Pronunciations? (Austin, San Marcos, Kerrville: accent, Asian, roads)

[CalmInternetUser]

Originally Posted by Unclemeat

There's quite a few that sound really odd to me... just curious if anyone knows if there's a story, if it's just Austin being goofy, or if the rest of the country is saying it wrong. Most of these are roads/cities. And forgive my pitiful phonetic spellings, but if you've been here more than a few months you should know what I'm getting at.

Manchaca = Man-shack
Manor = main-er
Guadalupe = Gwad-a-loop
Burnet = burn-it
San Marcos = San Marcus
San Jacinto = San Jacinto (with the hard "J" sound, like "Jew")
Cesar Chavez = See-sar Cha-vez (like the "ch" sound in "nachos")

Any others? Those spring to mind. These are things I think about while sitting in traffic.

It's a way for local yokels to point fingers and laugh behind tourista's backs.
Same thing with SXSW which, about 200 years ago, I naively pronounced "Es, Ex, Es, Double U" and was immediately pelted with stones and called mean and nasty names by a mob of 20 somethings wearing ironic pantaloons and smoking P-Funks. Ah, those were the days. If only dismissive hipsters were the worse of Austin's problems. But, it's a good city overall I guess.

Check out the library / illegal immigrant welcome center at the St John Branch Library. Ew La La! What a wonderful little ramshackle community (out of plywood!) has grown up around that bastion of culture and acceptance! Blessing Street is one of the most aptly names streets in Austin! For what a blessing it is to the city of Austin...and really all of America!

[kiacook]

The "Slaughter" in Slaughter lane actually rhymes with the word "Laughter"

So, you're saying it's pronounced "Slafter"? Are you joking?

[capcat]

Huh? BAL-cone-ees? The accent is on the second syllable. Maybe the caps were to emphasize that the "al" is pronounced like the nickname "AL", but don't mistake that for an accent on the first syllable.

[Unclemeat]

I figured "may-ner" was a surname, assumed "man-shack" was just an abbreviation. The ones that confuse me most are the ones like "San Jah-sin-to" - you'd think with the huge Hispanic population we'd say the "J" a bit different. There's a lack of consistency too. I mean, we say "hal-luh-peyn-yo", not jal-ah-peyn-yo. From what I understand, it's been like that forever too. Like, Americans came to the area in the 1800's, and presumably started saying the name that way and never looked back. I guess you stick with tradition.

Or when you go south on 35 and take a detour in "Green" (which should be closer to "groon"), again, huge German population in the area, but we're saying the name all funky.

I'm way overthinking this...

Related to Texans pronouncing things, a friend sent me this today:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zGcQC...layer_embedded

I lived briefly in Wauwatosa & Waukesha. Virtually every name in that clip has Menomonee or Potawanomi lineage. That kind of got me rolling on this kick of all these odd names and where they come from.

As for balcones - it doesn't scream out one particular origin. If I had to guess I'd say it has some sort of French ties. In that case, it probably should be pronounced "bal-kone" but I could be way off.

[atxcio]

Originally Posted by kiacook

So, you're saying it's pronounced "Slafter"? Are you joking?

I've heard people pronounce it that way. I thought they were kidding, too. But maybe not?

Of course, I can't imagine anyone thinking we have weird pronunciation here when we're so close to Louisiana. Home of names like Thibodaux.

[miss-speech]

[quote=Unclemeat;17742775]Cesar Chavez = See-sar Cha-vez (like the "ch" sound in "nachos")
quote]

The "ch" in Chavez is the correct pronunciation of his name. There is no "sh" sound in Spanish (unless it occurs in borrowed words). "Ch" in Spanish is pronounced like "ch" in "nachos"; not like "ch" in "chivalry". In actual Spanish. Cesar would be more like "say-sar", not "see-sar".

[mimimomx3]

Originally Posted by capcat

Huh? BAL-cone-ees? The accent is on the second syllable. Maybe the caps were to emphasize that the "al" is pronounced like the nickname "AL", but don't mistake that for an accent on the first syllable.

bal=CONE==ees?. I guess? I drive it everyday, I should know...

[winkosmosis]

I never heard "bal-cone-ees"... always the proper Spanish "bal-cone-es". I didn't know people left the last a off of Manchaca.

BTW, what's up with people calling Las Vegas "LOSS Vegas"? And nobody says "Los Anheles"

[cinnamon_toast]

A few in the Hill Country

Kerr-vuhl = Kerrville
Greenie = Gruene
Lan-oh = Llano

So Guadalupe is pronounced without the E at the end?

[Austin97]

Originally Posted by jobert

The "Slaughter" in Slaughter lane actually rhymes with the word "Laughter". Schlumberger in NW Austin is pronoucned au francais for some reason.

sclumberger is a french company