Well, at least we don't live in Il-in-WAH
JAY RATH For the State Journal
The Bible tells us that God looked at the Tower of Babel, scattered its builders and confounded their tongues. This must be the earliest known literary reference to Wisconsin.
How else to explain our welter of impossible city and town pronunciations?
"I think my first week, it was Wau-POON. That was a lot of fun," says Christine Bellport, WMTV (Ch. 15) morning anchor. The California native arrived in Madison in August 2004, only to be ambushed by, of course, Waupun. There's an Associated Press guide to place name pronunciation, "Except - I'm not kidding you - a third of the time they're incorrect," says Bellport.
At northern Wisconsin's Chequamegon-Nicolet U.S. National Forest, public affairs specialist Cathy Fox has heard it all. Just looking at the name terrifies. "I had some poor guy call from California once," Fox recalls, laughing. "He said, 'I need to update some information on Ch-Ch-Ch-Ch' - I said, 'Go ahead. Try it!'• "
Only Wisconsinese features a silent "Q." The correct pronunciation is SHAW-em-gun. The strangest she's heard was check-wa-ME-gun. "That was the phonetically correct person," Fox says, coining a new meaning for P.C.
Our maps seem designed to embarrass. Take Rio and Theresa, two Wisconsin villages. You would think that no names could be easier to pronounce. You would be wrong.
Rio rhymes with EYE-Oh, and it's tuh-RESS-uh. Following this logic, the capital should be MADE-ice-own.
Similarly, there is the Strange Case of Muscoda, which you might expect to be mus-KOE- duh. There is hope that the emerging science of quantum mechanics and string theory may yet account for pronouncing it, instead, as MUSS-kuh- day.
We're not as dumb as we think when we bump into unfamiliar place names. We take for granted how much we do know. For example, which "ough" sound should one mimic when pronouncing the city 20 miles southwest of Madison? Looking to "rough," "through" and "thought," it could be called Stuffton, Stewton or Stawton. But somewhere long ago we learned that Stoughton is "STOW-tun."
Then there's the siren's song of familiar, look-alike words that lure us toward the shores of mispronunciation and public embarrassment. Oregon the state is ends with an "un" sound, but in Wisconsin the town is definitely "on." On the back of most nickels you see that Jefferson lived at mont-uh- CHELL-oh, but our Monitcello is mont-uh-SELL-oh. The city of Tomahawk presents no problem, but the city of Tomah does. It's TOE-muh. And you're welcome to take your bow and play the viola in Viola, so long as you pronounce the community's first syllable with an "eye" sound, and not the musical instrument's "vee."
Speaking of music, different meters playing at the same time is called a hemiola; think of a polka played as a waltz. The off-balance effect is as if the instruments are speaking on the wrong syllables. In Wisconsin, we make music of a different sort when we show preference to unexpected syllables. Take, for example, Gillett, which is JILL-it. Boaz is not "boze," but BO-az. And there's New BER-lin. Struggle as we might to be phonetically correct, how can we follow rules when there aren't any? It's not Bos-KOE-buhl, WAW-puk- aw and Muh-ZAHM-uh-nee. First second and third syllables are each favored, in order, in Boscobel, Waupaca and Mazomanie: BOSS-kuh-bell, Wah- PACK-uh and may-zoh-MAY- nee.
Against all reason we speak Vienna with an "eye" sound. But it's not Germanic tongues that tangle most. The French may have ceded the Wisconsin territory to the British in 1763, but they left behind the city whose name should be pronounced "bell-WAH." If you call it that when asking for directions, you'll never find your way to Beloit.
The "sheen" that ends Prairie du Chien would, to a French speaker, be "shee-EN," with a nasalized "n" on the end. Word pairs that are otherwise simple can set up illogical hurdles to pronunciation. Sportscasters who call it GREEN Bay make us snort. But why do we call it Green BAY, as if there are other green things nearby and we mean to refer only to the water? Still, green is GREEN in Spring GREEN. Why? Why, for that matter, is it Sauk CITY but never BEAVER Dam?
Many of us no doubt mangle names drawn from Native American languages, without even knowing it. Look how even the tribal name of the Ojibwa was so long mangled as "Chippewa." Oshkosh is named for the chief whose name was spelled that way, but it's also spelled as the Brooklyn- sounding "Oiscoss." Both spellings turn up in the 1827 Treaty of Little Butte des Morts, a pronunciation challenge in itself. It's no mystery why, history tells us, the chief was also called "Clam."
But we're led astray even within the context of probably- garbled Indian names, especially in the matter of our "aukees." If it's Mil-WAH-kee, Peh- WAH-kee and Oh-ZAW-kee, then why is Waunakee not Wah-NAH-kee, instead of Wah- nuh-KEE?
And then there's . . . Oconomowoc.
It could be a childhood phonics test, with its perfectly alternating hard and soft "O"s. The Wisconsin Historical Society says it's a corruption of "Coo-no-mo-wauk," a Pottawatomie term referring to a nearby waterfall, and that tired pioneers punned it as "I can no mo' walk."
Even the original pronunciation and meaning of "Wisconsin" are lost to us. Its listed translations range from "gathering of waters" and "river of red stone" to "river of the great rock" which, though picturesque, could hardly fit on license plates. The Historical Society says it's the English spelling of a French version of a Native American word. French explorer Jacques Marquette garbled it immediately in 1673, spelling it both "Meskousing" and "Miskous."
Be thankful, then, for failed translations and mispronunciations. Otherwise, instead of "On, Wisconsin!" we'd all be singing "On, Miskous!" But that's better than singing another translation of our state name: "On, Holes in the Bank of a Stream in Which Birds Nest!"
It would be easy to pronounce, though.
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