me in serious trouble many years ago when I arrived in
| the United States.
|
| How do I go to "Tuck - son," I asked.
|
| Of course the salesclerk at the 7-11 store stared at me for a good one
| minute before he understood what I meant.
|
| My question is, why "too-san" and not "tuck-son"?
Well, it looks like neither one of us knows how to use ASCII IPA, so
we're going to have a hard time talking about exactly how to pronounce
this.
The best I can do is to say that I'd pronounce it more or less like
"too-sawn," and not like I'd pronounce "too-san". For me, the "o" in
"Tucson" is pretty much the same as the "o" in "on" (as in "on the
table"), or pretty much like I'd pronouce the vowel in my own first
name.
I lived there for a pretty long time, and it's really a pretty nice
place to live. To get there, you pretty much just take I-10 either
east or west, depending on where you're starting from.
I have no idea why you don't pronounce the "c". You just don't. People
pronounce it jokingly occasionally, and call the place "tuck-son" (where
the "o" is pretty much just a schwa), but trust me, Tucsonans got tired
of that a long time ago.
SLHinton17
On Thu, Oct 08, 1998, po...@nospam.3com.com (Podibanda Kuruppu) wrote:
[snip]
>My question is, why "too-san" and not "tuck-son"?
************************************
This is one of those puzzling names that came about from the efforts of Spanish
missionaries to spell (in old Spanish orthography) American Indian
place-names. Whatever the origin, it's pronounced "TOOsahn" because that's the
way it's pronounced.
Sam Hinton
La Jolla, CA
Akureyri
>My question is, why "too-san" and not "tuck-son"?
And am I not correct in saying that most Americans also do not pronounce Tucson
correctly because they fail to put the emphasis on the last syllable?
Chris Lampton
> This may not have anything to do with English usage, but this is a
> name that got me in serious trouble many years ago when I arrived in
> the United States.
>
> How do I go to "Tuck - son," I asked.
>
> Of course the salesclerk at the 7-11 store stared at me for a good one
> minute before he understood what I meant.
>
English, especially the American variety, is not a phonetic language,
like (say) Latin or Spanish or Hawaiian. It is an ad hoc collection of
names and pronunciation rules borrowed from other tongues, often those of
the residents who made the mistake of occupying the lands where well-
funded eastern (and occasionally western) developers wanted to build
cities. Tucson may be a Native American or Spanish place name, though it
violates the phonetic pronunciation rules of the latter. I'll check
further. As a rule, the American southwest and extreme southeast (which
is to say Florida through northern California) is riddled with Spanish
place names left over from early explorers. The entirety of the United
States is dominated with Native American place names, many of which have
been bastardized into Anglo-Saxon spellings. Given that the English
language has roots in Anglo-Saxon, German, French, Latin, Greek and
certain Martian dialects, this is only appropriate.
StrayShots
On 8 Oct, tru...@ibm.net (Truly Donovan) responded to the queston with parental
authority:
>it's "too-sahn" because the people who live there
>say it is.
It was "too-sahn" long before anyone who lives there could say what anything
is; in particular, hundreds of years ago when the Pima Indians gave it the
name. The spelling is Spanish, from about two hundred years ago.
-- Stray...@not.for.e-mail.com --
"With my cross-bow
I shot the Albatross."
spam-bait follows:
rhu...@fcc.gov
jqu...@fcc.gov
sn...@fcc.gov
rch...@fcc.gov
cust...@email.usps.gov
sup...@netnames.com
K. Edgcombe
I am enchanted to discover, after all those cracks about "Worcester" and
"Cholmondeley", that even in the US you have placenames whose pronunciation
cannot possibly be guessed from their spelling. Are there any more, please?
(Yes, I want them for ammunition, and I think obviously non-English-looking
names like Des Moines are not quite fair.)
Katy
Perchprism
Katy wrote:
>From: ke...@cus.cam.ac.uk (K. Edgcombe)
>Date: 10/9/98 7:44 AM Eastern Daylight Time
>Message-id: <6vksup$pst$1...@pegasus.csx.cam.ac.uk>
A pretty puzzle you set us. If American place names look English, well, they
are. Heck, I live in Gloucester, right down the road from Deptford, not far
from Greenwich. Went to school in Runnemede.
I'll try, though. Buena, New Jersey is /'bju n@/. Awright, it's Spanish. How
about the Schuykill River (/'sku kl/). Dutch? Hmmm. Aha! The Maurice River
(/'mOr @s/) . . . that's French, isn't it? Bala Cynwyd, Pennsylvania (/'b&l @
'kin wUd/). Oh, I give up.
Perchprism
"Of two cigars, pick the longest and the strongest." Winston Churchill
Gary Williams, Business Services Accounting
(Akureyri) writes:
>And am I not correct in saying that most Americans also do not pronounce Tucson
>correctly because they fail to put the emphasis on the last syllable?
Since as far as I know everyone who lives there puts the emphasis on the first
syllable, it is hard to see how this pronunciation can be incorrect.
One of the tests of a newcomer to Colorado is his pronunciation of the town
name Buena Vista. If he says, "Bway-nuh Vih-stuh", in anglicized approximation
of the Spanish, he is marked as not-from-around-here; for the from-around-here
know that the correct pronunciation of the name of _that_ particular town is
"Byoo-nuh Vih-stuh." You must be registered to voter there, though, before
you are allowed to call it just "Byoo-nee".
Gary Williams
Kurt Foster
. My question is, why "too-san" and not "tuck-son"?
.
'Cause that's the way it's pronounced. Why it's SPELLED that way is
another question ;-)
Lucky you weren't looking for "Albany". In New York, it's something
like "ALL-bun-ee", but in Mississippi it's more like "al-BANE-ee".
But one gets hardened and calloused in Illinois - there's
Dez-PLAINS (Des Plaines)
Vie-ENNA (Vienna)
Luh-GRAIN-dge (La Grange)
New BURR-lin (New Berlin)
KAY-row (Cairo)
Mar-SALES (Marseilles)
MAD-rid (Madrid)
shorts...@my-dejanews.com
Tucson
> correctly because they fail to put the emphasis on the last syllable?
>
I don't think you are correct in saying so. I've never heard tu-son'. In
response to Podibanda Kuruppu's question, I think that the word comes from an
American Indian word in the first place and was a Spanish approximation of it
and the c must have been very small and eventually disappeared from the
sound.
Two strrange pronunciations of what are actually Spanish words are to be found
in Long Beach and Redlands, California:
Junipero (hu-neep'-e-ro) is pronounced "Wannapero" in Long Beach, and
the Zanja (ditch) aqueduct (zahn-ha) is pronounced zan-kee with a hard "a" in
Redlands.
--Shortstrokes
-----------== Posted via Deja News, The Discussion Network ==----------
http://www.dejanews.com/ Search, Read, Discuss, or Start Your Own
H.W.M.
K. Edgcombe wrote:
> >>My question is, why "too-san" and not "tuck-son"?
>
> I am enchanted to discover, after all those cracks about "Worcester" and
> "Cholmondeley", that even in the US you have placenames whose pronunciation
> cannot possibly be guessed from their spelling. Are there any more, please?
Well, there is Kansas which is like can's-ass whereas Arkansas is more like
'I-can-sow'
My friends in Pennsylvania used to pronounce the state name sometimes as
R-Kansas just as a joke.
There is a fast-food chain that has their equivalent of a burger named " Big
Carolina". Big calories we call it, but the chain had a set of ads on tv where
they asked people how to pronounce "Massachusetts". Getting a lot of
mumbo-jumbo[1] their closing slogan was " Easier to say when you are hungry"
massachassha ...massashushushh.... machchahchcusch
[1] differentiating the sh, ch, th and s -sounds is very difficult for Finns
Henry Wilhelm >>> henry.w @ gnwmail.com <<<
*********************************************
* I could be bounded in a nut-shell, *
* and count myself a king of infinite space,*
* were it not that I have bad dreams *
*********************************************
Eric The Read
> One of the tests of a newcomer to Colorado is his pronunciation of the town
> name Buena Vista. If he says, "Bway-nuh Vih-stuh", in anglicized approximation
> of the Spanish, he is marked as not-from-around-here; for the from-around-here
> know that the correct pronunciation of the name of _that_ particular town is
> "Byoo-nuh Vih-stuh."
I've lived here for upwards of ten years, and I *still* can't force
myself to say "Byoo-nuh Vih-stuh". I had the same problem with "Nevada"
as well-- for the first two or three years I lived here, I pronounced it
"Nuh-vaw-duh". I eventually managed the (locally) correct "Nuh-vah-duh",
but it took a long time, and conscious effort.
> You must be registered to voter there, though, before you are allowed
> to call it just "Byoo-nee".
Registered to voter? Dare I ask? :^)
-=Eric
nancy g.
>> My question is, why "too-san" and not "tuck-son"?
> And am I not correct in saying that most Americans also do not pronounce Tucson
> correctly because they fail to put the emphasis on the last syllable?
If you're referring to the name of a city, and if it's an American
city, and if most Americans pronounce the name of that American city
with the emphasis on the first syllable, then how can pronouncing it
that way possibly be incorrect?
nancy g.
> >>My question is, why "too-san" and not "tuck-son"?
> "Cholmondeley", that even in the US you have placenames whose pronunciation
> cannot possibly be guessed from their spelling. Are there any more, please?
> names like Des Moines are not quite fair.)
Okay, then how about U.S. place names whose names *are* English-looking,
such as "Worcester"? (Yes, we do have one. In Massachusetts. The second
largest city in the state, as a matter of fact.) We also have a Gloucester.
A common error is for people new to the state to pronounce Worcester and
Gloucester properly ("Wooster" and "Glosster") but then to fumble when they
attempt to pronounce the town of Dorchester (which is actually pronounced
exactly as it's spelled - "Dor-chest-er"). We've also got a Berlin, which
is pronounced BURL-in or BURL'n.
The one out-of-towners get wrong most often is the Cape Cod town
of Siasconset, pronounced "Sconset." And of course there's the historic
building in Boston, Fanueil Hall, which is pronounced "Fannel" Hall.
Massachusetts alone probably has dozens of these mispronounced names.
Bob Cunningham
[ . . . ]
>I'll try, though. Buena, New Jersey is /'bju n@/. Awright, it's Spanish.
A person just off the plane from Argentina might be surprised to find
that 'Los Angeles' is pronounced /lA:s '&n dZl@s/ ('lahs AN jluhs')
(Instead of /los 'A:n heI leIs/ ('lohs AHN hay lace')).
>How about the Schuykill River (/'sku kl/).
People from Pennsylvania have told me to say /'sku gl/ ('skoogle') for
'Schuylkill'.
People from other lands might be interested to learn that 'Schuylkill'
is not only the name of an important river, but a major expressway.
>Dutch? Hmmm. Aha! The Maurice River
>(/'mOr @s/) . . . that's French, isn't it? Bala Cynwyd, Pennsylvania (/'b&l @
>'kin wUd/). Oh, I give up.
How about /'A:r kIn ,sA:/ ('AR kin sah') for 'Arkansas'?
And there are those who say /m@ 'zU r@/ ('muh ZOO ruh', with the 'OO' as
in 'foot') for 'Missouri'.
Then there's a Cairo in some state that's pronounced /'keI ro/ ('KAY
roh').
Peter Buchwald
>>>My question is, why "too-san" and not "tuck-son"?
>
>I am enchanted to discover, after all those cracks about "Worcester" and
>"Cholmondeley", that even in the US you have placenames whose pronunciation
>cannot possibly be guessed from their spelling. Are there any more,
please?
>
>(Yes, I want them for ammunition, and I think obviously non-English-looking
>names like Des Moines are not quite fair.)
Isn't "Arkansas" is pronounced "Arkansaw"? Incidentally, the tucson post
reminded me of a series of 'sixties commercials on the London Underground
which tried to convince everybody that "Cockburn's port" should be
pronounced "Co'burns".
--
PAB
http://www.buchwald.dircon.co.uk/
>
>Katy
>
Perchprism
Bob wrote:
>From: exw...@ix.netcom.com (Bob Cunningham )
>Date: 10/9/98 1:47 PM Eastern Daylight Time
>Message-id: <36284517...@nntp.ix.netcom.com>
<snip>
>>How about the Schuykill River (/'sku kl/).
>
>People from Pennsylvania have told me to say /'sku gl/ ('skoogle') for
>'Schuylkill'.
<snip>
They're right. That would be the heavy brogue. Best not attempted by an
outsider.
I spelled it wrong, didn't I? Rats. Makes me want ball up that spelling award I
got back in high school from Goldey-Beacom College and toss it. If you can't
nail the tough ones when it really counts, what good are you? I do know how to
spell it. Honest.
Truly Donovan
>
>On 8 Oct, tru...@ibm.net (Truly Donovan) responded to the queston with parental
>authority:
>
>>it's "too-sahn" because the people who live there
>>say it is.
>
>It was "too-sahn" long before anyone who lives there could say what anything
>is; in particular, hundreds of years ago when the Pima Indians gave it the
>name. The spelling is Spanish, from about two hundred years ago.
So what? If everybody who has lived there for the past 100 years
pronounced it "tush-on," "tush-on" it would be.
Henry Tickner
<buch...@dircon.co.uk> writes
>Incidentally, the tucson post
>reminded me of a series of 'sixties commercials on the London Underground
>which tried to convince everybody that "Cockburn's port" should be
>pronounced "Co'burns".
Correctly, I think. One of the less desirable parts of Leeds had a
"Co'burn" High School in my youth; the intake would not have been minded
to adopt a contrived or bogus pronunciation.
But I sometimes wonder if it's a part of the (?UK) advertiser's art to
select brand names which invite mispronunciation -- Nike, Nestle',
Menzies, come to mind. Perhaps knowledge of the *correct* pronunciation
is perceived as an achievement which enables the cognoscenti to sneer at
outsiders and thus engenders brand loyalty.
--
Henry Tickner
The 'nospam' is my ISP's domain, the 'boudoir' is mine.
Mark Odegard
11:44:25 GMT, ke...@cus.cam.ac.uk (K. Edgcombe) in
<6vksup$pst$1...@pegasus.csx.cam.ac.uk> wrote
|Are there any more, please?
|
|(Yes, I want them for ammunition, and I think obviously non-English-looking
|names like Des Moines are not quite fair.)
Des Moines is actually quite regular. It's Des Plains, IL that
presents problems.
Iowa has some yummy ones though, but not quite in the UK league.
If you guess the worst possible pronunciation for the following
list, you're probably on the mark:
Guttenberg (best views in the US east of Vail, CO), /g@*~bRg/
(gut n burg; the t-n is a nasalized flap)
Nevada /n@'veId@/ (nuh VAY duh, with 'vay' to rhyme with 'day').
Comanche /k@'m&ntS/ (rhyme with 'ranch'; 1st vowel as in 'cup').
Buena Vista /'bjun@ 'vIst@/ ('bue' as in 'embue' or 'beauty').
--
Mark Odegard. (Omit OMIT to email)
Emailed copies of responses are very much appreciated.
Mark Odegard
1998 13:51:13 -0400, "nancy g." <nan...@tiac.net> in
<361E4D11...@tiac.net> wrote
|A common error is for people new to the state to pronounce Worcester and
|Gloucester properly ("Wooster" and "Glosster") but then to fumble when they
|attempt to pronounce the town of Dorchester (which is actually pronounced
|exactly as it's spelled - "Dor-chest-er").
Rochester, MN is an interesting case (this is where you find the
Mayo Clinic). There seems to be no dominent pronunciation.
Rock-chester, Raw-chester, Rot-chester, and Rotch-ester are all
heard.
Gary Williams, Business Services Accounting
>K. Edgcombe wrote:
>
>> I am enchanted to discover, after all those cracks about "Worcester" and
>> "Cholmondeley", that even in the US you have placenames whose pronunciation
>
>The one out-of-towners get wrong most often is the Cape Cod town
>of Siasconset, pronounced "Sconset." And of course there's the historic
>building in Boston, Fanueil Hall, which is pronounced "Fannel" Hall.
There are probably few place names in the U.S. which are not mispronunciations
or inadequate transcriptions of a name from another language. I just don't
think the U.S. has been around long enough for pronunciation to diverge as far
from English spelling as has been the case apparently in England.
I haven't been able to check an atlas, but I'm pretty sure that in the state of
Washington there is the town of Sequim, pronounced Skwim.
Gary Williams
Podibanda Kuruppu
> On Thu, Oct 08, 1998, po...@nospam.3com.com (Podibanda Kuruppu) wrote:
>
> >My question is, why "too-san" and not "tuck-son"?
>
> This is one of those puzzling names that came about from the efforts
> of Spanish missionaries to spell (in old Spanish orthography)
> American Indian place-names.
> Whatever the origin, it's pronounced "TOOsahn" because that's the
> way it's pronounced.
I just plain luv it!
Now, how would an Australian tourist (one who hasn't seen this thread,
of course) passing through Tucson pronounce this name? As "TOOsahn"?
Jitze Couperus
Edgcombe) wrote:
> >>My question is, why "too-san" and not "tuck-son"?
>
> I am enchanted to discover, after all those cracks about "Worcester" and
> "Cholmondeley", that even in the US you have placenames whose pronunciation
> cannot possibly be guessed from their spelling. Are there any more, please?
>
> (Yes, I want them for ammunition, and I think obviously non-English-looking
> names like Des Moines are not quite fair.)
>
Soon after landing on these shores, I was directed by my boss to go do
some maintenance on a computer in a place whose name he pronouced
"Fort Wachooka". Not wishing to appear higgnerant, I hied me to an Atlas
and searched, but to no avail.
Damn place is "Fort Huachuka". If I'd see it written down first, I probably
could have guessed the pronumciation. But the other way around...
After travelling there (a flight followed by a *long* drive) I had
to turn round and go home mission unfulfilled - no security clearance
and not a U.S. citizen at the time.
I now live close to a city called Sannerzay. San Jose to you.
Jitze
Thomas A Lawson
>
> >>My question is, why "too-san" and not "tuck-son"?
>
> I am enchanted to discover, after all those cracks about "Worcester" and
> "Cholmondeley", that even in the US you have placenames whose pronunciation
> cannot possibly be guessed from their spelling. Are there any more, please?
>
> (Yes, I want them for ammunition, and I think obviously non-English-looking
> names like Des Moines are not quite fair.)
>
Well, Chillicothe OH might qualify.
--
Regards,
Tom Lawson
Digital Interface Technology
City Beach W A 6015
Australia
Jon Robert Crofoot
>
> [Posted, e-mailed] **Please note Spam Trap** On Fri, 09 Oct
> 1998 13:51:13 -0400, "nancy g." <nan...@tiac.net> in
> <361E4D11...@tiac.net> wrote
>
> |A common error is for people new to the state to pronounce Worcester and
> |Gloucester properly ("Wooster" and "Glosster") but then to fumble when they
> |attempt to pronounce the town of Dorchester (which is actually pronounced
> |exactly as it's spelled - "Dor-chest-er").
>
seem to realize that the proper pronuciation of "Lake Webster" is Lake
Chargogagogmanchargogagogchaubunagungamog. You can look it up!
John Doherty
coup...@mindspring.removethis.com (Jitze Couperus) wrote:
| Soon after landing on these shores, I was directed by my boss to go do
| some maintenance on a computer in a place whose name he pronouced
| "Fort Wachooka". Not wishing to appear higgnerant, I hied me to an Atlas
| and searched, but to no avail.
|
| Damn place is "Fort Huachuka".
No, it's not. It's Fort Huachuca. It's right over there near the Chiricahua
Mountains, and in a lot of ways, that's a really nice place.
| After travelling there (a flight followed by a *long* drive)
If you think that's a long drive, then you haven't been in the Great
American West much. Driving a few hundred miles is nothing, and driving
to Fort Huachuca from Tucson isn't even enough to blink at.
| I now live close to a city called Sannerzay. San Jose to you.
It's really a shame you don't live in the West anymore. The West beats
the hell out of California any day.
Larry Phillips
>
> And am I not correct in saying that most Americans also do not
> pronounce Tucson correctly because they fail to put the emphasis on
> the last syllable?
Yes. You are not correct.
--
------------------------------------------------------------
Sixty billion gigabits can do much. It even does windows.
-- Fred Pohl, Beyond the Blue Event Horizon, 1980
John Holmes
Podibanda Kuruppu wrote in message ...
>Now, how would an Australian tourist (one who hasn't seen this thread,
>of course) passing through Tucson pronounce this name? As "TOOsahn"?
'TOOS-on' probably. We don't do '-ahn' for '-on'.
Regards,
John.
hol...@smart.net.au
email copies of any replies would be appreciated.
H.W.M.
Jitze Couperus wrote:
> Damn place is "Fort Huachuka". If I'd see it written down first, I probably
> could have guessed the pronumciation. But the other way around...
OK, how do you pronounce "Wedouwee" ? ...Somewhere in WV methinks.
Would I ?
Podibanda Kuruppu
>In article <19981009023645...@ng134.aol.com>,
> akur...@aol.com (Akureyri) wrote:
>>
>> >My question is, why "too-san" and not "tuck-son"?
>>
>> And am I not correct in saying that most Americans also do not pronounce
>Tucson
>> correctly because they fail to put the emphasis on the last syllable?
>>
>I don't think you are correct in saying so. I've never heard tu-son'. In
>response to Podibanda Kuruppu's question, I think that the word comes from an
>American Indian word in the first place and was a Spanish approximation of it
>and the c must have been very small and eventually disappeared from the
>sound.
Thanks. Now, does the same rule apply to "mortgage"? Many of my
friends pronounce this last word to rhyme with "moat - gauge," which I
think is incorrect.
>Two strrange pronunciations of what are actually Spanish words are to be found
>in Long Beach and Redlands, California:
>
>Junipero (hu-neep'-e-ro) is pronounced "Wannapero" in Long Beach, and
>the Zanja (ditch) aqueduct (zahn-ha) is pronounced zan-kee with a hard "a" in
> Redlands.
Then I better stay miles away from these towns. By the way, your
spelling of "strrange" _was_ deliberate, wast it not?
Akureyri
>And am I not correct in saying that most Americans also do not
>> pronounce Tucson correctly because they fail to put the emphasis on
>> the last syllable?
>
Okay, I agree, everyone has told me that I am wrong, so I am sure I am. I must
have just heard someone pronounce it wrong.....how do Mexicans pronounce it?
Also, wasn't there a Beatles song that mentioned Tucson, Arizona and pronounced
it like everyone else does? And finally how do you pronounce Belfast?
Markus Laker
> Now, does the same rule apply to "mortgage"? Many of my
> friends pronounce this last word to rhyme with "moat - gauge," which I
> think is incorrect.
In English English it's /'mO: gIdZ/, with the same vowels as 'tor
ridge'. If someone mentioned his /'m@U geIdZ/ out of context, I
wouldn't know what he was talking about.
Markus
--
a.u.e FAQ and resources: http://homepages.tcp.co.uk/~laker/aue/
Drop the 'drop this bit' bit of my email address to reply.
Aaron J. Dinkin
> K. Edgcombe wrote:
>
> > >>My question is, why "too-san" and not "tuck-son"?
>
> > I am enchanted to discover, after all those cracks about "Worcester" and
> > "Cholmondeley", that even in the US you have placenames whose pronunciation
> > cannot possibly be guessed from their spelling. Are there any more, please?
>
> > (Yes, I want them for ammunition, and I think obviously non-English-looking
> > names like Des Moines are not quite fair.)
>
> Okay, then how about U.S. place names whose names *are* English-looking,
> such as "Worcester"? (Yes, we do have one. In Massachusetts. The second
> largest city in the state, as a matter of fact.) We also have a Gloucester.
And a Leicester, though that's not as well known.
> A common error is for people new to the state to pronounce Worcester and
> Gloucester properly ("Wooster" and "Glosster") but then to fumble when they
> attempt to pronounce the town of Dorchester (which is actually pronounced
> exactly as it's spelled - "Dor-chest-er").
(Just a note - Dorchester's not a town, but part of the city of Boston. You
probably have to live within a dozen miles of Boston to have a license to
pronounce it "Dotchester".)
> We've also got a Berlin, which is pronounced BURL-in or BURL'n.
Woburn is /'wUb@rn/ or /'wub@rn/ (WOO-burn); Leominster is /'lEm@nst@r/
(LEMON-ster); Haverhill is /'hevr@l/ or /'hev@r@l/; Peabody is /'pib@di/,
not /'pi,bAdi/; Quincy is /'kwInzi/, not /'kwInsi/; Danvers is /'d&nv@rs/,
not /'d&nv@rz/.
> The one out-of-towners get wrong most often is the Cape Cod town
> of Siasconset, pronounced "Sconset."
Funny, I always thought that <Sconset> was how it was spelled.
-Aaron J. Dinkin
Dr. Whom
Aaron J. Dinkin
<Bob.C...@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
> Mark Odegard wrote:
> >
> > [Posted, e-mailed] **Please note Spam Trap** On Fri, 09 Oct
> > 1998 13:51:13 -0400, "nancy g." <nan...@tiac.net> in
> > <361E4D11...@tiac.net> wrote
> >
> > |A common error is for people new to the state to pronounce Worcester and
> > |Gloucester properly ("Wooster" and "Glosster") but then to fumble when they
> > |attempt to pronounce the town of Dorchester (which is actually pronounced
> > |exactly as it's spelled - "Dor-chest-er").
> >
> And speaking of Massachussets names, younger people nowadays don't
> seem to realize that the proper pronuciation of "Lake Webster" is Lake
> Chargogagogmanchargogagogchaubunagungamog. You can look it up!
Close, but it's "Chargoggagoggmanchaugagoggchaubunagungamogg".
Bill D.
>
> po...@nospam.3com.com (Podibanda Kuruppu) wrote:
>
> > Now, does the same rule apply to "mortgage"? Many of my
> > friends pronounce this last word to rhyme with "moat - gauge," which I
> > think is incorrect.
>
> In English English it's /'mO: gIdZ/, with the same vowels as 'tor
> ridge'. If someone mentioned his /'m@U geIdZ/ out of context, I
> wouldn't know what he was talking about.
>
BD
Larry Phillips
> And finally how do you pronounce Belfast?
I pronounce it like "bell fast" but without the space, and with neutral
emphasis.
Truly Donovan
>
>>And am I not correct in saying that most Americans also do not
>>> pronounce Tucson correctly because they fail to put the emphasis on
>>> the last syllable?
>>
>>Yes. You are not correct.
>
>Okay, I agree, everyone has told me that I am wrong, so I am sure I am. I must
>have just heard someone pronounce it wrong.....how do Mexicans pronounce it?
In what way does it matter how Mexicans pronounce it? It is a city in
the USA, populated largely by midwestern retirees who promptly raised
the humidity and pollen levels.
DK
>A person just off the plane from Argentina might be surprised to find
>that 'Los Angeles' is pronounced /lA:s '&n dZl@s/ ('lahs AN jluhs')
>(Instead of /los 'A:n heI leIs/ ('lohs AHN hay lace')).
I can't write in the nifty symbols--shame on me!--but Los Gatos, California
is pronounced (by residents of the region) "Las Gattus". The "u" is
virtually a schwa.
--Katrina
Joseph C Fineman
>I can't write in the nifty symbols--shame on me!--but Los Gatos,
>California is pronounced (by residents of the region) "Las Gattus".
>The "u" is virtually a schwa.
The treatment of Spanish place names in California is chaotic in the
extreme. Some (e.g. San Francisco) are given fully Anglicized
spelling pronunciations. In others (e.g. La Jolla) a tolerable
attempt is made to imitate the Spanish pronunciation. Some are a
mixture; e.g., in San Diego, the ie is pronounced with some obeisance
to the Spanish, but the a is good old U.S. /&/. Within my lifetime
there have been at least three popular pronunciations of Los Angeles,
all of them completely unSpanish.
--- Joe Fineman j...@world.std.com
||: The universe is not only queerer than we suppose, but :||
||: queerer than we can suppose. :||
Dave Crane
>>>My question is, why "too-san" and not "tuck-son"?
>
>I am enchanted to discover, after all those cracks about "Worcester" and
>"Cholmondeley", that even in the US you have placenames whose pronunciation
>cannot possibly be guessed from their spelling. Are there any more, please?
>
>(Yes, I want them for ammunition, and I think obviously non-English-looking
>names like Des Moines are not quite fair.)
>
>Katy
How about "Houston"? It's pronounced one way if it's a city in Texas
(Hugh'stun) and quite differently (House'tun) if it's a street in
Manhattan, NY. Named for different folks who pronounced their names
differently, I suspect.
(Remove NOT from my email address if replying by email)
Dave Crane
Houston, Texas
http://www.hal-pc.org/~dcrane
Bill
>
> Vie-ENNA (Vienna)
Actually it's Vie Anna, probably because there's another town, "Anna" just
down the hard road.
> KAY-row (Cairo)
And this one can be Kay-row (if you live near the river) or CARE-oh (if
you don't).
Skitt
Gary Williams, Business Services Accounting wrote in message
<6vm55i$g2t$2...@news.cudenver.edu>...
>
>I haven't been able to check an atlas, but I'm pretty sure that in the
state of
>Washington there is the town of Sequim, pronounced Skwim.
You are right on! Been there for the irrigation festival -- parade and all.
Strangely enough, it is on the Olympic peninsula which is known for the
outrageous amounts of rainfall in the nearby rain forests. Seems that there
is a so-called sunbelt along the eastern edge of the peninsula, and it
stretches north to include Victoria, BC.
Do you know how to pronounce Puyallup?
--
Skitt http://www.geocities.com/TheTropics/5537/
Central Florida CAUTION: My opinion may vary.
Podibanda Kuruppu
wrote:
>
>>A person just off the plane from Argentina might be surprised to find
>>that 'Los Angeles' is pronounced /lA:s '&n dZl@s/ ('lahs AN jluhs')
>>(Instead of /los 'A:n heI leIs/ ('lohs AHN hay lace')).
>
>
>I can't write in the nifty symbols--shame on me!--but Los Gatos, California
>is pronounced (by residents of the region) "Las Gattus". The "u" is
>virtually a schwa.
Katrina, so you have been in my neck of the woods then, eh? I don't
live in Los Gatos, but there are many names around here that can make
a person swoon. How about Yerba Buena? (sp?), California - no, this
one really may be old news to most of you, but for many years, I
pronounced it as "Kal-i-FOR-nya"; but it is "Kal-a-FOR-nya."
Gary Williams, Business Services Accounting
>Do you know how to pronounce Puyallup?
Nope.
Gary Williams
Podibanda Kuruppu
> Podibanda Kuruppu wrote in message ...
> >Now, how would an Australian tourist (one who hasn't seen this thread,
> >of course) passing through Tucson pronounce this name? As "TOOsahn"?
>
> 'TOOS-on' probably. We don't do '-ahn' for '-on'.
The '-on' rhymes with "bun" or "barn"? And, by the way, is
there anything else that we do, but you don't --- pronunciation-wise?
John Holmes
Podibanda Kuruppu wrote in message ...
>"John Holmes" <hol...@smart.net.au> writes:
>
>> Podibanda Kuruppu wrote in message ...
>> >Now, how would an Australian tourist (one who hasn't seen this
thread,
>> >of course) passing through Tucson pronounce this name? As "TOOsahn"?
>>
>> 'TOOS-on' probably. We don't do '-ahn' for '-on'.
>
>The '-on' rhymes with "bun" or "barn"?
No, definitely not. I haven't got the hang of ASCII-IPA yet, but from
what I've seen in other posts it is /A.n/ rather than /An/ [1]. This
sound doesn't seem to exist in most US dialects. If you try saying 'on'
but with the lips more rounded and the tongue slightly further forward,
you might get somewhere close to it. Or try a French '-on', but with the
'n' less nasal. There might be a sound clip in Igor Merfert's archive
illustrating the difference.
How do you sound the 'o' in your first name? I thought the short 'o'
also existed in Singhalese, or is it more of an 'oh' sound?
>And, by the way, is
>there anything else that we do, but you don't --- pronunciation-wise?
Gosh, I wouldn't know how to set about answering that.
[1] I find this very confusing about ASCII-IPA, that a sound that I
think of so strongly as a form of 'o' is written with the letter 'a'. I
guess I'll have to try to think of it as being the 'a' in 'what'.
Larry Phillips
> Do you know how to pronounce Puyallup?
The native Warshingtonians call it 'poo-al-up'
Skitt
Larry Phillips wrote in message <3622EF92...@home.com>...
>Skitt wrote:
>
>> Do you know how to pronounce Puyallup?
>
>The native Warshingtonians call it 'poo-al-up'
Actually, pew-'al-up.
SLHinton17
>Skitt wrote:
>
>> Do you know how to pronounce Puyallup?
>
>The native Warshingtonians call it 'poo-al-up'
**********************************
I've heard them say "Pyoo-&L-@p," with the accent on /-&L-/.
Sam Hinton
La Jolla, CA
Skitt
Rex Knepp
>
> Podibanda Kuruppu wrote in message ...
> >The '-on' rhymes with "bun" or "barn"?
>
> No, definitely not. I haven't got the hang of ASCII-IPA yet, but from
> what I've seen in other posts it is /A.n/ rather than /An/ [1].
Yes, /A.n/ is closer [1]; though /An/ is not far off (to my ear). In no
way could it rhyme with "bun." It might rhyme with a Bostonian "barn,"
though I've never heard a Bostonian actually *say* "barn." Do they
have barns around Boston? [2]
Re: an earlier query -- the city name is always accented on the
first syllable, except by dude ranchers and other species of drugstore
cowboy. The accent shifts to the second syllable and the 'o' becomes
long when referring to the residents as Tucsonans.
> This
> sound doesn't seem to exist in most US dialects. If you try saying 'on'
> but with the lips more rounded and the tongue slightly further forward,
> you might get somewhere close to it. Or try a French '-on', but with the
> 'n' less nasal. There might be a sound clip in Igor Merfert's archive
> illustrating the difference.
Not sure about this last -- in my idiolect, at least, your descriptions
of the embrochure are backwards -- I differentiate the second
vowel sound in Tucson from that in the word 'on' by lessening the
rounding or the lips and moving the tongue further back. It
bears no resemblance to a denasalized French '-on,' even in my
execrable French. "Tucson" comes far closer to rhyming with
"con" than with "on" when I pronounce the three.
[1] looking at Markus Laker's http://homepages.tcp.co.uk/~laker/ipa/
I note that the /A./ sound is that of Captain Picard's "hot" in
"Tea. Earl Grey. Hot." Sounds to be a good approximation
[2] I'm certain they do.
-30-
rex
Aaron J. Dinkin
> John Holmes wrote:
> >
> > Podibanda Kuruppu wrote in message ...
> > > -snip-
> > >The '-on' rhymes with "bun" or "barn"?
> >
> > No, definitely not. I haven't got the hang of ASCII-IPA yet, but from
> > what I've seen in other posts it is /A.n/ rather than /An/ [1].
>
> Yes, /A.n/ is closer [1]; though /An/ is not far off (to my ear). In no
> way could it rhyme with "bun." It might rhyme with a Bostonian "barn,"
> though I've never heard a Bostonian actually *say* "barn." Do they
> have barns around Boston? [2]
I can say very accurately that just about anywhere any English speaker has
/A./, an American English speaker has /A/. A necessary corollary of this is
that no American dialects have /A./. This is a bit of a sweeping
generalization, but I think it's not far from the truth.
In most American dialects, the vowel in "barn" is /A/. In Boston, however,
it's not; a strong Boston accent will have /ban/ for "barn". (A less strong
one, like my own, will have /barn/.) "Tuscon" in Boston is /'tusAn/, like
it is anywhere else - doesn't rhyme with "barn".
As for the word "barn" in Boston, I present the following excerpt from _The
Wicked Good Guide to Boston English_,
http://www.boston-online.com/glossary.html:
"Bahnie: In Cambridge, a Havihd student. In Sommaville, a Cambridge
resident. Local speakers argue about its derivation: Some say it's from
"Bahnyahd," a derisive term for Hahvihd Yahd; others argue it comes from
the old MBTA cah bahns just outside the Squayuh (the bahns went away when
the Red Line was extended to Sommaville)."
Mark Odegard
1998 14:21:31 -0400, din...@fas.harvard.edu (Aaron J. Dinkin) in
<dinkin-ya0231800...@news.fas.harvard.edu> wrote
|In most American dialects, the vowel in "barn" is /A/. In Boston, however,
|it's not; a strong Boston accent will have /ban/ for "barn". (A less strong
|one, like my own, will have /barn/.)
In my own dialect, /A/ and /O/ are merged. I use /A/ to
represent the vowels in 'caller' and 'collar', both /'kAl@r/,
but on the recommendation of others on this group, use /O/
before R.
Having said this, I come up against how I represent this vowel
when coming before /r/. Essentially, /A/ and /O/ have shifted
into each other becoming a single sound, with neither having
their assigned 'pure' value in my own idiolect. I think /bA@rn/
is probably closest.
--
Mark Odegard. (Omit OMIT to email)
Emailed copies of responses are very much appreciated.
Bob Cunningham
>On Mon, Oct 12, 1998, Larry Phillips <lar...@home.com> wrote:
>
>>Skitt wrote:
>>
>>> Do you know how to pronounce Puyallup?
>>
>>The native Warshingtonians call it 'poo-al-up'
>**********************************
>I've heard them say "Pyoo-&L-@p," with the accent on /-&L-/.
Given your hybrid notation, I'm not sure what you intend with '&', but
when I lived in Seattle many years ago I used to hear [pju'A:l@p]
('pyooAHluhp'). I never heard [pju'&l@p] ('pyooAluhp', with 'A' as in
'cat').
Podibanda Kuruppu
> Podibanda Kuruppu wrote in message ...
> >"John Holmes" <hol...@smart.net.au> writes:
> >>
[...]
> >> 'TOOS-on' probably. We don't do '-ahn' for '-on'.
> >
> >The '-on' rhymes with "bun" or "barn"?
>
> No, definitely not. I haven't got the hang of ASCII-IPA yet, but from
> what I've seen in other posts it is /A.n/ rather than /An/ [1]. This
> sound doesn't seem to exist in most US dialects. If you try saying 'on'
> but with the lips more rounded and the tongue slightly further forward,
> you might get somewhere close to it. Or try a French '-on', but with the
> 'n' less nasal. There might be a sound clip in Igor Merfert's archive
> illustrating the difference.
I think I get it --- although I wouldn't say I'm entirely sure.
> How do you sound the 'o' in your first name? I thought the short 'o'
> also existed in Singhalese, or is it more of an 'oh' sound?
My first name is pronounced with a short 'o'; and yes, Sinhalese has
a short 'o' sound, too, but I wouldn't want to embarrass myself by
trying to show you how it is represented using IPA. So I better not try.
> >And, by the way, is
> >there anything else that we do, but you don't --- pronunciation-wise?
>
> Gosh, I wouldn't know how to set about answering that.
I understand --- and thanks.
Mark Schaefer
slhin...@aol.com (SLHinton17) wrote:
::On Thu, Oct 08, 1998, po...@nospam.3com.com (Podibanda Kuruppu) wrote:
::
::[snip]
::>My question is, why "too-san" and not "tuck-son"?
::************************************
::This is one of those puzzling names that came about from the efforts of
Spanish
::missionaries to spell (in old Spanish orthography) American Indian
::place-names. Whatever the origin, it's pronounced "TOOsahn" because that's the
::way it's pronounced.
::
::Sam Hinton
::La Jolla, CA
Speaking of place-names whose pronunciations are not readily apparent: It
was only very recently that I learned that your hometown La Jolla and the
Californian city of La Hoyah were the same place. I had never seen the
spelling alongside the pronunciation. I had always thought that your city
was called [la dZal@], but then again, I'm from the northeast--Spanish
place names are not my forte.
-- Mark Schaefer
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Beware you be not swallowed up in books! An ounce of
love is worth a pound of knowledge. - John Wesley
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Larry Phillips
>>>The native Warshingtonians call it 'poo-al-up'
>>I've heard them say "Pyoo-&L-@p," with the accent on /-&L-/.
>
> You heard correctly.
Still sounds like 'poo-al-up' to me (emphasis on the 'al'), and I
do hear it often, living only a short distance north of it.
Peter Moylan
>"John Holmes" <hol...@smart.net.au> writes:
>
>> Podibanda Kuruppu wrote in message ...
>> >of course) passing through Tucson pronounce this name? As "TOOsahn"?
>>
>
>The '-on' rhymes with "bun" or "barn"?
Neither. It rhymes with John.
> And, by the way, is
>there anything else that we do, but you don't --- pronunciation-wise?
All of the vowels?
For a start, I don't think Australian English has the vowel
in American "barn", though we might come close if we exaggerated
the first "r" - the one we normally don't pronounce - in
"barn-again Christians".
--
Peter Moylan pe...@ee.newcastle.edu.au
DK
I spent much of my growing up time in Ben Lomond (nothing funny about
pronunciation there), near Felton and so forth. Remember Soquel? Long after
I moved away from the area, I met a girl named Soquel, and asked if she'd
been born there. She was amazed, as no-one had ever made the connection. She
*had* been born there; her mother was a bit strange. Several of my family
still live in Santa Cruz county.
--Katrina
Skitt
DK wrote in message <701svn$of2$2...@news2.xs4all.nl>...
>I spent much of my growing up time in Ben Lomond (nothing funny about
>pronunciation there), near Felton and so forth.
Boulder Creek was my locale for a while -- was that you I saw at Coconut
Grove? ;)
StrayShots
"Tucson":
>If everybody who has lived there for the past 100 years
>pronounced it "tush-on," "tush-on" it would be.
If wishes were horses, beggars would ride.
-- Stray...@not.for.e-mail.com --
"With my cross-bow
I shot the Albatross."
spam-bait follows:
u...@ftc.gov
cust...@email.usps.gov
sup...@netnames.com
sa...@boomerang.com
Rex Knepp
>
> On 9 Oct, tru...@ibm.net (Truly Donovan) protested about the pronunciation of
> "Tucson":
>
> >If everybody who has lived there for the past 100 years
> >pronounced it "tush-on," "tush-on" it would be.
>
> If wishes were horses, beggars would ride.
>
Not the same thing at all, oh slayer of albatrosses. Truly's
thesis is simply that, at the very least with place names, the
pronunciation of those most clearly associated with the thing
being named is the _preferred_ pronunciation. I don't tell
you how to pronounce "StrayShots," you don't tell me how
to pronounce the name of the little town whence my mail is
delivered. How would *you* pronounce Buda?
-30-
rex
--
The state name Texas derives from the Comanche phrase "d'ec shoss,"
meaning "the place where driver licenses are sold at Wal-Mart."
a1a5...@bc.sympatico.ca
>On 9 Oct, tru...@ibm.net (Truly Donovan) protested about the pronunciation of
>"Tucson":
>
>>If everybody who has lived there for the past 100 years
>>pronounced it "tush-on," "tush-on" it would be.
>
>If wishes were horses, beggars would ride.
>
And if we were lucky all donkeys would have hooves.