Beeker’s Words

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.