Huckaby: A word about places and their pronunciations
Darrell Huckaby, a native of Porterdale, Ga, is a double graduate of UGA and a retired educator with 40 years of classroom experience.
A fellow who ain’t from around here stopped me in the grocery store the other day and wanted to bump gums with me for a while. He was from Texas and knew from reading my column that I am a frequent visitor to Houston these days. He had a bone to pick with me about the pronunciation of that very word. It seems he had been coming through Warner Robbins last week, apparently at a pretty high rate of speed and had been pulled over by one of Houston County’s finest.
My new friend thought he could talk himself out of a ticket by bringing up the coincidental fact that he was from Houston, Texas, and had been pulled over in Houston County, Georgia. Instead, he wound up insulting the arresting officer by telling him that he didn’t know how to pronounce the name of his own home county.
I asked the guy telling me the story if he were a native of Houston, Texas because that didn’t sound just right. I learned that he was from just south of Cleveland, Ohio originally.
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The conversation set me to thinking, however, about all the different ways we Americans pronounce the same place names so differently. Let me give you an example or three. You all know how Texans pronounce the aforementioned city named after Sam Houston, the great hero of the Battle of San Jacinto and the first president of the Republic of Texas. You may or may not know that the county in central Georgia is pronounced: “House-ton.” Don’t ask me why. I don’t rightfully know.
There are dozens of such mysteries, however. If you want to visit the capital of New York you would go to a town called Albany - which is pronounced pretty much like it is spelled. If you want to take a drive down Slappey Drive in the South Georgia town that is spelled just like the capital of New York, however, you would have to go to a town the locals pronounce “All-Benny.” They’ll fight you over that pronunciation, too - so don’t even think about telling them that they are saying it wrong.
If you see a lot of Arabs and camels and pyramids, you are in the Egyptian capital of Cairo - pronounced “Ky (rhymes with eye)-row. But if you are down below the gnat line where they grow peanuts and make syrup, you are in “KAY-ROW,” with the emphasis on the Kay, even though we still spell it Cairo.
There is a fellow who came over from France and helped us win the American Revolution and his name is La Fayette (luh-fay-ette) with the emphasis on the ette. We even named a town after him in North Georgia, but if you go there you’d better understand that they call their city “La FAY it,” with the emphasis on the "FAY."
Don’t even get me started on how many ways there are to pronounce Monroe and unless you are a native - and even if you are - you probably couldn’t correctly pronounce “Taliaferro” County if your life depended on it. And old-timers who live in Newnan still claim to live in “Kai (still rhymes with eye)-eat-a” County although more sophisticated yuppie residents like to put on airs and claim to live in “Cow-eat-a.”
See how much fun this is.
Athens in Georgia. A-thens, with a long A in Kentucky.
And there are some cities that are and forevermore will be identified with the county they are in and others that are not. Take Washington, for instance. Anyone 50 or over who was born and raised in North Georgia will call it Washington-Wilkes, identifying the town with the county. I suppose they do that because nobody wants to be confused with Washington D.C. And I have never heard a human being mention Winder without adding Barrow - as in Winder-Barrow.
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But I should talk. I was raised in Porterdale. You might be interested in knowing, however, that there is just one Porterdale, anywhere in the world. There are Covingtons in at least a dozen states, plus one in the United Kingdom. A lot of states have towns named Athens, also - and there are 60 locations named Athens worldwide. But the one in Georgia is the only one that has a tree that owns itself and a double-barrel cannon in from of the courthouse.
Another interesting place name is Rome. Every time I talk to a person who lives in ours they say they are from “Rome, Georgia” and pronounce it like it is one word. If you have never noticed that, pay attention next time. There are cities named “Rome” on every continent and at least 13 in the United States.
Italy had the first one, I think, and it is quite a place. The Vatican is there and so is the Coliseum where the Gladiators fought, and Christians were fed to the lions. They have some right good Italian food there, too.
I’ve been here all week. I’ll tell you all about it when I get home.
In the meantime, stay cool and tell everybody Gomer says “hi.”
This article originally appeared on Athens Banner-Herald: Huckaby: A word about places and their pronunciations
