There was a disagreement on how to pronounce Arkansas; the first two US senators from Arkansas disagreed on how to say it.
Congress ended up having to request the Arkansas legislature in defining how to pronounce the state name.
If you want people to call you Arkansaw, don’t spell it Arkansas. Thankyou for coming to my TED Talk.
I, an east coaster, once bought a car from Texarkana. When I learned it was literally on the border of Texas and Arkansas, I think my brain broke. Great share, thanks!
Here’s the really crazy thing.
Ark City, KS is located on the Ar-KAN-sas River. But this is the same river that flows through Little Rock under the name AR-kan-saw.
We come through and destroy an entire native civilization, and as a final “fuck you” we butcher their dead languages and name military equipment after them.
The Mackinac Bridge connects the lower and upper peninsulas of Michigan. It is in Mackinaw City. There is a nearby island, Mackinac.
The bridge is mackin-awwh.
The city is mackin-awwh.
The island is mackin-awwh.
Y’all come to New Orleans and try to pronounce a single street name “right.”
There’s a Newark NJ and a Newark DE.
The Jersey one is pronounced Newurk and the Delaware one is pronounced New Ark. It’s mildly inconvenient.
The little town in Texas is also “New Ark”.
Some of my other favorites:
Texas
- Montague = mon-TAYG (hard ‘g’)
- Italy = IT-lee (2 syllables)
- Buda = BUD-duh (EDIT: or is it BYOO-duh ?)
Georgia
- Vienna = VYE-eena
- Cairo = KAY-roe
Canada (less experience here, tbf)
- Newfoundland = NEW-fin-LAND (do NOT slur the “land” part. Enunciate!)
Texas has so many. Bogota pronounced buh-GO-duh
Arkansas has a Lafayette county pronounced luh-FAY-it even though that county literally borders Louisiana.
Don’t even get me started on Bowie, DeKalb, or Houston.
I’m gonna add one I love trotting out from Oklahoma.
There’s a Miami, Oklahoma. It’s pronounced My-am-uh.
I’ve got about a billion from Oklahoma specifically.
Ah yes. “Hoo-ston” and “How-ston” are definitely both things.
“De-kab” and “De-kalb”
Haven’t run into the Bowie one.
Company I work for is based in Buda but everyone pronounces it “byooduh”.
I defer to you then. I just know it’s not Booduh like it god damned well should be. Was reminded elsewhere in this thread that we also have a Ne-VAY-duh in Texas, to say nothing of the Native American placenames that almost every state has specifically to fuck with newcomers, even though they undoubtedly moved from a state that has its own examples.
