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Listening to the interview with Roy Blount Jr. I was taken with the mention of New Orleans, as in the City thereof. It made me wonder what is the "correct" pronunciation of that name, which led me to wonder what "correct pronunciation" really means. To wit: Locals are said to pronounce it "Nawlins." Many pronounce it "New or-LEENS." Then there is "New OR-lins." Then there is the French pronunciation which I won't try to transliterate. I am tempted to vote for the original French pronunciation since the name is of French origin. Except for the "New" part. On the other hand, do we defer to locals who either know best or have a proprietary interest?
Another example that comes to mind is the city in Kentucky, Louisville. Locals say something like - and can only approximate - "loouhvl," excising the "ee" from "LOO-ee-vill." The French would say something like "lu-ee-VEE." So what is "correct?"
Names — of places or people — are tremendously tricky. For names of people I prefer the way they say or said it themselves. The same goes for places: I give preference to the CAREFUL or STANDARD local pronunciation, or my best approximation of it.
I think that the pronunciation of New Orleans is often like /NAWlins/ in rapid speaking, but if asked to say the name of the city, locals would say something more like /noWAlins/ with three syllables. I would therefore consider /noWAlins/ for my pronunciation. But I might still tailor it to my audience: if I uspect they are all from north of the Mason-Dixon line, in the interest of communication, I would use /nuORlins/.
Of course, there are ample exceptions of the local pronunciation rule, especially with foreign names and places. I would pronounce Louis XIV as /Loowee/ “the fourteenth,†not /Loowis/, and I would not try to pass off the French for fourteenth unless I knew the audience. Likewise, I would say Confucius, and not the the Mandarin equivalent, Kong Zi, unless it was a specialized audience.
But the movement is strong to a more modern policy of approximating local pronunciation. In recent years Peking became Beijing and Bombay became Mumbai. There are many other examples.
But we'll always have Paris in the springtime.
This topic came up in conversation recently, about New Orleans and Louisville in particular. One of my friends observed, "The closer you live to the city, the shorter your pronunciation gets."
My thought is that's because the closer you live to the place, the more frequently you would say the word or phrase, so the pronunciation gets slurred or shortened to make it easier or quicker... or lazier.
Hence for residents, New Orleans gets reduced to two syllables, and Louisville to about one-and-a-half (LOL).
A related example: I've heard someone from Boston, while giving directions, very naturally refer to "Mass Ave" ("mas-av"), thereby reducing seven syllables to two.
What do you think?
Martha Barnette
Grant Barrett
Grant Barrett
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