RSS LJ

July 19, 2008

Pronunciation ()

by fluffy at 7:13 PM
It bothers me much more than it should that apparently, the name of Vallejo, CA is pronounced "vuh-lay-oh," which is a terrible portmanteau of English and Spanish pronunciation (the proper Spanish pronunciation is like "va-yay-ho").

You'd think California didn't have a 35% Hispanic population or something.

Comments

#11113 07/19/2008 08:32 pm
There's a town here called "Hurricane" whose official pronunciation is "her'-i-kin". It makes me cringe a little every time I hear it.

It's funny, because when people talk about the weather phenomenon, they usually pronounce it correctly. I wonder what makes them think the name of the town would be pronounced any differently.
#11114 07/19/2008 10:43 pm
Also, Houston the street in NYC is pronounced differently (how-stin) from Houston the city in Texas (hue-stin).
#11115 07/20/2008 12:59 am
From what I've heard, USian Spanish seems to be evolving into a kind of hybrid with English.

In normal Spanish you would drive a camion to the mercado, but in US Spanish people will sometimes say they drive a trucka to the marketa.

Not sure if pronunciation is changing as well though.
#11116 07/20/2008 09:09 am
This isn't the first time I've come across a WTFy portmanteau. One time in DC I went to an A&W Hot Dogs and the guy asked me if I wanted "queese" (pronounced "keys") on my hot dog. It took several iterations of "what?" before I figured out he was referring to the cheese sauce ("queso"/"cheese").
#11117 Anonymous 07/20/2008 09:16 am
Note that the city of Berkeley does not pronounce its name the way the guy it was named for did. Neither does Lafayette for that matter.
#11118 07/20/2008 09:18 am
(That was me by the way.)
#11122 07/20/2008 03:12 pm
Dubois, Wyoming was prnounced "Dew-boyz" by the locals. Used to drive me batty.