(With) people who grew up here, as I did, all that's sort of second nature.". There are many more specifics that go behind this blog that I don’t touch on. To be fair, though, it’s not Wisconsin’s fault. Subtly, they conveyed the message, "Damn right, these towns are hard to pronounce and we're proud of it.". Learn more. Wisconsin Badgers men's basketball - The Wisconsin Badgers is a NCAA Division I college basketball team competing in the Big Ten Conference. Underlying the complexity of the enunciation of these Wisconsin names can sometimes be small conflicts. The stress patterns in Ojibwe, Potowatomi and Menominee are all slightly different because there are several factors that go into analyzing such a pattern (it involves assigning iambs and counting light or heavy syllables). For Oconomowoc, its long name can be a hindrance sometimes. It’s “Shock-uh-pee“. ©2021 Fox Cities Magazine. Me: “Wah-KEH-shu, wah-KEE-shu” It's the first name that often comes to mind when one thinks of hard-to-pronounce place names in Wisconsin. “People do take pride not only in their hometowns, but the pronunciation of the name of their hometowns,” Johnson said. Funny, considering its way up nort der. "I think people could be intimidated by looking at it, seeing it all spelled out with a bunch of O's," said Oconomowoc's economic development manager Bob Duffy, who was also named the 2015 Citizen of the Year by the Oconomowoc Area Chamber of Commerce. Video by Mike De Sisti Happy pronouncing . Wisconsin Dells, Wisconsin - Wisconsin Dells is a city in south-central Wisconsin, with a population of 2,678 people as of the 2010 census. Both are right along the Wisconsin River. And in at least one case, a Wisconsin name came about as a result of an unfinished 19th-century construction project — or so the legend goes. Oconomowoc (Waukesha County) So there are probably hundreds of hard-to-pronounce Native American town names in Wisconsin, but Oconomowoc is one of my favorites because it stumps every single out-of-towner. Here, 15 hard to pronounce baby names. "They represent how we were settled; they represent the different kinds of people, where they came from, and that we had and still do have a tremendous Native American presence.". Wisconsin native: “Pronounce that word.” (Waukesha) I can’t win. These town and city names in Wisconsin that are so hard to pronounce, however, are not of English origin, which should be no surprise. Wisconsin is a state located in the Midwestern United States.As of April 1, 2010, there were 190 cities in Wisconsin. It can be hilarious to witness. Learn more. Charlotte If you’ve been pronouncing Charlotte like the city in North Carolina, guess again! "This started long ago when I was doing morning radio — there's not many people at the radio station at that time. Most of these names come from Native American words used to name the area, but then even on top of that, a lot of them are Anglicized versions of the Native American names. Find her on Twitter as @mel_lawder or follow her on Instagram as @mellawder. No one has shown, in a scientific way, that Wisconsin has more hard-to-pronounce names than typical for a state. List of cities BuzzFeed Staff, UK. However, despite these internal battles about whether part of a word is wrongly emphasized, Johnson said she believes most people possess a soft spot for these difficult — and sometimes verbose — Badger State place names. Sources I used can be found here, here and from websites of these communities named in the blog. In the Midwest, we use some strange language. Me: “Win-a-cone” How nice of them! Stress patterns are found in Algonquian languages. All Rights Reserved. If You Can Pronounce These 8 Words, You’ve Lived In Milwaukee For Far Too Long. Places are named because settlers want to live in place that reflects their own heritage — Stockholm in Pepin County came about because the emigrants were Swedish — and thus many Wisconsin place names can be traced to the American Indians and the French. "They got as far as Eleva, and so that became the name of the town!" "Once they're able to say it they're not going to forget it," Duffy said. Do you know how to pronounce all of these town names? How to say Wisconsin. The entire name rolls off the tongue as Zah-shah. Wisconsin pronunciation. This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Many Wisconsin place names are derived from the ethnic history of the place in question, Apps said. They even have a baseball team called the Oconomowoc Five-O's and a local Holiday gas station has also adopted the Five-O's title. Nestled between Milwaukee and Madison, Oconomowoc is an idyllic and charming city in southeastern Wisconsin, with a quaint downtown and an abundance of lakes on all sides of it. 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