OT: - Odd road names / pronunciations anyone? | The Boneyard

OT: Odd road names / pronunciations anyone?

KnightBridgeAZ

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Prompted by a show on the local Public Media outlet -

1 - road names are supposed to be pronounced in the way the person they are named after pronounced their name. With exceptions:
- Plumer is alternately pronounced "plume-er" and "plumb-er" by various folks in town - the short "u" folks are correct.
- Houghton is pronounced almost 100% "how"-ton, unfortunately, it is actually "HO" -ton, and almost no one pronounces it right. But that's how the Houghton family pronounces it.
- Ina - the exception - is pronounced correctly "I"-na by everyone, but the person it was named after was someone who pronounced her first name "ee-nah". She wrote letters to the newspaper to complain about the way "her" street was pronounced. Never-the-less, it is officially Ina with the long I.

2 - we have stravenues in Tucson. It is a unique thing to Tucson with an official post office abbreviation, no less, and there are not a lot of them. It is the designation for a number of streets in the greater "downtown" area that run diagonally between streets and avenues, primarily due to train tracks. For example, "Cherrybell Stravenue" would be a valid street in Tucson.
 
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Rio Road in Charlottesville, VA, is pronounced RYE-oh rather the REE-oh. It used to be route 10, R10, it's not named after the river.
Was on Rye OH road a couple of days ago to get on 29 north--to 33 west to 81 north to home. But not one sighting of Sam B..
I wonder how many can pronounce other VA names

Staunton---
Mauzy---

Just too easy for a Bostonian---but he'd be wrong---STANTON--is how locals pronounce STAUNTON
and Mau ze but locals pronounce it Mow---zeeeee--I've been corrected 2 dozen times--

Of course many unfamiliar with cheshire---call it chee shire--locals--chess scher
Nor lins--is for locals---New Or-leans is outsiders
 
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When Radio was the MEDIA--and WTIC was the Connecticut station--Bob Steele, as head announcer, would at times bring up some town or city or person's name that was mispronounced by one of his announcer--He was the KIB of TIC--and a Word of the Day--his premise was: pronounce names as Local pronounce them--
Bob traveled the USA as a Motorcycle stunt rider--and then event announcer--from Collier home state Missouri --
 

RockyMTblue2

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This just falls under the heading "odd": As Bozeman, MT has experienced considerable growth and sprawl the newest part of its major avenue leading to the interstate has mean new side roads and the need for new names. This is a commercial/retail area - Costco, Home Depot, Lowes and the like. One side street: Dead Man's Gulch. Even odder: There is a Dead Man's Gulch Court off of it! Something just wrong about the latter.
 

KnightBridgeAZ

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This just falls under the heading "odd": As Bozeman, MT has experienced considerable growth and sprawl the newest part of its major avenue leading to the interstate has mean new side roads and the need for new names. This is a commercial/retail area - Costco, Home Depot, Lowes and the like. One side street: Dead Man's Gulch. Even odder: There is a Dead Man's Gulch Court off of it! Something just wrong about the latter.
I think in new construction, they get very weird. My niece's development in Pflugerville, TX seems like they had a demented English castle lover name the streets - her family live on "Crighton Castle Bend", but almost all the streets are "castles". Conversely, my nephew in Wisconsin lives in a town where the streets are named after major golf courses (he lives on Torrey Pines Road). And here in Tucson there is a section where the streets are named after colleges - there is a Rutgers place, but a whole lot of others - northeastern schools favored, IIRC.

And for your humor pleasure: Here Are 14 Crazy Street Names In Arizona That Will Leave You Baffled
 

Bigboote

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I think in new construction, they get very weird. My niece's development in Pflugerville, TX seems like they had a demented English castle lover name the streets - her family live on "Crighton Castle Bend", but almost all the streets are "castles".

Never mind about the street names, I'd say the town qualifies, too. But it's still not in the same league as Short Pump, VA, or King's Contrivance, MD.
 

BigBird

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Clinton, Iowa sits on the West bank of the Mississippi River. Just South of Clinton is the town of Camanche. But wait! (as they say on the Flex Seal commercial)

The correct local pronunciation is cuh-MANCH. Really. But it gets better. Clinton and Camanche are connected by a street called Camanche Avenue. But the street is correctly pronounced cuh-MAN-chee. True.
 

meyers7

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When you grow up in a town that was built as a "grid" town, you have everything running North/South/East/West.

And there was a North St. that ran East and West a couple block north of Main St. So you ended up with E. North St and W. North St.

Same for South St. (East South and West South).

We did have a West St. , so we got North West and South West. Which sounded much better. No East St. though??? There was an East Avenue on the east side of town, but it was only about a block long.

I did live on E. North St. People from out of town always gave me a funny look when I would give them my address. "No, not Northeast St. It's E. North St. "
 
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This just falls under the heading "odd": As Bozeman, MT has experienced considerable growth and sprawl the newest part of its major avenue leading to the interstate has mean new side roads and the need for new names. This is a commercial/retail area - Costco, Home Depot, Lowes and the like. One side street: Dead Man's Gulch. Even odder: There is a Dead Man's Gulch Court off of it! Something just wrong about the latter.
Killingworth, Ct Roast horsemeat Rd. In Tolland Ct area--Glass Fty Road--locals (I assume new) called it Glass fitty rd--never occurred to them it meant Glass Factory. Wits End near the old Lincoln home stead in Linville, Va. Lincoln was a severe embarrassment to this family circa 1862.
Dead Man's gulch---was he gulched or did he end up in a gulch--these names usually came from real situations-- Longs pump rd, Linville or Odem Va.
 

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