Local pronunciations of place names...

A forum for discussing US dialects (accents).
AdoAnnie
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Postby AdoAnnie » Wed Jun 07, 2006 9:36 am

Speaking of incomprehesable street names, in my town everything, EVERTHING is named after a tree, bush, flower or other plant life. That's all right if you are familiar with a wide assortment of plants and how their names are spelled, but tell a new comer that the address they are looking for is on (pronouced) 'Wee-satch' (rhymes with thatch) and they will go crazy and frustrated looking for it untill someone spells the word for them: Wuisache, I still don't know what kind of vegetation life it is. :wink:
The neighbors said that they knew the man who'd been shot for years.

Stargzer
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Postby Stargzer » Wed Jun 07, 2006 4:52 pm

Hmmmm, looks like a mixed bag . . .
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language: Fourth Edition. 2000.

Lompoc

SYLLABICATION: Lom·poc
PRONUNCIATION: lŏm' pŏk'
A city of southern California west-northwest of Santa Barbara. Vandenburg Air Force Base is nearby. Population: 37,649.

But, from Wikipedia:
Lompoc (pronounced Lom' poke) is a city in Santa Barbara County, California, United States. The population was 41,103 at the 2000 census.
The Columbia Encyclopedia agrees with the Wikipedia pronunciation. That's only two out of the eight references given by One-Look that call for a long "o" (ō) in the last syllable; one entry didn't give a pronunciation.
The people of those foreign countries are very, very ignorant. . . .In Paris they just simply opened their eyes and stared when we spoke to them in French! We never did succeed in making those idiots understand their own language.
Mark Twain, Innocents Abroad
Regards//Larry

"To preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of the people always possess arms, and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them."
-- Attributed to Richard Henry Lee

Huny
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Postby Huny » Wed Jun 07, 2006 6:32 pm

stargzer-

It may seem like a mixed bag. The only thing about that is the locals all agree on pronunciation(Lom-poke) .We always took the Chumash Indinan's word for it. They still have strong roots in the community and an active tribe there,(a great casino,too!) for they are the ones who named the place to begin with. It is just hard to convince people elsewhere how it is pronounced. :wink: In all my travels the one thing I have learned is to always say it like the locals- it takes the spotlight off you.
"What lies behind us and what lies ahead of us are tiny matters compaired to what lies inside us." R.W.E.

sluggo
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Postby sluggo » Sun Jun 11, 2006 1:52 pm

That reminds me,the town that I was born in is called Lompoc. I lived there 20 years. It is a Chumash Indian word meaning something about where the river runs (the Santa Yenez river). When people see the name Lompoc(pronounced Lom-poke) they pronounce it Lom-pock. Well, that's fine if you don't know the difference. Once, when telling a coworker down here in GA about Lompoc and how it's pronounced, his reply was, "Are you sure your not saying it wrong? Maybe it really is pronounced Lom-pock". :shock:

'nuf said?
News to me too. The Firesign Theatre pronounced it Lom-pock (Don't Crush that Dwarf, Hand me the Pliers, 1970). Probably the only time I for one have ever actually heard it said.
Stop! Murder us not, tonsured rumpots! Knife no one, fink!

Huny
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Postby Huny » Sun Jun 11, 2006 3:13 pm

There really is no way for people to know how to pronounce it unless they have lived in or near Lompoc or know someone connected to it. While reading a James Patterson book recently, he referred to Lompoc but spelled it as "Lompac". Now that's a new one on me. So much for edittors. The only way I knew he was referring to Lompoc was because he mentioned the Lompoc State Prison. And no, that is not what I was doing in Lompoc to begin with :oops: ...well...in a way ,I guess,only because my grandfather worked for the prison system there before I was born. And the rest is history...
"What lies behind us and what lies ahead of us are tiny matters compaired to what lies inside us." R.W.E.

sluggo
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Postby sluggo » Sun Jun 11, 2006 3:56 pm

So much for edittors.
Hee hee! Nicely done.
Stop! Murder us not, tonsured rumpots! Knife no one, fink!

Huny
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Postby Huny » Sun Jun 11, 2006 4:22 pm

So much for edittors.
Hee hee! Nicely done.
You caught that one! I wondered if anyone would :lol:
"What lies behind us and what lies ahead of us are tiny matters compaired to what lies inside us." R.W.E.

sluggo
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Postby sluggo » Mon Jun 12, 2006 8:29 pm

So much for edittors.
Hee hee! Nicely done.
You caught that one! I wondered if anyone would :lol:
Can't even help it. Both my parents were prufreeders.
I figgered it was intentional since everything else passed :wink:
Stop! Murder us not, tonsured rumpots! Knife no one, fink!

Huny
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Postby Huny » Mon Jun 12, 2006 9:10 pm

Hee hee! Nicely done.
You caught that one! I wondered if anyone would :lol:
Can't even help it. Both my parents were prufreeders.
I figgered it was intentional since everything else passed :wink:
Glad you noticed. "Always strike while the iron is hot" is wut I always say! :wink: I could not resist. You'r full of the funny stuff tonight! On a roll, you are--or is that on a biscuit-southern humor? :oops:
"What lies behind us and what lies ahead of us are tiny matters compaired to what lies inside us." R.W.E.

Roz
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Postby Roz » Thu Jun 15, 2006 9:21 pm

I originally come from Montreal, Quebec. If one is speaking English, the correct pronunciation is "MUN-tree-all"....NOT "MON-tree-all", which is how most Americans pronounce it. If one is speaking French, it is pronounced "MO-ray-al".

sluggo
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Postby sluggo » Fri Jun 16, 2006 1:10 am

I originally come from Montreal, Quebec. If one is speaking English, the correct pronunciation is "MUN-tree-all"....NOT "MON-tree-all", which is how most Americans pronounce it. If one is speaking French, it is pronounced "MO-ray-al".
Bienvenue à la Board, Roz!

As a frequent frequenter of La Belle Provence I'm curious why it would evolve to "mun"? I can't think of any English words spelled m-o-n pronounced "mun".

Shouldn't it be the same as the original, within the abilities of the destination language? Or are you just saying that's how local Anglophones say it?

-and just to quibble (further), most USians I hear actually pronounce Montréal with a double accent, i.e. "MON-tree-ALL". Maybe there's variation but that's what I hear and use.

I miss the Expos :cry:
Stop! Murder us not, tonsured rumpots! Knife no one, fink!

Stargzer
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Postby Stargzer » Fri Jun 16, 2006 11:18 am

I pronounce it Mon' -tree-all' , with a secondary accent on the first syllable and the primary accent on the last.

In French, I know the "n" is nasalized, but does the "t" disappear completely? Or is this the difference between le français du Québec and le français Parisien? Also, I thought French was basically a monotone with the accent on the last word of a sentence.
Regards//Larry

"To preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of the people always possess arms, and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them."
-- Attributed to Richard Henry Lee

sluggo
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Postby sluggo » Fri Jun 16, 2006 12:23 pm

I pronounce it Mon' -tree-all' , with a secondary accent on the first syllable and the primary accent on the last.

In French, I know the "n" is nasalized, but does the "t" disappear completely? Or is this the difference between le français du Québec and le français Parisien? Also, I thought French was basically a monotone with the accent on the last word of a sentence.
On CBC the T disappears as I hear it (only in French of course). Continental Agoraphiles might advise what happens over the pond.

I kinda hear French tonal patterns as not quite monotone but more often a steady up/down variation (like a sine wave) every couple of syllables -not much, a musical 3rd or 4th- with generally a slight pause and significant rise on the penultimate syllable of the sentence. Multisyllable words tend to accent the end. I spent much childhood listening to shortwave radio, where sometimes you get a signal so weak you can't distinguish words under the noise, but you can hear enough tonal patterns to identify whether it's French, German, Spanish, etc.
Stop! Murder us not, tonsured rumpots! Knife no one, fink!

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gailr
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Postby gailr » Fri Jun 16, 2006 2:06 pm

As a frequent frequenter of La Belle Provence I'm curious why it would evolve to "mun"? I can't think of any English words spelled m-o-n pronounced "mun".
How about Monday, when we return to work to earn some money?
-gailr

sluggo
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Postby sluggo » Fri Jun 16, 2006 2:38 pm

As a frequent frequenter of La Belle Provence I'm curious why it would evolve to "mun"? I can't think of any English words spelled m-o-n pronounced "mun".
How about Monday, when we return to work to earn some money?
-gailr
arrgh! T'a raison, Gail. That's what I get for opining after midnight on a Thursdee. I should have been a monk.
Stop! Murder us not, tonsured rumpots! Knife no one, fink!


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