Illinois town names vs. The originals

[SoupOrMan]

Thanks to our politics, Illinois is already a pretty strange duck compared to the rest of the country. One of our quirks is apparently mispronouncing town names in a deliberate fashion. This was again brought to my attention when someone gave me a town name that sounded way out of the ordinary.

For example:

"Athens" is pronounced as "Ay-thens" unless you're talking about "New Athens" then "Athens" is pronounced normally.

"Berlin" is pronounced with emphasis on the first syllable and the last syllable has that lovely muddled "schwa" sound (for linguistics sticklers out there.) So it's pronounced like "BER-luhn." Unlike New Athens, the "Berlin" in "New Berlin" is pronounced in the Illinois manner.

"Cerro Gordo" isn't pronounced as it would be in Italian. It's "Serro Gordo" instead.

"Gillespie" isn't pronounced like the name of the famous jazz musician. It's pronounced "Gellispie."

"Milan" is pronounced to rhyme with "Nylon" with the emphasis on the first syllable. "MY-luhn."

"Vienna" is pronounced with a long I sound like "vital."

And of course, "Hell" is pronounced "the Bridgeview neighborhood of Chicago."

[mekender]

all across the nation there are trendy street names like "via tuscany" or countless others that start with "via"

those roads are NOT named using the english word via that means "by way of"

rather they are named using the latin word "via" pronounced "wia" which means: road, street or way.

of course 99.999% of people look at you funny when you actually use the proper pronunciation of the street names...

[Bullspit]

Don't forget Pisgah which is pronounced "Piz-gee".

[Cybrludite]

Then there's New Orleans where you can drink Bur-ghen-dee while driving on Bur-gun-dee and listen to Cal-i-o-pee music while driving on Cally-ope.

Tchopotulis St., though, is pronounced exactly as it's spelled...

[Jennifer]

In Oklahoma, we have the city of Miami. Pronounced Mah-AM-uh

[merll2005]

Chili, NY.

pronounced "Chai - lie"

[Aegis]

Not quite in the topic, but...

It's OR-uh-gun, goddammit. NOT OR-E-gone.

Carry on.

[Rich Jordan]

Funny about Ill Annoy. I always thought that chicago was pronounced 'spincter'. or 'armpit'.

[mekender]

Actually I shouldn't be talking too much there, given I'm originally from Massachusetts, which is WAY worse than Illinois on the naming front.

Not only do we have all the indian names, we've also got the 16th and 17th century rural english pronunciations of many of our town and city names, such as:

Worcester = WUH-stuh
Gloucester = GLAAW-stuh
Leicester = LESS-teh
Billerica = BRICK-uh of bill-RICK-uh depending on whether you're from north or south shore
Concord = CONK-ehd
Quincy = KWIN-zee

There are of course many many more; some of which have no bearing on their apparent spelling whatsoever; excepting perhaps the beginning consonant.

because you should get in the caaar and go to the baaaar.... you can paaark in the yaaaard and walk past Haaaarvaaard

[Weetabix]

Here in sunny MO, we can offer:

Nevada - Nuh vay da
New Madrid - stress on the short a (a as in "mad")
El Dorado Springs - El Doe-ray-do Springs
Bois D'Arc - Bow dark

Possum Trot, Thief Neck, Cooter, and Humansville are pronounced as spelled, though the residents are odd.