When it comes to the names of towns and cities, the locals don’t necessarily pronounce them the way you expect. Charlotte, Vermont, for example, is pronounced with emphasis on the second syllable, not the first — and therein lies a history lesson. The town was chartered in 1762, the year after England’s King George III married the German-speaking Princess Charlotte, and it’s named in her honor. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Unexpected Place Name Pronunciations”
You’re listening to A Way with Words, the show about language and how we use it. I’m Grant Barrett.
And I’m Martha Barnette. I just got back from Vermont where I had a wonderful time speaking at the Community College of Vermont in Winooski and also at the Burlington Book Festival.
And you’ll also not be surprised to learn, Grant, that I did a lot of hiking while I was there.
And one of the places I went was Mount Philo, which is just south of Burlington.
And I’d been studying the maps, and I was talking to somebody about how to get there.
And I said, I see it’s near the town of Charlotte.
And she said, no, it’s not Charlotte.
And I said, what do you mean? It’s Charlotte, because it looks like the woman’s name. It looks like the city in North Carolina, Charlotte, North Carolina.
And she said, nope, it’s Charlotte. Charlotte. Charlotte. Why is it Charlotte? Charlotte. I didn’t believe her. I had to go ask other people, because, I mean, who pronounces it Charlotte?
Hazing Newbie.
Yeah.
But the people who pronounce it Charlotte are in Vermont. And the reason, a little history lesson here, is that the town of Charlotte, Vermont, was chartered in 1762, which was a year after the big wedding of King George III to Princess Charlotte.
Oh.
She was of German descent.
German, Charlotte.
Yeah, spell the same way.
But the Vermonters have dropped the final syllable.
Yes.
Still, though, retaining some of it.
Yeah, some of them dropped the R, too, but Charlotte.
Oh, that’s interesting.
I was just floored. And then I remembered that I grew up in Kentucky near Athens, Kentucky, like Athens and Versailles.
And Versailles, Missouri.
Okay.
New Madrid, Missouri.
All right, the New Madrid Fault, exactly.
And it got me to thinking that we have listeners all over the U.S., and I’m sure that they have other stories.
Oh, the place names.
Right.
It’s a street’s name in particular. I’m thinking of Houston Street in New York, which generations has been catching people who think it’s Houston, but it’s not. It’s Houston.
Right, right.
It’s a shibboleth, right?
And the town where my parents live in Troy, Missouri, has a French name street. There’s some French heritage. It’s pronounced Cap-Au-Grey, which is not very little like the French. It’s G-R-I-S, which means gray, but isn’t pronounced gray.
Oh, they say gray?
Yeah, but they say gray.
Even though it’s G-R-I-S?
Yes.
Isn’t it interesting?
Cap-Au-Grey, yeah.
That’s nuts.
Great cake.
Well, I’d love to hear from our listeners. What’s the town with the counterintuitive name where you live, the one that the locals know and people don’t realize is different until they get it explained to them? It separates the outsiders from the insiders.
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I grew up near Rochester, NY. There is a Char-LOTTE near there as well, and also Chili, which is pronounced CHAI-LIE.
Here’s a few Texas towns that always surprise people: Llano (pronounced ‘Lan-o’ with a wide ‘a’, NOT like the Spanish llano with a tall ‘yah-no’), Refugio (pronounced re-fur-i-o), Mexia (pronounced “ma-hay-a’). Then there are also many places in Louisiana require you to have lived there for a while. If you’re not from New Orleans, try saying Tchoupitoulas Street!