This week I have spent part of each day running errands. Virginia does an excellent job of marking historic landmarks and waterways. I have driven all over this country and there have been many times I would run across a name of a town or a river and wonder how do you pronounce that? How many times have you passed a sign with no clue how to pronounce the name of a town or river? In the Richmond area they still haven’t decided if Powhite should be pronounced Pow-hite or Po-white. It seems to depend on where you live in the city. My vote is for Pow-hite. Where I live in New Jersey I have heard three ways of pronouncing Cheesequake. Cheesequake should be pronounced Chess-quick not Cheese-quake or my favorite Chess-sa-qua-kay. While living in Texas I pronounced Manor as Man-or. I quickly learned that no one would be able to follow my directions, so I started saying Main-or. I had the same problem with Decatur, GA. There is nothing French about the pronunciation of Decatur. I find that either you have to live in an area to pick up what the locals use or find the time to locate a resource to spell it out for you. Most of the time I forget that I intended to look something up until the next time I pass the sign and think about it again. I would so appreciate phonetic spellings on maps and signs.
Is it Pow-hite or Po-white?
April 3rd, 2008 · 3 Comments
Tags: Interesting
3 responses so far ↓
1 fragileheart // Apr 4, 2008 at 1:22 pm
I’m not sure what some of those words are that you’ve used as examples, but I do know what you’re talking about. Living in Ireland (where they have those ever so heavy but sexy accents), there were a lot of words that don’t sound like I’m used to. And people wonder why people who’s first language isn’t English have such a hard time learning it!
2 Monique // Apr 4, 2008 at 7:40 pm
Driving through New Mexico, we are experiencing a lot of the “wtf is that” while on vacation. I’ve decided I’m better off not asking how to pronounce places like Pojoaque, Chamita, Tesuque, or Cuyamunque.
3 Ann Clemmons // Apr 4, 2008 at 8:39 pm
I like also favor Chess-sa-qua-kay and Pow-hite.
Although, I don’t think you want to know ” How many times ” I” have passed a sign with no clue how to pronounce the name of a town or river. ”
Also, I think the way I inserted “I” within the quotation of your sentence is grammatically incorrect, but I’m used to getting pronunciations and directions wrong anyway. (I’m not making myself sound too smart am I?)
Although, as far as grammar is concerned, thank goodness for editors.
Have a nice week-end~
Ann
A Nice Place In The Sun
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