You can(t) always tell they're not local because....

[Veloise]

I usually spend weekday mornings on my couch with my leg extended and doing physical therapy on my bionic foot, with my local NPR station and Facebook. A couple of the on-air personalities are buddies (have met them in real life, and we would/have recognize/d each other meeting on the street).

Today I posted The Michigan Accent & Michiganders' Slang Words which claims "Pontiac - This is pronounced pah-neeack, if you say the "t" sound, you will give away that you're not from Michigan." Nope. The writer did not grow up a few miles from that town, nor did her family evidently drive that make of GM car.

Almost immediate my newsreader buddy reported on the school district in that fair city, pronouncing its name correctly. Of course I mentioned this on a post, and for the next read, he said "pah-neeack" followed by a teensy bit of dead air.

Such fun.

[WSU MUP Student]

I usually spend weekday mornings on my couch with my leg extended and doing physical therapy on my bionic foot, with my local NPR station and Facebook. A couple of the on-air personalities are buddies (have met them in real life, and we would/have recognize/d each other meeting on the street).

Today I posted The Michigan Accent & Michiganders' Slang Words which claims "Pontiac - This is pronounced pah-neeack, if you say the "t" sound, you will give away that you're not from Michigan." Nope. The writer did not grow up a few miles from that town, nor did her family evidently drive that make of GM car.

Almost immediate my newsreader buddy reported on the school district in that fair city, pronouncing its name correctly. Of course I mentioned this on a post, and for the next read, he said "pah-neeack" followed by a teensy bit of dead air.

Such fun.

Interesting article but I agree with you that the "T" is definitely pronounced in Pontiac. I don't think I hear anybody in our office (where we can see Pontiac from the windows) pronounce it "pah-neeack".

However, the "H" seems to forever be getting dropped from Port Huron and it sounds like "Port Urine". Out-of-towners seem to be more likely to pronounce the H and put the emphasis on the last syllable of Huron (similar to how locals will if they are talking about the Huron Indians).

[btrage]

Interesting article but I agree with you that the "T" is definitely pronounced in Pontiac. I don't think I hear anybody in our office (where we can see Pontiac from the windows) pronounce it "pah-neeack".

However, the "H" seems to forever be getting dropped from Port Huron and it sounds like "Port Urine". Out-of-towners seem to be more likely to pronounce the H and put the emphasis on the last syllable of Huron (similar to how locals will if they are talking about the Huron Indians).

The first time my wife heard my mom pronounce Port Huron as "Port Urine", it took everything she had to stop from laughing.

[Maister]

split from RTDNTOTO8

Maybe it's an east Michigan thing, because I have always (mis)pronounced it 'ponny-ack'. And for the record, I shop at stores like Meijer's and Kroger's.

When I lived in New Bern, NC. Locals pronounced it "NEW Bern". Folks from out of town frequently called it "new BERN"

[WSU MUP Student]

split from RTDNTOTO8

Maybe it's an east Michigan thing, because I have always (mis)pronounced it 'ponny-ack'. And for the record, I shop at stores like Meijer's and Kroger's.

When I lived in New Bern, NC. Locals pronounced it "NEW Bern". Folks from out of town frequently called it "new BERN"

I used to always say "Meijer's" until my wife's incessant correcting trained me otherwise.

Regarding Eastern NC - you could always tell the recent transplants because they would pronounce Beaufort as "Bew-fert"(which is how the town name of the same spelling in SC is pronounced) instead of the locally preferred pronunciation of "Boh-fort". I always thought those folks in "Boh-fort" seemed awfully full of themselves.

[Midori]

Des Plaines. It's pronounced just like it looks. Only outsiders try to get all French with it.

And around here, Sevier. It's a last name of a historic figure, and finds its way onto a lot of street signs, and the town of Sevierville. It's pronounced "Severe" by the locals. Again, nothing French about it.

[Veloise]

Interesting article but I agree with you that the "T" is definitely pronounced in Pontiac. I don't think I hear anybody in our office (where we can see Pontiac from the windows) pronounce it "pah-neeack".

However, the "H" seems to forever be getting dropped from Port Huron and it sounds like "Port Urine". Out-of-towners seem to be more likely to pronounce the H and put the emphasis on the last syllable of Huron (similar to how locals will if they are talking about the Huron Indians).

Newsreader buddy typed: "Like Port Huron----Port Huron to an outsider, but Porchurn to the natives (I worked there for several years)."

I won't immortalize his comment about the pronunciation of "Gratiot."

[Tide]

In Atlantic City, NJ the streets as many know are the inspiration for Monopoly. There are many streets that don't make the game like Arkansas Street. Most might think this looks like R-can-saw Street but locals pronounce it phonetically Ar-Kansas Street.

[otterpop]

In the Big Sky State, pronunciations can be a little different. The capital city, for locals, is HELL-en-a. Not Ha-LEENA.

There is a small town in northeastern Montana - Froid (French for cold). I got an odd look the first time I said it, because, owing for my South Louisiana/Cajun origins, I pronounced it as a French-speaker would - Frwaa. But the people in Montana pronounce it Freud.


Locals say New Orlins or New Awlins, depending on what part of the city they were raised in. They do not say New Or-leens or N'Awlins.

[Maister]

Des Plaines. It's pronounced just like it looks. Only outsiders try to get all French with it.

And around here, Sevier. It's a last name of a historic figure, and finds its way onto a lot of street signs, and the town of Sevierville. It's pronounced "Severe" by the locals. Again, nothing French about it.

Agree in general about the French pronunciations when it comes to American geography. I mean Michiganders might jokingly refer to the city of "Day-twa" but no one seriously says it that way. What's the capital of Iowa? Day-mwhen, n'est-ce pas? There is a point, however, when Anglicizing names can be taken too far. I once had a history prof who was talking about Fort Duquesne and pronounced it "Fort Du-kwesnuh" and saying 'De kain' is quite acceptable in that instance.

We've had previous threads about Spanish name pronunciations in CA and Texas, but it seems like French and native American names are more common in my neck of the woods (Great Lakes).

[Gedunker]

As NHPlanner will attest, the NH capital is pronounced "conquered" not CON-cord. (I knew that, but my mouth worked faster than my brain, sending amused looks amongst my NH relations. Immediately correcting myself was to no avail.)

[dvdneal]

Can't say there's much here in Kansas to mispronounce. The occasional county like Saline. It's Suh-leen, note Say-leen like the solution.
I did always enjoy the midwesterners in Phoenix who didn't know enough Spanish for words like Jav-A-leen-a and Chol-La although most get jalapeno.

[Planit]

As NHPlanner will attest, the NH capital is pronounced "conquered" not CON-cord. (I knew that, but my mouth worked faster than my brain, sending amused looks amongst my NH relations. Immediately correcting myself was to no avail.)

True 'Conquered' is in NH and CON-cord is in NC

[DetroitPlanner]

Des Plaines. It's pronounced just like it looks. Only outsiders try to get all French with it.

And around here, Sevier. It's a last name of a historic figure, and finds its way onto a lot of street signs, and the town of Sevierville. It's pronounced "Severe" by the locals. Again, nothing French about it.

That sounds very hard to me. Grates me like you would not believe... Sort of like DEE-Paul.

I am used to having the softer french sounds. Pontiac makes sense to have a softer T as in the word Pont (french for bridge) the T at the end of the word is often soft and Pont is the first syllable of Pontiac. I have occasionally heard it with a sharp T but that is always with a change in the syllable to Pon-Tiac.

Detroit should always have a soft t at the end, so soft it is barely heard.

[jsk1983]

Des Plaines. It's pronounced just like it looks. Only outsiders try to get all French with it.

And around here, Sevier. It's a last name of a historic figure, and finds its way onto a lot of street signs, and the town of Sevierville. It's pronounced "Severe" by the locals. Again, nothing French about it.

On a related note I was in Missouri a few weeks ago and found myself in Des Peres. Was wondering how they pronounced it.

[illinoisplanner]

For the Chicago area:

• If someone puts "the" in front of interstate numbers, they're not from around here
• If someone is in the left lane of a tollway or expressway and they're not going at least 75 or 80 mph, they're not from around here
• If someone asks for ketchup on their hot dog, they're probably not from around here
• If someone can't handle the cold and is ridiculously bundled up when it's in the 40s, 50s, or 60s, they're not from around here
• If someone goes to a Hawks game and doesn't applaud during the National Anthem (or looks incredibly puzzled by other people applauding), they're not from around here
• If someone sits in the bleachers at Wrigley, catches a homerun ball by the opposing team, and doesn't throw the ball back, they're not from around here
• Apparently, if someone calls the area between the sidewalk and the street anything other than "the parkway", they're not from around here
• If someone puts their garbage in the street, rather than the driveway, they're not from around here
• If someone doesn't have an i-Pass and a Jewel or Dominick's card, they're not from around here
• If someone doesn't have Bears apparel, Hawks apparel, Bulls apparel, and Cubs or Sox apparel, or some other sort of merchandise for each of the teams, they're not from around here
• If someone doesn't know how to use Palatine Road, they're not from around here
• If someone doesn't know how to correctly pronounce DeKalb, Naperville, Joliet, Des Plaines, or Bourbonnais, they're clearly not from around here
• If someone refers to the old names of venues, such as Comiskey (vs. U.S. Cellular Field), the Rosemont Horizon (vs. Allstate Arena), or the World or Tweeter Center (vs. First Midwest Bank Amphitheater) and someone has no idea what they're referring to, they're not from around here

[paiste13]

Upper Midwest version:

If you call it casserole instead of hot dish you're not from here.
If you say hair tie instead of scrunchy you're not from here.
If you say Dez Moin-z instead of Duh-Moin you're not from here.
If you say Al-burr Lay instead of Albert Lea you're not from here.
If you call anything in Saint Paul as being in Minneapolis you're not from here.
If you call Na-vay-da, Iowa Na-va-da you're not from here.
If you say "you betcha" you're not from here. We say "you bet"
If you call a blinker an indicator you're not from here.
We don't ask if you want to go, we say "wanna come with". Everything ends in "with" or "right there".

[otterpop]

Do people from Maine typically say "idear" rather than "idea"?

[Linda_D]

Here in the Southern Tier of New York, we say ...
... "Ver-SALES" is a tiny hamlet spelled Versailles
... "Oh-LEE-an" for Olean, the largest city in Cattaraugus (CAT-a-raw-gus) County, or simply Catt County
... Dunkirk has Point GRA-chit spelled Point Gratiot ...
... Napoli is pronounced Na-PO- lye ...
... Kinzua (the dam, reservoir, and valley in PA) is pronounced Kin-ZOO...

We locals go swimmin' in a crik NOT a creek, and we go fishin' on Chautauqua (Shaw-TAW-kwa) Lake NOT Lake Chautauqua.

Buffalo has some great ones ... the very best being, Scajacquada ... just the way it's spelled: ska-JACK-wid-dah. Only locals even attempt it.

Two interesting ones from the Hudson Valley: Coxsackie (cook-SOCK-ee) and Valatie (vah-LAY-sha).

When I lived in Nebraska, I picked up the "correct" way to say Beatrice, NB (Bee-AH-trice), Chadron, NB (SHAD-ron), and Pierre, SD (Peer) ... and many Midwesterners seemed to have difficulty with place names that ended in vowels like Missourah and Ioway. "R-kansas" for both the state and the river.

[terraplnr]

Where I grew up, in West Virginia:

Appalachian = app-a-LATCH-an instead of app-a-LAY-shan (after getting married to an Ohioan and moving away I found myself saying the latter, but I’m going to start saying the former again because that's how people who live there say it)
Kanawha River/County/Forest = Can-awah (but the w is quiet, it’s not can-a-wah)
Hurricane (town) = hurri-can, not like how the Weather Channel would say hurricane


In my part of coastal central CA, some mispronunciations of local small towns/communities that immediately identify an outsider are:
Ojai = o-hi, not o-jai
Goleta = go-lee-ta, not go-let-a
Lompoc = lom-poke, not lom-pock
Isla Vista – eyla vista, not eyla veesta

And then there is Refugio State Park… locals say refu-hio (even though it’s a “g” and not a “j”) or sometimes refu-fio (no clue where that comes from), but not refu-gio.

There was an article in the LA Times just the other day about Spanish road and city names in the greater Los Angeles area that were “midwesternized” back in the 40’s and 50’s but people are starting to pronounce them the “correct” way again. Fun to talk about.

[Tide]

You can tell they're not from around here if they ask where the nearest Macy*s is.

[Zoning Goddess]

The litmus test in central FL was Kissimmee. Newcomers say "KISS-ih-me". It's "Ki-SIM-me".

[Dan]

In Buffalo, it's any white/Caucasian person without "the accent." Just about every native, excepting African-Americans, speaks in a very nasal Inland Northern/Northern Cities Vowel Shift accent, regardless of whether they're blue collar or white, working class or wealthy, Supposedly, the Northern Cities Vowel Shift originated in Buffalo, so it's probably expected that the accent is most prevalent there.



Another giveaway: what they call area expressways. native Buffalonians, for some odd reason, sound like Californians when talking about their roads. "Wanna' go the eeeyairport? You take the 990 to the 290 to the 90 to the 33 east."

[kjel]

In downtown Portland, OR....Couch Street is pronounced "Cooch".

[Otis]

In downtown Portland, OR....Couch Street is pronounced "Cooch".

And let's not forget the town of Yachats YAH-hots