Contents
-SUBJECT INDEX -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD
H.L. Mencken (1880–1956). The American Language. 1921.
Page 356
more distinctly than the English shows itself in geographical names. White, in 1880,
68 recorded the increasing habit of giving full value to the syllables of such borrowed English names as
Worcester and
Warwick. I have frequently noted the same thing. In
Worcester county, Maryland, the name is usually pronounced
Wooster, but on the Western Shore of the state one hears
Worcest-’r. Norwich is another such name; one hears
Nor-wich quite as often as
Norrich. Another is
Delhi; one often hears
Del-high. Another is
Warwick. Yet another is
Birmingham; it is pronounced as spelled in the United States, and never in the English manner. White said that in his youth the name of the
Shawangunk mountains, in New York, was pronounced
Shongo, but that the custom of pronouncing it as spelled had arisen during his manhood.
69 So with
Winnipiseogee, the name of a lake; once
Winipisaukie, it gradually came to be pronounced as spelled. There is frequently a considerable difference between the pronunciation of a name by natives of a place and its pronunciation by those who are familiar with it only in print.
Baltimore offers an example. The natives always drop the medial
i and so reduce the name to two syllables; in addition, they substitute a neutral vowel, very short, for the
o. Anne Arundel, the name of a county in Maryland, is usually pronounced
Ann’ran’l by its people.
Arkansas, as everyone knows, is pronounced
Arkansaw by the Arkansans.
70 The local pronunciation of
Illinois is
Illinoy. Iowa, at home, is
Ioway. 71 Many American geographical names offer great difficulty to Englishmen. One of my English acquaintances tells me that he was taught at school to accent
Massachusetts on the second syllable, to rhyme the second