Mt. Juliet or Mount Juliet? City leaders enshrine proper spelling in resolution

Pronouncing Mt. Juliet like Romeo and Juliet — Jule-ee-yet — is usually a giveaway the speaker is from out of town. The homegrown southern dialect pronunciation sounds more clipped, like "Mt. Jul-yit."

City commissioners can't enforce speech patterns, but they have made the town's spelling official. On Monday, commissioners unanimously (with one absent) approved a resolution to reaffirm the city's name and spelling as "Mt." Juliet, instead of Mount Juliet.

City Commissioner Ray Justice sponsored a resolution even though "Mt." was already the correct spelling and has been since the city in Wilson County was chartered in 1972 as Mt. Juliet after being an unincorporated community for decades.

But the "Mount Juliet" spelling has persisted over the years for reasons that include the U.S. Postal Service using the Mount spelling as an address verification, according to Commissioner Scott Hefner.

"To those who are questioning why we would take five minutes out of our time to pass this resolution, our city charter is our birth certificate," Justice said. "We've caught some flack over this, but remember we have only our name, no statues.

"It's our history and as brief as it is, it means something to those of us who have lived here all these years. This is an attempt to very lightheartedly make a correction and have a little fun with it in the process."

The resolution states that all city documents, communications and official references should use the spelling Mt. Juliet and asks for steps taken by the city to review and amend any existing records or documents that may inaccurately reflect the Mt. Juliet spelling.

The city also approved an amendment to send a copy of the resolution to any state, federal or private organization necessary to emphasize the city's formal spelling as Mt. Juliet.

"Those I have spoken with who have been here for decades. I think it's important to them and therefore it's important to me," Hefner said.

Reach Andy Humbles at ahumbles@tennessean.com or 615-726-5939 and on X, formerly known as Twitter @ AndyHumbles.

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Mt. Juliet affirms proper spelling of city name, spurns Mount Juliet