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I'm sure there are a million examples of words that people pronounce differently. (Do you pronounce the 's' at the end of Illinois?, Missouree or Missourah, etc.)

But I'm gonna start with one that I wonder if I'm weird cause I hear people pronounce it one way and I think its just wrong:

Topo

While technically not a word, it is the name of a software package, and is frequently pronounced as an abbreviation.

I think its "top-oh" (rhymes with mop, flop, hop). I hear others pronounce it with a long-o: "tow-poh" (taupe-oh?). It drives me crazy.

Of course, I derive this from the original "topographic" which the initial o is pronounced "ah" versus "oh". (At least according to Dictionary.com)

Any thoughts on Topo, or other words that Dubya might have misunderpronuncicated?

big_load wrote:I wondered about Nutrioso on the way through. The stream running through the broad flat valley looks ideal for beavers (the same holds for Alpine). What I really wondered about, though, was how long and unpleasant the winters must be.

I think the winters are great! I know a lot of people who live in "Nutri." Seems as if most of the teachers in the school district live up there. My friend Dave brags about cross country skiing 100 days in a row right from his house, etc.

You know what they say about the Arizona summers: "It's a dry heat." Well, up here, it is definitely a "dry cold." Which is far preferable to a damp cold. It is clean, cold and snowy.

As for the beavers, there are lots of beaver dams down on the Little Colorado and probably some on Nutrioso Creek as well. If you go to Wenima Wildlife Area (see my recent photoset called Little Colorado River / Wenima) in summer you can see them swimming around. Also up in Greer there are a lot of them.

flatlanders huh?
Liz, you so crraaaaazzy!

i cant stand it when ppl use the words "sierra anchas" to describe the Sierra Ancha. If anything, it would be Sierras Ancha, but that is not right either. please comprehend that, ppl.

and, tumacacori is a funny one, cause i call it "took'emkari" on purpose.

its always Muggy On the Rim. dang monsoon season!

i will in the future try my best to pronounce ari-vie-pah and gal-err-ohs.

Oh, that "flatlanders" title got to me big time when I first moved up here, let me tell ya! They just love to dish it at you, too. I remember the first time someone called me that, right after I moved up here, it was a co-worker. I retorted, "I would bet money I have climbed a lot more mountains than you have!" She said she was only kidding, and that it was what everyone calls people from Phoenix and Tucson.

As for "took 'em Kari," I would say that is in New Mexico, right? Tucumcari, as opposed to Tumacacori.

i find it funny, since all you "highlanders" live in one of the flattest areas of the state. Greer calling me a flatlander? pfft.

Almost no one lives in Greer. Greer is not a town. All the second-homers have their log McMansions there, waiting for them to burn to the ground with the next fire. It has no gas station, no actual grocery store, no clinic, no school, etc., etc. I know a lot of people who work in Greer, but they all live in Round Valley. I don't care much for Greer.

Sure glad I live in Round Valley, too, which is fairly flat, and where I have irrigation and gardens, and no pine trees to catch fire next to my house.

How come when you order a shrimp dish there is more than one shrimp. Shouldn't it be a plate of shrimps. After all there is a hamburger and hamburgers, but no ham in the meat.

azbackpackr wrote:My personal favorite: A local tourism promoter, or some other misinformed person, started the idea that "Nutrioso" means "beaver-bear" because in Spanish, a nutria is a beaver, and an oso is a bear. There are Nutrioso t-shirts and hats you can buy, picturing the beaver and the bear.

Lizbeth - you are too cynical. That is how it got the name. In Arizona Place Names, Will C. Barnes page 303.

Nutrioso Apache Co. Map Apache NF 1926
In T7N R30E. Town and Stream. Originally located by a man named Jones. Then came James G.H. Coulter, lumberman from Wisconsin, who in 1875 settled at Round Valley. He and a man named Murray located part of Jones valley and settled there near him. First settlers here killed a beaver and a bear. Hence they named it rather picturesquely. "Nutria" beaver and "Oso" bear e.g. "Nutrioso". For a time called Bush valley. . .
Hintons map, 1883, shows this stream as "Neutre Rossa" evidently a corruption of real name. Coulter family later on founded town of Coulter, near Springerville. P.O. established April 12, 1883. John A. Clark P.M. See Reservation Creek.

We now return you to the regularly scheduled thread - although I'm not really sure what it is. I don't want to get labelled an OTkopelli.

azbackpackr wrote:Down in Tucson they never pronounce Galiuros the old Spanish way. Instead, they say "galeros."

My ears heard it more like "gal YER ohs" (with a tiny bit of a Texas drawl there at the end). But that was from relatives around Kearny, Winkelman and Hayden. And I never understood my aunt, she kept correcting my pronunciation of Kearny. She said I made it sound like Cur-knee and it should be Care-knee. But I still have a problem with get and git. So I'm jest gonna mosey and git on with my chores.

Al_HikesAZ wrote:Kearny

Around here it's pronounced like Car Knee. He was from NJ (although our Kearny was named for his brother).

The mispronunciation of General Kearney's name occurs all over the West. He did pronounce his name Car knee not Cur knee. There are a lot of towns and areas named after him all over the place. My husband claims they do pronounce it correctly in Nebraska, but I have heard otherwise from other people.

Not sure the old story of how Nutrioso got its name is true, though. When the white people came into this country, they promptly changed most of the old Spanish names. The Spanish-speaking people had been here for quite awhile. When the mapmakers came they talked to the whites not to the hispanics, and so a lot of the old Spanish names have been lost. The hispanic old-timers are still complaining about it, too. I wouldn't be surprised if that story in Arizona Place Names is bogus.

When I go up on the mountain, I see that the names of creeks, mountains, draws, springs and other natural features mostly have Anglo names, and these names are the same as those of my neighbors. Thus, I have Udalls and Nelsons and Footes in my block. There is Nelson Reservoir, Udall Draw, Foote Creek, etc.

big_load wrote:

Al_HikesAZ wrote:Kearny

Around here it's pronounced like Car Knee. He was from NJ (although our Kearny was named for his brother).

Maybe that is how she was saying it. I should have had her spell it out phonetically because I never really heard the difference. And either she or I had a funny accent.

azbackpackr wrote:Not sure the old story of how Nutrioso got its name is true, though. When the white people came into this country, they promptly changed most of the old Spanish names. The Spanish-speaking people had been here for quite awhile. When the mapmakers came they talked to the whites not to the hispanics, and so a lot of the old Spanish names have been lost. The hispanic old-timers are still complaining about it, too.

That is one of the benefits of being a Colonial Imperialist. : king : And they were all Native American names before the Spaniards & Mexicans. The Spanish even renamed the Native American Tribal names - Diné to the pejorative Navajo Most of the Native American names seem to have all been "Sacred Mountain". That Sacred family must have been bigger than the Udall clan.

How many of these mountains can anyone identify
Dook'o'oosłííd—Diné (Navajo)
Nuva'tuk-iya-ovi—Hopi
Dził Tso—Dilzhe’e Apache
Tsii Bina—Aa'ku (Acoma)
Nuvaxatuh—Nuwuvi (Southern Paiute)
Hvehasahpatch or Huassapatch—Havasu 'Baaja (Havasupai)
Wik'hanbaja—Hwal`bay (Hualapai)
Wimonagaw'a—Yavapai
Sunha K'hbchu Yalanne—A:shiwi (Zuni)
'Amat 'Iikwe Nyava[10]—Hamakhav (Mojave)

Kearny...

Pronounced Car-Nee . I've actually been to this little town in Nebraska! (there was an old car dealership that looked like something out of Twilight Zone - rusting 50's and 60's hulks in the lot and pristine cars inside the showroom... but I digress). Anyone who pronounced the name Kernee was immediately labeled a heretic and shown the way out of town...

kearney, ne
indeed pronounced car-knee
it's a pretty nice town of about 27,000 people along the platte river

I was looking at houses on the internet in my husband's home town of Beatrice, NE. $18,000 for a cute little 2 BR 1BA with garage! No, I didn't forget a zero!

I have never actually set foot in Nebraska. I suspect I would not like living there, mostly because there are so few other old California hippie surfer chicks there. I could adapt to the landscape: I would just have to switch sports and do more road biking, mtn. biking and kayaking, (and hunting and fishing) and less hiking. Winters would be too long for me, also. I would have to be a snowbird.

I could not and would not adapt to the Bible Belt mentality, though. I have a hard enough time of it here! But at least you can find interesting people here, if you look.

to me, the bible belt is kansas, oklahoma and texas, not so much nebraska
but nebraska is very conservative
winters are long, too

that's why i'm in phoenix
nebraska is still a nice place to visit

beatrice is pronounced differently, too, with emphasis on the "a" rather than the "be"
i can't imagine what $18K would buy even in beatrice

Well, this time when I looked there were some for less than $18K, but this one is the one I was talking about and it is a cute cottage: http://www.realtor.com/realestateandhom ... 1117809115

I well know about the pronunciation of Beatrice NE, since my husband loves to reminisce. Recently I went mtn. biking in Pinetop with some folks from Auburn NE, and the guy was saying how the pheasant hunting is really messed up now because the agribusinesses have eliminated so much of their habitat by plowing all the way to the hedgerows. He said the turkey hunting is very good, though. But he said in 8 hours of hunting pheasants he'd be lucky to scare up 3 birds. Now, that is just sad.

azbackpackr wrote:Well, this time when I looked there were some for less than $18K, but this one is the one I was talking about and it is a cute cottage: http://www.realtor.com/realestateandhom ... 1117809115

Where are the mountains? Oh thats right, it's Nebraska. Thats what it's like in Greeley, CO, where I am from. The Rockies are only like an hour drive or so, but mostly flat. I also lived in Fort Collins (birth place), and Loveland. My sister-in-law and her husband live in Littleton. And I still have family in Loveland. I do miss Colorado, but don't see myself moving there anytime soon.

azbackpackr wrote: Recently I went mtn. biking in Pinetop with some folks from Auburn NE, and the guy was saying how the pheasant hunting is really messed . . . But he said in 8 hours of hunting pheasants he'd be lucky to scare up 3 birds. Now, that is just sad.

Lizbeth - you're bringing tears to my eyes today. Some of my best memories as a kid were pheasant hunting with my Dad and relatives. I think of my Dad on Memorial Day. He devoted his life to this country as a Navy Pilot and is buried at Arlington in the Section just west of the section with the memorial to those who died at the Pentagon on 9/11. Few people will see that Memorial, it is off the visitor areas and only on the pass for those whose relatives are buried at Arlington. I hope everybody gets to Arlington many times in their lives. It truly shows the greatness of America. God Bless America. Especially on this Memorial Day. Amen.

Amen to that! My son is a US Marine Warrant Officer (just finished the school) and has a Purple Heart from IED hit in Iraq. His wife is also a USMC Iraq veteran, no longer active duty. Recently they visited Arlington for the first time, took some nice photos of it and a lot of other places they visited.

I'm not saying I would like to move to Nebraska. But I am saying that most any place I moved to, if it has countryside, creeks, rivers, dirt roads, etc., I would find something fun to do. I would like to visit there, and kayak down the Niobrara River, etc.