There was a disagreement on how to pronounce Arkansas; the first two US senators from Arkansas disagreed on how to say it.
Congress ended up having to request the Arkansas legislature in defining how to pronounce the state name.
this post was submitted on 26 Aug 2024
146 points (95.1% liked)
Today I Learned
17785 readers
1546 users here now
What did you learn today? Share it with us!
We learn something new every day. This is a community dedicated to informing each other and helping to spread knowledge.
The rules for posting and commenting, besides the rules defined here for lemmy.world, are as follows:
Rules (interactive)
Rule 1- All posts must begin with TIL. Linking to a source of info is optional, but highly recommended as it helps to spark discussion.
** Posts must be about an actual fact that you have learned, but it doesn't matter if you learned it today. See Rule 6 for all exceptions.**
Rule 2- Your post subject cannot be illegal or NSFW material.
Your post subject cannot be illegal or NSFW material. You will be warned first, banned second.
Rule 3- Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here.
Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here. Breaking this rule will not get you or your post removed, but it will put you at risk, and possibly in danger.
Rule 4- No self promotion or upvote-farming of any kind.
That's it.
Rule 5- No baiting or sealioning or promoting an agenda.
Posts and comments which, instead of being of an innocuous nature, are specifically intended (based on reports and in the opinion of our crack moderation team) to bait users into ideological wars on charged political topics will be removed and the authors warned - or banned - depending on severity.
Rule 6- Regarding non-TIL posts.
Provided it is about the community itself, you may post non-TIL posts using the [META] tag on your post title.
Rule 7- You can't harass or disturb other members.
If you vocally harass or discriminate against any individual member, you will be removed.
Likewise, if you are a member, sympathiser or a resemblant of a movement that is known to largely hate, mock, discriminate against, and/or want to take lives of a group of people, and you were provably vocal about your hate, then you will be banned on sight.
For further explanation, clarification and feedback about this rule, you may follow this link.
Rule 8- All comments should try to stay relevant to their parent content.
Rule 9- Reposts from other platforms are not allowed.
Let everyone have their own content.
Rule 10- Majority of bots aren't allowed to participate here.
Unless included in our Whitelist for Bots, your bot will not be allowed to participate in this community. To have your bot whitelisted, please contact the moderators for a short review.
Partnered Communities
You can view our partnered communities list by following this link. To partner with our community and be included, you are free to message the moderators or comment on a pinned post.
Community Moderation
For inquiry on becoming a moderator of this community, you may comment on the pinned post of the time, or simply shoot a message to the current moderators.
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
If you want people to call you Arkansaw, don't spell it Arkansas. Thankyou for coming to my TED Talk.
French language be like:
Why not just ask the fucking Quapaw tribe they stole the name from?
I, an east coaster, once bought a car from Texarkana. When I learned it was literally on the border of Texas and Arkansas, I think my brain broke. Great share, thanks!
Wait till you hear where Calexico and Mexicali are.
Well, which Texarkana did you buy it from?
Arkansas side. Drunken ebay purchase out in the sticks that amazingly worked out. '72 olds 98 that sounded like a c47 on approach. Thanks for listening to my lame nonsense.
Here's the really crazy thing.
Ark City, KS is located on the Ar-KAN-sas River. But this is the same river that flows through Little Rock under the name AR-kan-saw.
We come through and destroy an entire native civilization, and as a final "fuck you" we butcher their dead languages and name military equipment after them.
Oh, don’t forget putting towns named after some of the military officials that subjugated them on their reservation land.
The Mackinac Bridge connects the lower and upper peninsulas of Michigan. It is in Mackinaw City. There is a nearby island, Mackinac.
The bridge is mackin-awwh.
The city is mackin-awwh.
The island is mackin-awwh.
load more comments
(1 replies)
Y'all come to New Orleans and try to pronounce a single street name "right."
Bourbon Street
It's pronounced "urinal."
Are you saying "boo" or "boo-urbon"?
Arkansas is pronounced Arr-Kansas already though. ;)
There’s a Newark NJ and a Newark DE.
The Jersey one is pronounced Newurk and the Delaware one is pronounced New Ark. It’s mildly inconvenient.
The little town in Texas is also "New Ark".
Some of my other favorites:
Texas
- Montague = mon-TAYG (hard 'g')
- Italy = IT-lee (2 syllables)
- Buda = BUD-duh (EDIT: or is it BYOO-duh ?)
Georgia
- Vienna = VYE-eena
- Cairo = KAY-roe
Canada (less experience here, tbf)
- Newfoundland = NEW-fin-LAND (do NOT slur the "land" part. Enunciate!)
That's some certifiable insane shit.
Texas has so many. Bogota pronounced buh-GO-duh
Arkansas has a Lafayette county pronounced luh-FAY-it even though that county literally borders Louisiana.
Don't even get me started on Bowie, DeKalb, or Houston.
Ah yes. "Hoo-ston" and "How-ston" are definitely both things.
"De-kab" and "De-kalb"
Haven't run into the Bowie one.
In Texas it's Boo-wee. That was the man's name as is the knife that bears it. Outside of Texas people mispronounce it as Bow-ee like Ziggy Stardust.
If you're talking about David (rest in power) Bowie, then it's Bow-ee. But the knife is Boo-wee.
load more comments
(2 replies)
Company I work for is based in Buda but everyone pronounces it "byooduh".
I defer to you then. I just know it's not Booduh like it god damned well should be. Was reminded elsewhere in this thread that we also have a Ne-VAY-duh in Texas, to say nothing of the Native American placenames that almost every state has specifically to fuck with newcomers, even though they undoubtedly moved from a state that has its own examples.
load more comments
(1 replies)
load more comments
(1 replies)
TBH, I’m a native Kansan and have only ever heard it called “Ark City.”
That makes sense. It's like back in Morocco, how Morocco Mole is just called Mole.
And in Brazil, Brazil Nuts are just called nuts.
And on Long Island, it's just called "tea".
You've got it.
(X) Doubt
They're actually called Castanha do Pará (Pará Nuts), but whatever.
What do they call the in Pará then?
Fuck if I know, I've never been there lol.
load more comments
(1 replies)
Ohio is great for shit pronunciations of town names.
Bellfountaine - bell FOUN'n (the t drops there in most dialects, some would say 'fountain' with the the first syllable stressed).
Versailles - verSAILS
Medina - muhDYEnuh
We have "verSAILS" in Indiana too. Also:
Peru - Pee-roo
Russiaville - Roosha-vil
Lebanon - Leb'nun
My favorite though is that there are two spellings for the Wabash river: Wabash and Ouabache. And despite being in a town that is on the Wabash River, the local Oabache Elementary School is pronounced: Wah-bat-shee.
Right down the road from Versailles is the town I grew up in and the movie Hoosiers is based off of. Milan (pronounced my - lan)
I think y'all also have KAY-row (Cairo) if I remember right. (or maybe that's Illinois?)
The pronunciation of Lebanon you called out may sound like it came from a hayseed, but it’s closer to the way people in the country of Lebanon pronounce it than the mainstream American pronunciation.
There's a Miami, Oklahoma. Pronounced, "My-am-uh"
load more comments
(7 replies)
I learned that from the Big Bang Theory!
That's some high tier psychological damage right there.
view more: next ›