Folk Awareness of Dialect

[Steve Hicks]

    "Iowa has a Byou-n@ Vista. And GUT- at n-burg. The classic
     is N at -'vay-d@ for Nevada."


Missouri also has a N at -'vay-d at ....the story about the Missouri
town was that it was named by returning '49ers for Nevada County,
Calif. (itself presumably named for the Sierra Nevada mountains).
So....did the first Anglo settlers of California anglicize the name of
the mountains when they named their new county ?

(Nevada, Mo., was originally Hog Eye, I understand....a pioneer
term for a mound in the middle of a prairie swale.  Unfortunately,
there was already a post office named Hog Eye in Missouri {!},
and "Nevada City" was substituted.  The "other" Hog Eye, I
believe...no doubt at the insistence of local social climbers...
eventually changed its name to the Biblical Haggai...)


                                                Steve Hicks