Book Board Chat

Thanks for that article, Kath. I never had such a hard time in my life understanding people as when I was in Pittsburgh! I looked for Baum Blvd. which I pronounced as "Bowm'h (like bowing with an 'm')". lol People looked at me without comprehension and then (light bulb!) said, "Oh, ya mean Bomb."

I enjoy listening to various accents, inflections, and pronunciations when I'm out and about, & speculating their origins. We have northside pronunciations and south side pronunciations; we even have what's called Bridgeport-speak (with cadance, inflections, and pronunciations like the original Richard Daley, otherwise known as "Hizzoner da Mare" used).

We even pronounce the street named "Goethe" and "Go-thee." This may have been due to World War I, and the subsequent re-naming of streets bearing German names (except for those bearing the names of German composers and authors, & those were "Anglicized," after a fashion, as shown above). The one that drives me up the wall, tho, is "Chicago" pronounced "Shih-kah-go" instead of "Shih-caw-go." Until a few years ago, one could ID a native-born Chicagoan from an "immigrant" by his/her pronunciation of "Chicago." Now, it's not so easy. I have no idea why: radio/TV, perhaps.

Fascinating that the retired psychologist has tracked so much to the original settlers. I guess here in Chicago, we're such a mismosh with Germans coming early, Scandiavians, African-Americans, Irish, I'd be hard-pressed to ID the "source" for any pronunciation.