[Speech note] Pronouncing Oregon

[Bradley A. Esparza]

Thinking on it, when I speak of parts of Oregon around here, my rugby
team plays three teams from there and we often stay in Portland, we
never mention the state we just mention the city names. "We're playing
Bend, down there." "We're at Eugene this week, but do you want to stay
downtown Portland."

On Nov 6, 2007 7:19 AM, Susan Rosine <basenjiluvr at msn.com> wrote:
> 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
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>



--
Bradley A. Esparza

"You can lead a whore to culture, but you can't make her think."
Dorothy Parker, when asked to use the word 'horticulture' in a
sentence.

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org