[Speech note] Pronouncing Oregon

[Susan Rosine]

I lived outside of Seattle for 17 years, and know many people from Oregon.
They want it pronounced Or- uh- gun. I've even seen a t-shirt that has
"shows" people how to pronounce the state, and they have a picture of a gun
for the last syllable :-)   The people of Nevada prefer the middle "a" to be
a short a, as in apple. They even run tourism commericals for their state
here in Colorado, and have the short vowel symbol above the a.  By the way,
true Coloradans pronounce the 'a' as in apple, but I've noticed almost
everyone these days says "rodo" with a short 'o' sound, instead of rado with
a short 'a' sound.  As a native of Colorado, that bugs the heck out of me!
Susan


Date:    Mon, 5 Nov 2007 16:24:27 -0800
From:    Benjamin Barrett <gogaku at IX.NETCOM.COM>
Subject: Re: [Speech note] Pronouncing Oregon

At least for me, I think the pronunciation varies between "gIn" and
"g at n", with the former preferred.

FWIW, I'm a West Coaster and find the pronunciation "gahn" grates on my
ears. There aren't many words that bother me, but Oregon really does.
Not sure why. Ne-VAH-d@ is a close second.

Benjamin Barrett
a cyberbreath for language life
livinglanguages.wordpress.com

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