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The street/city pronunciation thread.....


B35 via Church

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These are always fun...

 

But the real reason I started this thread is b/c while fanning last weekend, I was thinkin about how to correctly say a couple streets I think I've been saying (to myself) incorrectly for years.... they are:

 

"Foch Blvd"... is it pronounced "foke" or "fotch"?

"Vesey st"... is it "vess-see" or "vay-z"

"Seguine av"... is it "segg-win" (rhyming w/ penguin) or "seh-guyne" (rhyming w/, the mine)?

"Ryawa av" ... is it "rye-uh-wa" or "rye-aaah-wa" (basically, is the first 'a' stressed or not) ?

"Kissena blvd"... I always say "kiss-en-uh", but for some reason I don't feel like that's correct....

"Isham st/Isham park"... How do you say this shit?... lol... I say "issh-um"...

 

....and the one that made me feel uneasy saying last night to another passenger, "Cebra av"...

I told this one lady we're on "ceb-ruh av", we're not on jersey st yet.... She looked at me like I was stupid....

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There's others also, but these are the ones that immediately come to mind that bug the hell out of me.....

Would appreciate the help.

 

Y'all can also throw in some other streets or cities/towns y'all are unsure of, to keep the thread going.....

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Accentuated parts of the pronunciations are in CAPS.

 

Isham = EYE-sham

 

Seguine is probably SEG-wyn; my intuition is to think of the word sanguine.

 

Kissena = kiss-EEN-ah like VWM said

 

Ryawa = rye-AH-wa

 

Another street in Hunts Point is Halleck; that one is HALL-eck just like the word hallway but "eck" goes where "way" is/

 

Mosholu Ave/Mosholu Pkwy--Jessica Ettinger Gottesman of the (4) train says MOSH-o-lu but the locals say mosh-OH-lu. I have yet to figure out which one is correct, if there is a correct pronunciation.

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Yeah like VWM said it's "vess-see" street.

 

For Seguine Av (I assume you mean the one on Staten Island) it's pronounced "Seh-geen" Av.

 

The "guine" pronunciation in Seguine rhymes with "teen" if that helps.

 

Another Staten Island one that non-Staten Islanders screw up royally is "Todt Hill Rd"... It's "Toad" like the animal, not Todd. <_<

 

The two I love to hear in Riverdale is "Kappock St" and "Spuyten Duvyil". So far all of the B/Os say "Kay-pock" st which is how it is pronounced. The "pock" part rhymes with "rock". For Spuyten Duyvil, I've heard the actual Dutch pronunciation which is... http://www.merriam-webster.com/cgi-bin/audio.pl?ggspuy01.wav=Spuyten+Duyvil+Creek. I've also heard "Spoytin" "Doy-vul". Depends on the person, but both are acceptable.

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"Foch Blvd"... is it pronounced "foke" or "fotch"?

"Vesey st"... is it "vess-see" or "vay-z"

"Seguine av"... is it "segg-win" (rhyming w/ penguin) or "seh-guyne" (rhyming w/, the mine)?

"Ryawa av" ... is it "rye-uh-wa" or "rye-aaah-wa" (basically, is the first 'a' stressed or not) ?

"Kissena blvd"... I always say "kiss-en-uh", but for some reason I don't feel like that's correct....

"Isham st/Isham park"... How do you say this shit?... lol... I say "issh-um"...

 

....and the one that made me feel uneasy saying last night to another passenger, "Cebra av"...

I told this one lady we're on "ceb-ruh av", we're not on jersey st yet.... She looked at me like I was stupid....

-------------------------------

 

There's others also, but these are the ones that immediately come to mind that bug the hell out of me.....

Would appreciate the help.

 

Y'all can also throw in some other streets or cities/towns y'all are unsure of, to keep the thread going.....

 

 

I don't know what the technically correct pronounciation, but this is how I pronounce it.

 

"Foch Blvd" = "Fotch"

"Vesey st" = "Vess-see" (my dad pronounces it "Vee-see")

"Seguine av"... I'd go with "Segg-win", but I pronounce it "Seeg-win"

Ryawa av" ... "Rye-aaah-wa"

"Kissena blvd"... "Kiss-en-uh"

"Isham st/Isham park"... "Issh-um"...

 

Another Staten Island one that non-Staten Islanders screw up royally is "Todt Hill Rd"... It's "Toad" like the animal, not Todd. <_<

 

 

I have a transcript of the public hearing for SI back in March 2010, and they actually have it written down as "Toad Hill". Apparently, there's also a "Manors Harbor" and "Westerly" (but that's just because the scribe was probably just going by the phonetics)

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I don't know what the technically correct pronounciation, but this is how I pronounce it.

 

"Foch Blvd" = "Fotch"

"Vesey st" = "Vess-see" (my dad pronounces it "Vee-see")

"Seguine av"... I'd go with "Segg-win", but I pronounce it "Seeg-win"

Ryawa av" ... "Rye-aaah-wa"

"Kissena blvd"... "Kiss-en-uh"

"Isham st/Isham park"... "Issh-um"...

 

 

 

I have a transcript of the public hearing for SI back in March 2010, and they actually have it written down as "Toad Hill". Apparently, there's also a "Manors Harbor" and "Westerly" (but that's just because the scribe was probably just going by the phonetics)

 

 

RE: Todt Hill LOL... Yeah that's exactly why...

 

No, with Mariner's Harbor it was the way the person said it. When said quickly it can sound like Manors Harbor. Westerleigh is another one... Some of the Latinos have a hard time saying it.

 

Another Dutch word that is mispronounced Van Wyck... Most folks like to say "Van Wick" but it's "Van Whike".

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- so it is fotch... thanks... all this time, I've been sayin "foke"

- vesey I figured as such... some ppl. also say "vee-zee" *shrugs*

- as for, seguine.... I say segg-win (to myself), but there was an x22 passenger some time ago that said it like "seh-guyne"... now via says it's pronounced seh-geen.... this one is still up in the air to me, I guess....

- ryawa, so the first 'a' is stressed.... thanks...

- kissena.... so it's kiss-seen-ah? news to me, would have never guessed that... thanks...

- So the 'I' is stressed in Isham? Ok, cool.....

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as for the others mentioned...

 

Houston I knew how to say, since my father used to mention that street a lot; had a lot of deliveries over there & such.... some coincidence that I work near there....

 

for Todt Hill, I don't say todd, but more "toh"... guess that's close enough to "toad"...

 

That 'y' sound in kappock I would have never guessed.... I tend to hear kapp-ick a lot though....

 

Mosholu goes mah-shu-la.... Most people I hear, just say mosh-ah-lu...

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- as for, seguine.... I say segg-win (to myself), but there was an x22 passenger some time ago that said it like "seh-guyne"... now via says it's pronounced seh-geen.... this one is still up in the air to me, I guess....

-----------------

 

as for the others mentioned...

 

for Todt Hill, I don't say todd, but more "toh"... guess that's close enough to "toad"...

 

That 'y' sound in kappock I would have never guessed.... I tend to hear kapp-ick a lot though....

 

Mosholu goes mah-shu-la.... Most people I hear, just say mosh-ah-lu...

 

 

Well if you're pronouncing the "guy" as it is said in French like "Guy" has a "gee" pronunciation, then what you wrote is how it is pronounced. Seh-guyne. I just used "geen" for familiarity purposes since it rhymes with "teen"...

 

 

As for Todt, since the "t" is silent, folks naturally look for something to replace it with, hence "Todd". lol It's one of those Staten Island things, but "Toad" is the correct pronunciation. "Todt" is Dutch or perhaps even German, hence the pronunciation, since both German and Dutch and English are similar in some respects... Staten Island has a lot of Dutch names (i.e. Staten Island ("Staaten Eylandt" in Dutch), New Dorp "Nieuw Dorp" and many of the "Kill" names "Arthur Kill Road"). Harlem ("Haarlem" in Dutch), Brooklyn (in Dutch "Breukellen"), Stuyvesant...) All Dutch names. The pronunciation of these names in Dutch is very close if not identical to how we say them in English. Manhattan (I believe it is spelled differently in Dutch), Van Cortlandt Park (spelled differently in Dutch), as is the Bronx (spelled differently in Dutch) and Coney Island ("Coyne Eylandt"). There are a bunch of others as well. Long Island is another one.

 

 

 

 

As for Kappock, my understanding was that it was a Native American name originally that was shortened from "Shorrak-Kappock" to just Kappock street, hence the Kay-pock pronunciation, as opposed to Ka-ppick. lol

 

 

 

Spuyten Duyvil is also Dutch. It translates to something like "Spitting devil".

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Yes, Spuyten Duyvil means spitting devil.

 

How do most people, especially Canarsie folk, pronounce "Breukelen"? This word is still pretty prevalent, at least among Canarsie folk, since it is the name of one of the housing projects back there. And is the correct Dutch pronunciation (which may not necessarily be the same as the Canarsie folk's) BRUKE-len (BRUKE rhyming with "rebuke") or just BRUCK-len like everybody says "Brooklyn" in English?

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Yes, Spuyten Duyvil means spitting devil.

 

How do most people, especially Canarsie folk, pronounce "Breukelen"? This word is still pretty prevalent, at least among Canarsie folk, since it is the name of one of the housing projects back there. And is the correct Dutch pronunciation (which may not necessarily be the same as the Canarsie folk's) BRUKE-len (BRUKE rhyming with "rebuke") or just BRUCK-len like everybody says "Brooklyn" in English?

 

 

a female friend of mine moved into that dump a couple weeks ago....

 

it's one of three things you'll hear.... it's either Brooklyn (most common, 2 syllables, like how you say the borough name) or "brook-AH-lyn" (3 syllables)... you might hear brook-ah-lyne, but that's not common.... most hood cats will do anything to relieve themselves of having to say extra syllables....

 

^^ case in point, there's this one YT-er I listen to that's from bed stuy.... this is the only nzzzz I know that knocks off a 5 syllable term ("you know what I mean") to a 2 syllable word ("yah mean")....

 

yah mean?

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To all of the transit linguists out here I'll give you two subway stations in Brooklyn and leave it up to you to give the correct pronuciations. Schermerhorn and Kosciusko. I'll just say that different ethnic backgrounds and neighborhoods have put their own spin on these names in my 60+ years as a Brooklynite. Sort of a " Houston" Street thing or how a "real" New Yorker never calls Sixth Avenue the" Avenue of the Americas".I await your responses as I think VG8 probably knows the "correctt" pronunciations vs the Brooklyn ones. Dutch and Polish visitors to Brooklyn probably shake their heads when we Brooklynites speak these names.

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To all of the transit linguists out here I'll give you two subway stations in Brooklyn and leave it up to you to give the correct pronuciations. Schermerhorn and Kosciusko. I'll just say that different ethnic backgrounds and neighborhoods have put their own spin on these names in my 60+ years as a Brooklynite. Sort of a " Houston" Street thing or how a "real" New Yorker never calls Sixth Avenue the" Avenue of the Americas".I await your responses as I think VG8 probably knows the "correctt" pronunciations vs the Brooklyn ones. Dutch and Polish visitors to Brooklyn probably shake their heads when we Brooklynites speak these names.

 

Not saying these are correct, but this how I say those two: "skem-mer-horn", kah-see-you-(ska/sko)....

Nostrand is another one I've heard a million & one pronunciations of; the worst has got to be "no strand" (like, no strand... of hair)

 

lol @ Avenue of the Americas.... I'm not sayin all that isht....

 

Also, I don't know of one person that calls pennsylvania av, "Granville Payne av"

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RE: Todt Hill LOL... Yeah that's exactly why... No, with Mariner's Harbor it was the way the person said it. When said quickly it can sound like Manors Harbor. Westerleigh is another one... Some of the Latinos have a hard time saying it. Another Dutch word that is mispronounced Van Wyck... Most folks like to say "Van Wick" but it's "Van Whike".

 

Yeah, I know it was the way she said it. The funny thing is, I've actually seen some people write it like that online (but they obviously weren't familiar with Staten Island, and definitely weren't familiar with Mariners' Harbor itself). As for that woman, I still remember her speech ("They had to call the fiiiiiyah department to get me off the bus"). And then she started complaining about how it costs $20 to get from Mariners' Harbor to the ferry when there are 3 bus routes and none of them were getting cut. SMH. She actually said it pretty slow, so it's probably just a speech impediment or something. I would hope somebody knows the name of their own neighborhood.

 

But back to the topic, yeah, I could never see why people mispronounce Van Wyck. I mean, when in doubt, I just pronounce it the way it's spelled.

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But back to the topic, yeah, I could never see why people mispronounce Van Wyck. I mean, when in doubt, I just pronounce it the way it's spelled.

 

Can't speak for others, but I tend to say the two interchangably myself (van "wick" vs van "wike")....

 

Same deal with "wythe av" in Williamsburg, although I tend to stress the 'y' more, most times I say it....

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Not saying these are correct, but this how I say those two: "skem-mer-horn", kah-see-you-(ska/sko)....

Nostrand is another one I've heard a million & one pronunciations of; the worst has got to be "no strand" (like, no strand... of hair)

 

lol @ Avenue of the Americas.... I'm not sayin all that isht....

 

Also, I don't know of one person that calls pennsylvania av, "Granville Payne av"

 

It's funny you brought up "Granville Payne ave". I had a conversation with some of my elders last week and we all still say Pennsylvania Ave, Stone Ave, Sumner and Reid Avenues. Except for me they all lived on Kosciusko St back in the '30's and '40's and they all say " Kos-key-os-ko" Street, although mom says her teachers said it's " Kus-shoe-sko" although even her teachers never said it that way either. By the time I went to school in Brownsville and East Flatbush nobody I knew pronounced it the way her teachers said was right. I remember one of MY teachers lessons about Brooklyn and the gist of it was that everything from Fulton St to Broadway in Stuyvesant was named after a military person, place, or a patriot from the American Revolution 'til the pre-Civil War era. BTW in C/r schoolcar we had a motor instructor who told us about the pronunciation problems we would encounter out there on our own. NOR-Strand was the first one I heard back then, LOL, but Van Wyck, Ten Eyck and, for some reason, "Kennel" St for Canal St were considered troublesome back then. I wonder how some of these immigrant cabbies make it through the day if they and their riders can't pronounce" De Kalb" or" Canal", let alone "Todt Hill"

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The two I love to hear in Riverdale is "Kappock St" and "Spuyten Duvyil". So far all of the B/Os say "Kay-pock" st which is how it is pronounced. The "pock" part rhymes with "rock". For Spuyten Duyvil, I've heard the actual Dutch pronunciation which is... http://www.merriam-w...en+Duyvil+Creek. I've also heard "Spoytin" "Doy-vul". Depends on the person, but both are acceptable.

 

I learned how to pronounce Spuyten Duyvil from the announcements on an M7. Probably never would have figured it out otherwise lol.

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To all of the transit linguists out here I'll give you two subway stations in Brooklyn and leave it up to you to give the correct pronuciations. Schermerhorn and Kosciusko. I'll just say that different ethnic backgrounds and neighborhoods have put their own spin on these names in my 60+ years as a Brooklynite. Sort of a " Houston" Street thing or how a "real" New Yorker never calls Sixth Avenue the" Avenue of the Americas".I await your responses as I think VG8 probably knows the "correctt" pronunciations vs the Brooklyn ones. Dutch and Polish visitors to Brooklyn probably shake their heads when we Brooklynites speak these names.

 

 

Growing up as a kid in Brooklyn these two streets I had trouble with, mainly because I guess the words were long, but also because oddly enough, I grew up with a speech impediment, so I had problems saying certain words in English. Growing up speaking Spanish & Italian actually helped me to perfect my English. Eventually through speech therapy I perfected my English to the point that I have no problem with any words. Basically, Schermerhorn is prounced "Skermerhorn". I believe some folks say Skimmerhorn though. lol As for the Kosciusko... Here you go...

 

http://www.howjsay.c...o&submit=Submit

 

See for Schermerhorn, it's easy for me because in Italian the "Che" for us is pronounced as a "k" like the Spanish "¿Qué?"

 

 

 

 

I learned how to pronounce Spuyten Duyvil from the announcements on an M7. Probably never would have figured it out otherwise lol.

 

 

Note that the pronunciation of Spuyten Duyvil can vary though. The lazy way is Spy-tin Die-vil, but a neighbor of mine who works on my floor in my building used it the other day and he said it the way the Dutch would say it. I was surprised that he could though because Dutch is a rough language. For me it isn't a problem either because I speak some German which is similar to Dutch, in terms of sounds and the level of roughness.

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Paerdegat Ave

 

I know some people who pronouce it "Patergat", but I'd pronounce it "Per-de-gat"

 

the 1st 'e' sounds like an 'h' and the 1st 'a' is stressed a little.... so, pahh-de-git....

 

it's not "per", and it aint "pie-err"/"pie-air" (I laugh when ppl. say it like that)

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the 1st 'e' sounds like an 'h' and the 1st 'a' is stressed a little.... so, pahh-de-git....

 

it's not "per", and it aint "pie-err"/"pie-air" (I laugh when ppl. say it like that)

 

 

Hah, I knew you'd respond. I get a kick out of all the ways that one is pronounced.

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