How do you say Arvada? (live, area, places)

[bhcompy]

good stuff to know.. in my head its always been ar-vah-da, good to know i havent embarassed myself yet spitting it out to someone

and la quinta should be pronounced la keenta.

[kimmer]

Geesh, when we moved to AR -VAD - DA I thought I'd go INSANE saying the long "AD" sound, it's just so mid-west a pronunciation! Being from the west coast we naturally say "AR-VAH-DA". We finally mastered it, but is wasn't easy.

[DenverAztec]

The one that drives me crazy is 'Pee-Blow' for Pueblo. Makes me want to choke the life out of each person who pronounces it that way.

[Katarina Witt]

Originally Posted by kimmer

Geesh, when we moved to AR -VAD - DA I thought I'd go INSANE saying the long "AD" sound, it's just so mid-west a pronunciation! Being from the west coast we naturally say "AR-VAH-DA". We finally mastered it, but is wasn't easy.

Came here from the midwest, have roots in Pennsylvania, felt the same way. It's a local pronunciation, IMO.

[Mr. Answers]

I don't know a single native who calls it Color-ah-do. It's so pretentious and the only people I hear pronounce it that way are fancy pants newscasters and, as previously mentioned, Boulder.

What Californians and Ohians might call it is up to them. Coloradans call it what it is: Colorado.

[Katarina Witt]

Originally Posted by Mr. Answers

I don't know a single native who calls it Color-ah-do. It's so pretentious and the only people I hear pronounce it that way are fancy pants newscasters and, as previously mentioned, Boulder.

What Californians and Ohians might call it is up to them. Coloradans call it what it is: Colorado.

Most people in Boulder say Colo rad o (Rhymes with bad).

[formercalifornian]

I don't get too worked up about it either way. After all, I grew up in a state that routinely uses the following pronunciations:

Versailles: Ver-SALES
Piqua: PICK-way
Russia: ROO-shee
Reading: RED-ding
Washington: WAR-shing-ton

[chilaili]

Originally Posted by formercalifornian

I don't get too worked up about it either way. After all, I grew up in a state that routinely uses the following pronunciations:

Versailles: Ver-SALES
Piqua: PICK-way
Russia: ROO-shee
Reading: RED-ding
Washington: WAR-shing-ton

RED-ing is actually correct (says the lady from England where the original Reading is located). Nobody in the UK pronounces it REE-ding. And if you went there and said it that way, they wouldn't know what the heck you were talking about. Or they'd think you were an idiot

FYI: the one I had to check on was Buena Vista which like all immigrants I first pronouced Bwena Vista. Then I was kindly corrected by a local.

[jazzlover]

Originally Posted by vegaspilgrim

Hey, if call-uh-RAW-doe is good enough for jazzlover, it's good enough for me.

That is the correct Spanish pronunciation of the word. Colorado IS a Spanish word, translatiing to "ruddy" or "red" in English. Anglos (yes, I'm Anglo)--especially those from or with roots in the Midwestern and Eastern states--commonly mispronounce Spanish words, and the "Colo-raaa-do" bit is a great example. There are literally hundreds of Spanish Colorado place names (including 18 out of 64 county names), and I've heard the pronunciation butchered on just about all of them. Same with Ute place names.

It always grated on me that in the great movie, "The Unsinkable Molly Brown," actor Harvey Presnell (who had a great singing voice) butchered the pronunciation of Colorado in the really nice tune, "Colorado, My Home." I've always wished that someone with a great singing voice would record that tune, and actually pronounce "Colorado" correctly.

I don't know a single native who calls it Color-ah-do.

Wrong. I know literally hundreds of Colorado natives. Most all of them pronounce "Colorado" using the Spanish pronunciation. I'm not a newscaster, nor from Boulder, and I am not usually considered pretentious. I also am a Colorado native + over a half century.

[livecontent]

It is not correct to say that there is always one pronunciation for words, everywhere, by everyone and for all time. Pronunciations certainly change over time as the living language changes.

When, I attended the Defense Language Institute in Monterey, California, for my Army training, we were taught that the spoken language is the real language and what is written, in dictionaries, is just a snapshot of a point in time. If you look up many words, there are many alternate pronunciation, some are regional and acceptable variations; many pronunciation change over time and some disappear entirely. Listen to old recordings of English and you can hear the changes. Language is living and changing because culture and people change, even in our own lifetime. We are now living in a time where we have had recorded speech over hundred years and the change can be documented.

I have noticed in living in Arvada, these past 30 years, that there has been some change in the pronunciation of Arvada. I have noticed a small difference in the verbalization of the second "a". It is very apparent in groups of mixed people talking, of different generations.

No "native" can define what is acceptable verbalization that sets rule, over time, forever because who are natives change over time. For a native English speaker to define what a native Spanish speaker spoke in the original spoken description, before recorded speech, is just a guess, and even if it is correct; it is only defined for that point in past time. It really does not matter because any word can be spoken with different verbalization, obviously as long as it can still be understood. All spoken languages change over time. It will change, and we may not even be aware of the change, because what we hear is sometimes so ingrained that, we hear what we want to hear, and our sense will interpret it.

So for you Colorado Natives who take offense--well, all states, all regions have variability of speech. Coming from New York, I can tell you that the "New York" is pronounced so many different ways and with different generations, even people living in the same city. So Colorado Native accept it--we all have different shaped "butts", as you know; we all have different shaped "mouths"; we all have different formed "brains"--so get use to change and diversity.

Livecontent