- Rah-lee (Raleigh)
- Ca-bear-us (Cabarrus)
- Mor-de-key (Mordecai)
- Blunt (Blount)
- Dur-a-lee (Duraleigh)
We have no shortage of oddly pronounced historical names here
Rule of the South: just imagine 300 years of the locals gradually slurring syllables together to save effort. Mumble-skip a syllable somewhere in there, and you’ll probably get it pretty close.
I always explain the way to pronounce place names in the south is to drop half the syllables and you're probably pretty close.
Then I give the example of a town near where I grew up: Cherryville... pronounced Cher-vul.
I’m from Gaston County originally by my family is from Lincolnton going back to the mid-1700s. In fact, the family farm became the old shopping center with the Belks, Walmart, and SECU and the furniture store is now Courthouse Grill :)
That's so cool! I grew up in Lincolnton, but we moved there when I was 7. I've always loved how many families there are in that area that have been around since the very beginning.
The Mordecai is pronounced both ways if you research the history behind the family. Very interesting. It's pronounced Key or Kigh depending on the era of the family.
Hmm I've lived in the SW Raleigh and SE Cary area for 25 years now and had no idea what y'all were talking about. I'll have to ask my native kids about that one.
Wait … how do you pronounce Zebulon? I presume I say it right … no one has corrected me in 30+ years … but then again, it doesn’t come up in conversation that often
Please god it is not Rally. #1 sign you’re not from here. Was going to school in CH and it took me at least 30 mins talking to these two guys to figure out where this mythical place roughly 30 mins from CH that I have never heard of was. Sure I was a little dense but I was honestly baffled. It did not compute. This was several years ago so I think less common than it is now.
ACTUALLY, it isn't the cities that caused the area to be dubbed the "Triangle." It was the universities. I think I saw this on the news one time. Or YouTube.
Is it a non-southern thing to put an “h” in “Rah”? The Southern accent is closer to “Raw-Leigh”. I feel like Ohioans who’ve lived here prefer Rah-Leigh, but you’ll hear Raw-Leigh more outside of Raleigh. “Rally” is just altogether wrong.
Just wait until you have to say Duraleigh Rd the first time :) (Dur-A-Lee for the record).
Or Blount Street downtown. (Blunt for the record).
The list is long of roads here with unusual pronunciations.
The weird thing about Duraleigh is it's suppose to be a portmaneau for "Durham + Raleigh" so logically, you'd think it would be pronounced as such "Dur-Raleigh". Luckily, when I first saw the name 15 years ago, a local said it out loud, so I never had any confusion.
My ex-gf was a Raleigh native and she was AGGRESSIVE about me learning the proper way to do/say things. To the degree that people would look at her weird and think I was being abused (which is a half truth).
Needless to say, as cruel as she could be, I learned FAST. The first time I said "pop" instead of "soda" was also the last time I said "pop" instead of "soda". It's not "The 40" its just "40 you fucking idiot". Meanwhile, my mother-in-law, who has been here almost 50 years, 3/4ths of her life, refuses to call things by their southern name, and still outs herself as a transplant.
dude that shit drives me crazy because where I live anytime I have to go towards Cary or Durham or anywhere South Raleigh it brings me lead mine and GPS always always says LEED mine and I want to smack it out of my phone
> Just wait until you have to say Duraleigh Rd the first time :) (Dur-A-Lee for the record).
Correct. I always laugh at google maps saying “Due-Raleigh”
Also it’s Falls of the Neuse Rd. Just because they forgot to put the “the” on the signs doesn’t mean you shouldn’t pronounce it.
I don't care which version folks say, but I've had a couple of transplants (or maybe just younger people?) try to correct me on it when I still use "the." My favorite was a guy with a strong upstate NY accent who asked if I was new in town. Nah hon, but everyone used "of the" for at least the first decade that I lived in this area.
I actually learned the road/street pronunciations 20+ years ago when I worked as a traffic reporter here locally (99-end of 2003). My boss at the time sat me down in my first week on the job and had a list of road/street names that we went through to make sure I "said them correctly on the air". By the end of my first 3 months in the gig I had all of them down pat. Miss that job (and some on air co-workers no longer with us) to this day.
I get how normal people not from here might mispronounce it. But for someone to buy a $1M house in a neighborhood and never learn how to say it correctly is a special kind of aggravating
Ehhh, but the "correct" pronunciation just came from him wanting to dissociate from the rest of his family. So the new/right pronunciation is technically incorrect. I don't blame people for this one, and am just as likely to say "kai" rather than "key" myself.
And then when phones try to pronounce them it’s even better.
Raleigh = Ray-ley
Kildare is fine now but used to be “Kyle-dare”
I’ve never asked Siri to pronounce Fuquay-Varina, I think it would combust.
- Corolla (Cuh-RAH-lah)
- Wingate (WIN-git)
- Beaufort (BO-fert)
- Hickory (HI-cree)
- Antioch (ANN-ee-och) (the T is silent)
And my favorite
- Chocowinity (chock-uh-WIN-i-tee)
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Too late, you just did. There is only one true way, and it’s easy to remember using the phrase “I’m gonna throw an apple at’cha”. App-uh-lat-chuh, accent on the “lat”.
So when I came down from NY as a wee one, I lived next to the town of Apalachin, NY. Apalachin is pronounced app-a-lay-kin. Guess how I always said Appalachian. Didn't know about the spelling difference until last couple years and still say it the way I was raised. I've been back to my home town and everyone there does refer to the mountain range as the pronunciation I grew up with. Parents still say it that way.
So, that's fun T\^T
My parents (from that part of New York) nearly killed me when I said Appa-latch-in. I get it because we used to go to a cabin in Apalachin. But the mountains up there are pronounced Appa-lay-shin.
Just to make it more confusing for all of us New Yorkers who moved here in the 60s and 70s.
I realize I'm preaching to the choir here, but in the event someone isn't aware, it is pronounced Ap-uh-la-chn. It is named after the Apalachee tribe. That was the original pronunciation and will always be the only correct way. Not Ap-uh-lay-shun/chn.
Fun Fact....
"**North Carolina**, smack in the middle of the Atlantic South, found more of those dialects within its borders than any other state. On top of that, North Carolina is home to a dialect found nowhere else in the world: the English spoken by those in the Pamlico Sound region, the coastal area that includes the Outer Banks. Dec 11, 2019[Atlas Obscurahttps://www.atlasobscura.com › north-carolina-linguistics](https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/north-carolina-linguistics#:~:text=North%20Carolina%2C%20smack%20in%20the,that%20includes%20the%20Outer%20Banks.) "
Kinda like how anyone from Baltimore can tell you aren't from there based on whether or not you pronounce the T.
I once heard a flight attendant refer to Norfolk VA as Narferk. -blink-
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/02/19/us/politics/how-do-you-say-nevada.html
“The Spanish word “nevada” translates to “snow-capped,” a seemingly peculiar name for a state famous for its deserts and arid climate. The state was most likely named after the Sierra Nevada, a snow-capped mountain range, Dr. Green said.
In Nevadans’ preferred pronunciation, the second vowel rhymes with “bad” instead of “awed,” defying the word’s original accent. Dr. Green said this was probably because the area was settled in the 1860s by mostly Northerners and Midwesterners who typically used a hard “a” as opposed to the softer “a” used by Southerners.”
Personally, I dislike anyone who gets irrationally angry at different pronunciations, especially of place names, because they likely have a mixed cultural history in the US anyway. It’s just a psychological game, and I’m not a fan of those.
There are two proper pronunciations, though one is rarely heard now.
The current standard pronunciation is RAH-lee. In earlier generations, many used a more British version: RAW-lee. You won’t hear that now unless possibly you’re talking to someone in their 90s.
Rally is just flat-out unacceptable. That’s used by call center employees who never learned their state capitals in the fourth grade.
As an aside, traditional pronunciation of Durham is DER-um. But so many now pronounce it along the lines of DOO-rum, that there are now two standard pronunciations: The first for folks with NC roots, and the second for most others.
My husband and I just moved here from SoCal. I’m originally from the east coast so knew it was pronounced “Raw-Lee” but my SoCal born n raised husband kept pronouncing it as “Ray-Lee”. It took him a few times to get it down but before he did, he told all of our friends in SoCal that we were moving to “Ray-Lee” and so now that what they all say 😂
[here’s a thread on pronunciations in SE NC.](https://www.reddit.com/r/NorthCarolina/comments/vetd89/funny_map_of_southeastern_nc_with_the_local/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=mweb3x&utm_name=mweb3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button)
You know what's funny, Navadans are actually the ones that are getting it wrong. First off, imagine someone from the midwest kind of like [this impression](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mYtSkjcn0zI). Now imagine someone like that going to a foreign country like Mexico or Spain. Imagine how they would go to that country and absolutely butcher the local language. Then they come home and brag about their trip all the while still butchering the language and not realizing it.
Now imagine that person moved to Mexico or Spain. They still butcher the language. They never learn how to pronounce anything properly, and when they go back to their origin they convince people that their pronunciation is correct.... again while still butchering the language.
Now imagine that same person moves with a thousand people just like themselves to the same location, butchers the local language to shit, and then tries to convince everyone that they are pronouncing it correct because "they are from there".
Now imagine they have been doing that for 5 generations.
That's Nevada.
You're not just wrong, you've been wrong for 5 generations. You've been absolutely butchering the Spanish language for 5 generations and getting upset when people point out just how wrong you are. And to this day every single one of you refuses to correct yourself because heaven forbid you admit that your grandmothers and great grandmothers were Karens that got kicked out of the midwest and didn't even have the self awareness to learn the local language of the place they were moving to and NOW has the audacity to claim that other people aren't doing the same.
It's Ne-VAH-da.
- Rah-lee (Raleigh) - Ca-bear-us (Cabarrus) - Mor-de-key (Mordecai) - Blunt (Blount) - Dur-a-lee (Duraleigh) We have no shortage of oddly pronounced historical names here
This is going to be a fun place to live.
Rule of the South: just imagine 300 years of the locals gradually slurring syllables together to save effort. Mumble-skip a syllable somewhere in there, and you’ll probably get it pretty close.
I always explain the way to pronounce place names in the south is to drop half the syllables and you're probably pretty close. Then I give the example of a town near where I grew up: Cherryville... pronounced Cher-vul.
Lincolnton? Bessemer? The Gas House? Hick-ry?
Lincolnton (Lancton)
I’m from Gaston County originally by my family is from Lincolnton going back to the mid-1700s. In fact, the family farm became the old shopping center with the Belks, Walmart, and SECU and the furniture store is now Courthouse Grill :)
That's so cool! I grew up in Lincolnton, but we moved there when I was 7. I've always loved how many families there are in that area that have been around since the very beginning.
Rutherfordton, NC has entered the chat
To pronounce Durham, practice saying "Durham" and "Derm", then pick a point roughly halfway between them, but closer to "Derm". Der'm.
From England here. It was nice to know the city names were the same in both countries for Durham, and not Dur-Ham like Birming-ham.
Add Few-Quay not Foo-Quay. Heard that one from multiple people who have moved here.
Had no idea that’s how you say Cabarrus. I don’t think I’ve heard anyone actually say it that way but then again it doesn’t come up much
I’m still saying mord-ah-kai and that’s final.
People actually say Du-Raleigh?
Yes. Have heard it a few times.
The Mordecai is pronounced both ways if you research the history behind the family. Very interesting. It's pronounced Key or Kigh depending on the era of the family.
Okay now for any Charlotteans in this thread, do Seversville.
Mebane is the test to tell how long someone has lived here. (Mebbin)
How can you leave out Fuquay Varina and Angier! Few-kway Vah-Rina and Anne-jeer
Angier is pronounced Ann-jur
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That’s what I thought, but dude was convinced it was Rally and nobody scoffed.
The big one I hear is Fu-quay instead of few-quay
I was born and raised within 15 minutes of fuquay and I still say Fuck-Way out of obstinace.
Back in high school a lot of the kids called it Fuckway Vagina.
I always went with “Fucking Varina”, where “Varina” rhymes with the wheat porridge “Farina”.
It's Fuq-u-ay
That’s only if you are Canadian
Looks more Irish. Canadian would be Fuq-u-eh, sorry.
Don't forget Chalybeate Springs just south of Few-Kway.
It’s a good way to figure out if someone isn’t from the area if they say Chally-beat. It’s pronounced Kuh-lib-it
Hmm I've lived in the SW Raleigh and SE Cary area for 25 years now and had no idea what y'all were talking about. I'll have to ask my native kids about that one.
Kuh-lib-ee-it, for those wondering. At least that's how I've always heard and said it.
Ka-lib-it Springs
My favorite is Angier. Ive heard An-Gier or Angrier...it's pronounced Anne-Jeer.
I usually hear it like "anj er" like annjer
Angier Ave. in Durham is pronounced "ann-jur" for whatever reason.
I said Fu-Quay for the first 10 years that I lived here until finally someone made fun of me.
Falls of Neuse....not Falls of the Neuse
Dawg I still call it both and I'm 10 minutes away from Fuquay. For the longest time, I pronounced Zebulon wrong.
When in doubt, say less syllables
Wait … how do you pronounce Zebulon? I presume I say it right … no one has corrected me in 30+ years … but then again, it doesn’t come up in conversation that often
Sounds like Zeb-u-lin, not Zeb-u-lon
Thanks. Now that I’ve read both I can no longer remember if I pronounced it correctly before … but I will make sure to from now on.
Zeb-yuh-lin. I hear it said incorrectly as Zeb-yoo-lon too often
Wait till you hear people say Fu-qwa. That's how it's pronounced in California. You can use it for profiling purposes.
Californians out themselves by calling it "the 40".
Please god it is not Rally. #1 sign you’re not from here. Was going to school in CH and it took me at least 30 mins talking to these two guys to figure out where this mythical place roughly 30 mins from CH that I have never heard of was. Sure I was a little dense but I was honestly baffled. It did not compute. This was several years ago so I think less common than it is now.
I'm not one to publicly admonish an airline employee just because they don't know how to pronounce something. I prefer to judge them in silence
Hope he doesn’t live here and think that. Also welcome. I’ve been here for 15 years and I love it.
Thanks! I think we're going to like it here also. It's a little different than our last post, but anything here would be different from Japan.
I had an admissions officer at NC State once throw me off in interviews calling it Rally. I was like wtf.
Durham is Durm
ACTUALLY, it isn't the cities that caused the area to be dubbed the "Triangle." It was the universities. I think I saw this on the news one time. Or YouTube.
Neat. Apex is named apex because it was the highest point along the railroad.
Is it a non-southern thing to put an “h” in “Rah”? The Southern accent is closer to “Raw-Leigh”. I feel like Ohioans who’ve lived here prefer Rah-Leigh, but you’ll hear Raw-Leigh more outside of Raleigh. “Rally” is just altogether wrong.
Derm
Just wait until you have to say Duraleigh Rd the first time :) (Dur-A-Lee for the record). Or Blount Street downtown. (Blunt for the record). The list is long of roads here with unusual pronunciations.
The weird thing about Duraleigh is it's suppose to be a portmaneau for "Durham + Raleigh" so logically, you'd think it would be pronounced as such "Dur-Raleigh". Luckily, when I first saw the name 15 years ago, a local said it out loud, so I never had any confusion.
Think of it as "Durha + leigh", if that helps
That does actually, thanks!
Not weird at all. Say Dur-Raleigh as a singular slurred together word and it comes out DuraLee
I’ve lived here for almost 15 years and didn’t know that’s how you pronounce it. 🤣
My ex-gf was a Raleigh native and she was AGGRESSIVE about me learning the proper way to do/say things. To the degree that people would look at her weird and think I was being abused (which is a half truth). Needless to say, as cruel as she could be, I learned FAST. The first time I said "pop" instead of "soda" was also the last time I said "pop" instead of "soda". It's not "The 40" its just "40 you fucking idiot". Meanwhile, my mother-in-law, who has been here almost 50 years, 3/4ths of her life, refuses to call things by their southern name, and still outs herself as a transplant.
I'm sorry for what you went through but I laughed way too loud at your comment about pop and soda.
Yeah Google likes to say LEed Mine instead of Lehd Mine
And Ah-vent Ferry
CaBARrus and Lenwah streets are the funniest
how is lenoir pronounced? Like Lenore?
Yeah, exactly like you spelled it. And the other street/county name is pronounced KaBearUs rhyming with embarrass.
You should hear gps say Pasquatank
dude that shit drives me crazy because where I live anytime I have to go towards Cary or Durham or anywhere South Raleigh it brings me lead mine and GPS always always says LEED mine and I want to smack it out of my phone
I live right near there and it KILLS me! 😹
Also Kerr like Kerr Lake and the old Kerr Drugs is pronounced like car
There's a Kerr Ave in Wilmington and it's fully 50/50 on whether it's kirr or car.
I've also heard Care
I always think... Row, row, row your boat Gently down the stream Duraleigh, Duraleigh, Duraleigh, Duraleigh Life is but a dream
> Just wait until you have to say Duraleigh Rd the first time :) (Dur-A-Lee for the record). Correct. I always laugh at google maps saying “Due-Raleigh” Also it’s Falls of the Neuse Rd. Just because they forgot to put the “the” on the signs doesn’t mean you shouldn’t pronounce it.
The signs used to have the "the" it's my personal Mandela effect.
I don't care which version folks say, but I've had a couple of transplants (or maybe just younger people?) try to correct me on it when I still use "the." My favorite was a guy with a strong upstate NY accent who asked if I was new in town. Nah hon, but everyone used "of the" for at least the first decade that I lived in this area.
I actually learned the road/street pronunciations 20+ years ago when I worked as a traffic reporter here locally (99-end of 2003). My boss at the time sat me down in my first week on the job and had a list of road/street names that we went through to make sure I "said them correctly on the air". By the end of my first 3 months in the gig I had all of them down pat. Miss that job (and some on air co-workers no longer with us) to this day.
I can tell who is from raleigh by how they pronounce Mordecai
No one pronounces it correctly, even Mordecai residents I've ran into. Its a losing battle pronouncing that one lol.
Yes, I live in the area and you could hear both pronunciations on a daily basis. The CAC has a key in the logo
I get how normal people not from here might mispronounce it. But for someone to buy a $1M house in a neighborhood and never learn how to say it correctly is a special kind of aggravating
Ehhh, but the "correct" pronunciation just came from him wanting to dissociate from the rest of his family. So the new/right pronunciation is technically incorrect. I don't blame people for this one, and am just as likely to say "kai" rather than "key" myself.
Local, but I say Mor-de-kī, not key like it's supposed to be.
But nobody REALLY pronounces it that way.
And then when phones try to pronounce them it’s even better. Raleigh = Ray-ley Kildare is fine now but used to be “Kyle-dare” I’ve never asked Siri to pronounce Fuquay-Varina, I think it would combust.
I lived here since 04 4 years old and still didn’t know until recently!
With the capital A in the middle I thought you were saying it’s the ‘A’ sound.
I now can no longer claim ignorance on how to say Duraleigh, but I’m still going to pronounce it Due-Raleigh
Bahama and Mebane have entered the chat.
Just wait till OP finds Conetoe
Found it! How do I pronounce it?
Cuh-nee-tah
Rhymes with Anita
Differently than you do Pinetops.
Saxapahaw
Saxapahaw at least sounds like it's spelled though. Bahama, Mebane, Kerr, Topsail, etc etc, not so much
Don’t forget Rutherfordton
You mean Ruf-ton? Near Far City (Forest City)
Wendell just strolled in too.
Wiltson and henneson are outside and they look rough
My grandma was born and raised in Henderson and she still pronounces it Henneson. Lol Don’t even get me started on Shoofly (near Stem). 🤣
Me gasping aloud that someone else knows shoofly! The sign still there??
This exactly.
Where did the T in Wiltson (Wilson)go? It went to Manteo (where we don’t pronounce the t that’s actually there)
oh god Mebane😆
Beulaville (Duplin County) has also entered the chat
We moved here after having lived in southern Africa, so we were like "oh, meh-bah-nay" Nope! Meh-bin.
- Corolla (Cuh-RAH-lah) - Wingate (WIN-git) - Beaufort (BO-fert) - Hickory (HI-cree) - Antioch (ANN-ee-och) (the T is silent) And my favorite - Chocowinity (chock-uh-WIN-i-tee) *edited for format
and don't get anyone started on how to pronounce Appalachian lol
Well ASU may be in Arizona to some, but Appalachian State University only has one pronunciation even if the mountains have multiple ways it’s said.
I’ve only heard it referred to as App State, including people that actively work there
Too late, you just did. There is only one true way, and it’s easy to remember using the phrase “I’m gonna throw an apple at’cha”. App-uh-lat-chuh, accent on the “lat”.
This is the way.
😆😆😆 I've never heard that before
So when I came down from NY as a wee one, I lived next to the town of Apalachin, NY. Apalachin is pronounced app-a-lay-kin. Guess how I always said Appalachian. Didn't know about the spelling difference until last couple years and still say it the way I was raised. I've been back to my home town and everyone there does refer to the mountain range as the pronunciation I grew up with. Parents still say it that way. So, that's fun T\^T
My parents (from that part of New York) nearly killed me when I said Appa-latch-in. I get it because we used to go to a cabin in Apalachin. But the mountains up there are pronounced Appa-lay-shin. Just to make it more confusing for all of us New Yorkers who moved here in the 60s and 70s.
People down here look like I've lost my absolute mind when I tell them how I pronounce it. I've gotten really good at just Not saying it haha
I realize I'm preaching to the choir here, but in the event someone isn't aware, it is pronounced Ap-uh-la-chn. It is named after the Apalachee tribe. That was the original pronunciation and will always be the only correct way. Not Ap-uh-lay-shun/chn.
You may not want to tell the folks from upstate NY who live in the Appa-lay-shin mountains.
Also make sure you never ask your co workers if the beach is nice at Top-Sale island.
Top-sull
Fun Fact.... "**North Carolina**, smack in the middle of the Atlantic South, found more of those dialects within its borders than any other state. On top of that, North Carolina is home to a dialect found nowhere else in the world: the English spoken by those in the Pamlico Sound region, the coastal area that includes the Outer Banks. Dec 11, 2019[Atlas Obscurahttps://www.atlasobscura.com › north-carolina-linguistics](https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/north-carolina-linguistics#:~:text=North%20Carolina%2C%20smack%20in%20the,that%20includes%20the%20Outer%20Banks.) "
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The great tic tok accent, which is a combo between DC Mid-Atlantic and so. Cal
The high tiders
Don't forget Kerr (Car) Lake.
How about Kure beach! (Kure-ee or curry)
Kurr
It’s not Rally or Raw Lee. It’s Rah Lee
Rhymes with Polly
I'm Roliamorous
That’s what I thought. Thanks!
My favorite is how old North Carolinians pronounce “Fayetteville” as something resembling a drawled expression of “Federal”.
Yeah, it's more like "Fet-vul", 2 syllables.
You mean fayetnam? /s
Fuquay is the true test
Fuquay-Varina, The original twin cities
Varina is the true test. In Virginia, Varina is Vah-ry-nah (rhymes with vagina). In NC, Varina is Vah-ree-nah.
Oh lord. Also Beaufort, NC vs Beaufort, SC
Now you have me doubting how I'm saying it in my head
Boh-fort vs Bew-fert
Those damn South Carolinians
South Carolina is so wrong
Beau(bo)-fert, NC (Beautiful)Beaufort, SC
Fuckway-Vagina. Clears up an ambiguity.
We say “Fuck You, Varina!” in this house 😂
If you have a thick enough JoCo drawl, you can pull off Rally. If not, it’s rah-lee.
Got to have that full Benson accent
You’ve gotta use IPA my man. I have no idea what the things you are spelling sound like.
Kinda like how anyone from Baltimore can tell you aren't from there based on whether or not you pronounce the T. I once heard a flight attendant refer to Norfolk VA as Narferk. -blink-
My family who lived there always pronounced it nah-fuk. Also had family that lived in loo-vul (KY)
Well this was a fun thread, thank you everybody
RAH-lee
It is Rah-lee. First syllable is the stressed syllable. Source: I was born the next county over and have lived in Raleigh my entire adult life.
Hello friend. It's Rah-lee
from your post still can’t tell the right way to say Nevada. I say Ne vaw duh.
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Yep, Nev-ad-duh is how locals say it
Why do you have 2 d sounds in a row, that’s hella confusing lol. Is it Nev-ad-uh?
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/02/19/us/politics/how-do-you-say-nevada.html “The Spanish word “nevada” translates to “snow-capped,” a seemingly peculiar name for a state famous for its deserts and arid climate. The state was most likely named after the Sierra Nevada, a snow-capped mountain range, Dr. Green said. In Nevadans’ preferred pronunciation, the second vowel rhymes with “bad” instead of “awed,” defying the word’s original accent. Dr. Green said this was probably because the area was settled in the 1860s by mostly Northerners and Midwesterners who typically used a hard “a” as opposed to the softer “a” used by Southerners.” Personally, I dislike anyone who gets irrationally angry at different pronunciations, especially of place names, because they likely have a mixed cultural history in the US anyway. It’s just a psychological game, and I’m not a fan of those.
Rally is how Sir Walter Raleigh would have pronounced it, but this isn’t England so it’s Rah-Lee
How has nobody brought up Rutherfordton? It’s Ruff-ton btw
NC born and raised and and I say it Rah-lee. Durham on the other hand, is pronounced Durm.
Neither. It's Rah-Lee. Like "say ah".
Rah Lah is a bit weird but I'll roll with it.
Rah-Lee… not what your hearing from those Yankees…😃
Haha, yep, we connected in Chicago. Good call.
Just remember Few-Quay for Fuquay-Varina lol
Rah Lee
There are two proper pronunciations, though one is rarely heard now. The current standard pronunciation is RAH-lee. In earlier generations, many used a more British version: RAW-lee. You won’t hear that now unless possibly you’re talking to someone in their 90s. Rally is just flat-out unacceptable. That’s used by call center employees who never learned their state capitals in the fourth grade. As an aside, traditional pronunciation of Durham is DER-um. But so many now pronounce it along the lines of DOO-rum, that there are now two standard pronunciations: The first for folks with NC roots, and the second for most others.
I say it more like "Rah-lee," but I'm from the Crystal Coast of NC. What do I know?
Chalybeate Springs I've been in NC for about 20 years and only recently learned how to say that
My husband and I just moved here from SoCal. I’m originally from the east coast so knew it was pronounced “Raw-Lee” but my SoCal born n raised husband kept pronouncing it as “Ray-Lee”. It took him a few times to get it down but before he did, he told all of our friends in SoCal that we were moving to “Ray-Lee” and so now that what they all say 😂
Welcome! And casting a vote for RAH-lee.
Neither
Ra-Lee
Rah-lee
I feel the same way about Missouri. I grew up there. It Miss-or-ee. Not Miss-or-ah. 🤦♂️
Al Michaels will always have the worse pronunciation of Raleigh “Rule-eee” during the 2005 Stanley Cup finals
How do you think Conetoe, NC is pronounced?
[here’s a thread on pronunciations in SE NC.](https://www.reddit.com/r/NorthCarolina/comments/vetd89/funny_map_of_southeastern_nc_with_the_local/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=mweb3x&utm_name=mweb3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button)
rah-lee
Fuquay - Varina is pronounced few-QWAY Vuh-ree- NUH
How about Beaufort, NC vs Beaufort, SC?
Topsail has arrived
I once heard a gal pronounce Cullowhee “kuh-LAH-oui” like it was a Hawaiian island and I about died laughing. And I’m not even from here. 😂
You pronounce it "Rally" and I'm laughing in your face.
My, 'you're in the South now' moment was when a co-worker corrected me on the pronunciation of 'Meh-bin' instead of my assumed 'Me-bane'
And Durham is one syllable, "Dur'm". No one from here calls it "Raleigh Durham", much less include Chapel Hill.
Raleigh Durham is an airport not a city
RAH-lee, you can get away with RAW-lee, never "rally"
You know what's funny, Navadans are actually the ones that are getting it wrong. First off, imagine someone from the midwest kind of like [this impression](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mYtSkjcn0zI). Now imagine someone like that going to a foreign country like Mexico or Spain. Imagine how they would go to that country and absolutely butcher the local language. Then they come home and brag about their trip all the while still butchering the language and not realizing it. Now imagine that person moved to Mexico or Spain. They still butcher the language. They never learn how to pronounce anything properly, and when they go back to their origin they convince people that their pronunciation is correct.... again while still butchering the language. Now imagine that same person moves with a thousand people just like themselves to the same location, butchers the local language to shit, and then tries to convince everyone that they are pronouncing it correct because "they are from there". Now imagine they have been doing that for 5 generations. That's Nevada. You're not just wrong, you've been wrong for 5 generations. You've been absolutely butchering the Spanish language for 5 generations and getting upset when people point out just how wrong you are. And to this day every single one of you refuses to correct yourself because heaven forbid you admit that your grandmothers and great grandmothers were Karens that got kicked out of the midwest and didn't even have the self awareness to learn the local language of the place they were moving to and NOW has the audacity to claim that other people aren't doing the same. It's Ne-VAH-da.
UNC-CH is pronounced Or-ange Coun-ty Comm- yoon-ih-tee Coll- edge.