..................................................................................................................................
A
Alafaya Trail: AL-uh-FAY-uh
Alaqua Country Club: AL-uh-kwah
Allegiant Air: Uh-LEE-gent
Altamonte Springs: AL-tuh-mont
B
Bram Towers Apartments: Bramm
C
Central Florida GreeneWay (State Road 417): Green Way
Chuluota: CHOO-lee-OH-tuh
crappie: CROP-ee
D
E
Econlockhatchee River: E-kon-lock-HATCH-ee
Efes Turkish Cuisine – Ef-es
Eslinger, Don (sheriff) – ESS-ling-er
F
Floridan Aquifer – FLOOR-ih-dun
G
Geneva: Jen-EE-vuh
Gyenes, Nell (executive director of Seminole Cultural Arts Council): Guinn-iss
H
Harrell & Beverly Transmissions & Auto Repair: HAIR-ell
Hollerbach’s Willow Tree Café: Hall-er-bocks
I
J
K
L
Lake Jesup: JESS-up
Lake Monroe: Mun-ROW
M
Meisch Building: Mysch
N
O
Orlando Jai-Alai (in Casselberry): Hi-(eh)li
Osteen: OH-steen
Oviedo: O-VEE-doh
P
Paola: Pay-O-luh
PICO Building (stands for Plant Investment Co.): PIE-co
Q
R
S
Seminole: SEM-ih-nole
Semoran Boulevard: SEM-or-on
T
Timucua (tribe) and Timacuan Golf Club: TIM-uh-kwa, TIM-uh-kwan
Touhy Park: Too-ee
Tuscawilla/Tuskawilla: TUS-kuh-WILL-uh
U
Upsala Road: Up-SALE-uh
V
Vihlen Road: Vih-LANE
W
Wekiva (river and falls): Wee-KI-vuh
Wekiwa (springs and state park): Wee-KI-wuh
Welaka Building: We-lack-uh
X
Y
Z
..............................................................................................
SanPaper column (Jan. 16, 2011)
We have our own way of saying things in these parts
By Gene Kruckemyer
Herald Publisher
You may hear a lot of crappie talk the next few weeks.
Not the crappie that rhymes with “happy,” but the crappie that rhymes with “choppy.”
You know, the fish (also called the speckled perch or spec) – because the annual national Crappie Masters Tournament will be held Feb. 5 on the St. Johns River.
But this is not a fishing report.
“Crappie” is just one of the entries the Herald has put on its new community pronunciation guide.
Dictionaries include phonetic-spelling pronunciations of words, and there are even online dictionaries that will sound them out.
But many regional words and names never make it into dictionaries, and pronunciations often are tinted by the speaker’s background and familiarity with the subject.
You may have heard people say Upsala Road a variety of ways. Or Timucua. I’ve heard Lake Monroe pronounced as MON-row instead of mon-ROW.
Years ago, when the Orlando Sentinel helped start the CFN 13 local TV news channel, I assembled a local pronunciation guide for the new reporters and anchors that were coming from out of the area.
I started the guide after hearing a radio station’s obviously new reporter mangle the name of Osceola County’s Lake Tohopekaliga as Toe-hoe-PEE-ka-LEE-gah (instead of Toe-HOPE-ih-ka-LI-gah).
Getting back to Upsala, an early Sanford road named by Swedish immigrants in honor of the city Uppsala back home, and why you may have heard it pronounced several ways…
To pronounce the city of Uppsala, according to this week’s e-mail from Anneli Waara, press officer at Uppsala University: “U is pronounced more like your ‘ou,’ and ‘sala’ is with a long first ’a’ and a short second ‘a.’” Hence: Oop-SALE-uh – that is, if you are Swedish.
But local pronunciations don’t necessarily follow the original.
Christine Best, a local historian whose family has lived in Sanford since 1885 – just a few years after Sanford’s 1877 incorporation – said the name has always been pronounced with a beginning “Up,” as in Up-SALE-uh. Maybe it sounds differently because the immigrants for some reason dropped the other letter “P” in Uppsala, or maybe it was just because we Southerners said it the way it looks.
In the same way, we say Oviedo as O-VEE-doh, instead of as O-vee-A-doh for the name of the city in Spain.
Timucua is another entry that is often pronounced a variety of ways.
Historians say the members of the tribe, which used to thrive in central and northeast Florida, never used that word to refer to themselves. It was a name given to them by explorers coming to the area.
Rangers at the Timucuan Preserve/Kingsley Plantation, a National Park Service ecological and historical preserve in Jacksonville, said the proper pronunciation is TIM-uh-kwan, not Ti-MOO-kwan or Ti-MUCK-wan or another other way you may have heard it.
Some people, such as former FSU Seminoles football coach Bobby Bowden, may even need a reminder know how to say the name of the tribe, sports team, and our county: Sem-ih-nole. Not Sem-nole, as Bowden seems to say without the middle syllable.
So please check out the Herald’s new pronunciation guide on our website, MySanfordHerald.com, under the Community headline on the page. You could also go straight to it by clicking on http://mysanfordherald.com/pages/pronunciationguide.
We didn’t use any of those upside-down symbols, or letters with umlauts and tildes to show the pronunciation. We just tried to phonetically sound out the words so they make sense.
I mentioned last month that I was putting this guide together, and asked for suggestions. A few people sent in some words, including Nelson Beverly, who said some customers occasionally mispronounce his family’s automotive business, Harrell & Beverly, as Harold & Beverly.
I told him that maybe we could merge and become Herald & Beverly Newspapers & Auto Repair.
Our new list contains a few dozen words now, but there’s room for expansion. If you have some more words to suggest, please send them to my address below.
And in the meantime, grab a fishing pole, head out to Lake Mon-ROW and maybe you can catch some CROP-ee.
Comments can be sent to Herald publisher Gene Kruckemyer at GKruckemyer@MySanfordHerald.com.
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