All The Pronunciations of Crayon in the U.S.

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Lori from Michigan.

Hi, Lori from Michigan. How are you doing?

If you can solve my quandary, it’d be great.

I grew up in a very linguistically diverse household because my mother was born and raised in a Polish family and spoke Polish until she was in school.

And my father is from New Jersey, which I’m in Michigan, so things were different. Things were interesting.

And they got really interesting when I was about four years old and my father told me to go get my coloring books and my crown.

Now, being a little girl, of course, I had a crown. I had a scepter. I held the whole railroad thing.

So I got them. I didn’t know what the coloring book was for, but I got that too.

And ever since that day, we’ve had wax coloring devices in my family because my dad can’t say crayon.

You call them wax coloring devices?

Wax coloring devices, yes, since I was four.

My children have wax coloring devices now.

The thing is, I just kind of accepted this as a family thing until I was teaching third grade one day, and a new little girl started up, and she came and she says, “Teacher, may I have some crowns?”

And I looked at it and said, “Sweetie, of course, are you from New Jersey?”

And she was.

Huh.

She was mortified, but she’s the only person I have ever met that called them crowns, besides my dad.

Is this a really weird thing between two people from the same state, or is there a bigger phenomenon here?

This is a classic. I’m not saying it’s an FAQ. I’m saying it’s an exciting classic.

This is a really good one to bring up as an example of how we’re not a monolithic country. Right, Martha?

Yes, indeed, Lori. There are actually four or five different pronunciations for that term for wax coloring devices, C-R-A-Y-O-N.

There’s what I grew up saying in Kentucky, which was crayon.

I mean, most people say it as one syllable. I think because of my Southern influence, I kind of say crayon.

But you can say it with one syllable or crayon or crayon.

But there is a whole swath of the country that uses the pronunciation crown.

There are dialect maps online that you can take a look at, and there is quite a concentration of crown pronouncers in New Jersey.

In New York, yes.

Southern New York, Long Island, New York City, that area.

Then there are people who say cran.

Sounds like rhymes with the first part of cranberry.

Rhymes with man.

Right.

Yeah. Oh, wow. See, if I were speaking my native tongue, it would be a crayon. Right, crayon.

Generally, when I’m teaching that’s what it is, a crayon. But, you know, there’s my dad’s pronunciation and apparently a lot of other people that say it that way. That is so cool.

How cool that you could rescue that kid who was using the term crayon.

Yeah. And instead of teasing her or pretending you didn’t understand, you knew immediately what she was saying.

Yeah, she was mortified, but I didn’t know what she was talking about.

And for me, it was like, oh, yeah, here’s a box of 24.

You only gave her the 24 box?

I’m a schoolteacher.

You buy your own, right?

That’s a good point.

Send me the link to your donor’s shoes.

I’ll fix that.

You’re on.

Thank you.

Lori, thank you so much for your call.

We really appreciate it.

We’d love to hear about language stuff in your classroom anytime you want to tell us about it.

Well, thank you. I’m so glad I got to talk to you.

All right. Take care now.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

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