toponymic query

[Fred Shapiro]

On Wed, 12 Nov 2003, Geoffrey Nunberg wrote:

> >What kind of scholar would be able to tell me the word for which the
> >definition is "the special pronunciation of a proper noun, often a city
> >name, used by the people who live there, separating the natives of a place
> >from outsiders."?  An example is Cairo, Illinois, which is pronounced
> >KAY-ROW by its citizens, and usually mispronounced "KEYE-ROW" by outsiders.

Shibboleth?

Fred Shapiro


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Fred R. Shapiro                             Editor
Associate Librarian for Collections and     YALE DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS
  Access and Lecturer in Legal Research     Yale University Press,
Yale Law School                             forthcoming
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