[sevfiv]

unless it's of irish origin:
Tuam' class='bbc_url' title='External link' rel='external'>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuam

[HtownWxBoy]

sevfiv, on Monday, April 23rd, 2007 @ 11:26am, said:

unless it's of irish origin:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuam

So is it "twam" or "choom"?? I have always said "twam".

This post has been edited by HtownWxBoy: Monday, April 23, 2007 at 11:35 AM

[tmariar]

I usually have an opinion on local pronunciations, but not when it comes to Tuam. I've heard it too many different ways, even from old-timers. But see the opinions re Tuam expressed in this earlier HAIF thread.

Apparently, the Irish pronunciation of Tuam ends up sounding like "choom" - but I've never heard anyone say that here.

[RedScare]

Plastic, on Monday, April 23rd, 2007 @ 11:23am, said:

Don't tell the locals ,they might get pissed. For years they were mispronouncing Fugua.Almeda-Genoa,and Kuhkendahl.

Considering Tuam Street was named for Dick Dowling's birthplace, and that Dowling was a Confederate War hero, I doubt the "locals" would get pissed.

http://en.wikipedia....hard_W._Dowling

They'd probably be more pissed that you thought it was Vietnamese.

[musicman]

RedScare, on Monday, April 23rd, 2007 @ 12:13pm, said:

They'd probably be more pissed that you thought it was Vietnamese.

i know a Vietnamese guy named Tuan (pronounced twan), so i can forgive Plastic's confusion.

This post has been edited by musicman: Monday, April 23, 2007 at 5:54 PM

[editor]

The guys are Metro Traffic always told me it's pronounced "Two-am."

[houstonmacbro]

Plastic, on Monday, April 23rd, 2007 @ 11:23am, said:

In the area south of Downtown Midtow there is a street. It's spelled Tuam, only question is how to pronounce it.

I always hear people and radio traffic ppl pronounce Two-am. But that doesn't looke like how it's pronounced. I think Twam
rhymes with bomb. It sounds Vietnemese-Asian. THat wouldn't be a surprice cause midtown is our other Little Saigon a place for vietnemese culture. At that wasn't there some famous HOustonian who was virtnemesenamed Tuam?

Don't tell the locals ,they might get pissed. For years they were mispronouncing Fugua.Almeda-Genoa,and Kuhkendahl.

TWO-am

[JLWM8609]

How do y'all pronounce "Chartres"? What's also funny is hearing non-locals try to pronounce "Tierwester", for some reason, that one gets them.

[musicman]

JLWM8609, on Monday, April 23rd, 2007 @ 9:16pm, said:

How do y'all pronounce "Chartres"? What's also funny is hearing non-locals try to pronounce "Tierwester", for some reason, that one gets them.

not like they do in nola. i hear it as written.

[tmariar]

JLWM8609, on Monday, April 23rd, 2007 @ 9:16pm, said:

How do y'all pronounce "Chartres"?

In Houston, I've always heard CHAR-triss or, sometimes, SHAR-triss.

[gonzo1976]

editor, on Monday, April 23rd, 2007 @ 7:25pm, said:

The guys are Metro Traffic always told me it's pronounced "Two-am."

Learn something new every day. I was pronouncing it "Two-ahm."

Reminds me of time someone said Elgin Ave. was pronounced Elk-in. Can't remember where I heard that, though.

[brucesw]

In broadcasting circles the debate used to be two-am or two-um. The latter tends to be heard as just two and seems to have fallen out of usage. I've never heard choom. The street name was applied long before there were any Vietnamese in Houston.

When I was in Austin I was amazed to hear the name of the Central Texas town Elgin pronounced with a hard g. I almost corrected a fellow announcer until I realized he'd spent his whole life there and probably knew local usage better than me. I always understood the Houston street name is pronounced with a soft g.

I always thought it was shar-trez or char-trez!

San Fillipy is fine with me and used to be the standard pronounciation I think.

Should it be bee soh nay?

This post has been edited by brucesw: Tuesday, April 24, 2007 at 2:43 AM

[houstonmacbro]

brucesw, on Tuesday, April 24th, 2007 @ 2:40am, said:

In broadcasting circles the debate used to be two-am or two-um. The latter tends to be heard as just two and seems to have fallen out of usage. I've never heard choom. The street name was applied long before there were any Vietnamese in Houston.

When I was in Austin I was amazed to hear the name of the Central Texas town Elgin pronounced with a hard g. I almost corrected a fellow announcer until I realized he'd spent his whole life there and probably knew local usage better than me. I always understood the Houston street name is pronounced with a soft g.

I always thought it was shar-trez or char-trez!

San Fillipy is fine with me and used to be the standard pronounciation I think.

Should it be bee soh nay?

Abominations all. San Fill-EEE-PAY and Biss-ah-net.

Oh yeah and it's El-gin (like the kind you drink).

[CDeb]

JLWM8609, on Monday, April 23rd, 2007 @ 9:16pm, said:

How do y'all pronounce "Chartres"?

shart.

[tmariar]

houstonmacbro, on Tuesday, April 24th, 2007 @ 3:51am, said:

Abominations all. San Fill-EEE-PAY and Biss-ah-net.
Oh yeah and it's El-gin (like the kind you drink).

Agree with each but San Felipe. Growing up, I only heard San FILL-ippee.

[houstonmacbro]

tmariar, on Tuesday, April 24th, 2007 @ 8:17am, said:

Agree with each but San Felipe. Growing up, I only heard San FILL-ippee.

Well that's because we're in Tejas! Everything is strange and unusual here.

Thought you knew.

[sevfiv]

in houston, the pronunciations are:

sayen juh-sin-toe

sayen phillip-pee

char-turs

too-am

[Jeebus]

CDeb, on Tuesday, April 24th, 2007 @ 7:11am, said:

shart.

lol...

[sevfiv]

ooh...to add to the french mix:

reveille = revel-lee

[dbigtex56]

too-am
san fuh-LEE-pay

Had a friend who insisted on calling Genesee Street je-NEE-see instead of JENN-uh-see.

[tmariar]

sevfiv, on Tuesday, April 24th, 2007 @ 9:08am, said:

in houston, the pronunciations are:
sayen juh-sin-toe
sayen phillip-pee
char-turs
too-am

Chartres - Now that you mention it, I've also heard "charters" for "chartres" pretty frequently here (along with chartriss and shartriss). "Shart" I've only heard in Louisiana.

San Felipe - Up until now, I don't think I'd ever heard a native call the road san fu-LEE-pay or fayleepay or fayleep. All the natives I know/knew said san FILL-a-pee (or phillip-pee or fillipy, per sevfiv and brucesw). Maybe the "local" pronunciation is in the process of changing... Wouldn't be that surprising.

[ArchitecturalPRGirl]

I'm a native Houstonian and here are my pronunciations:

San-fil-ee-pay
Two-um
Shar-trez

I also speak articulatelty and have no Texas country accent:)

[houstonmacbro]

Plastic, on Tuesday, April 24th, 2007 @ 11:49pm, said:

Ok so is it Cuke-en-doll or Kirk-en-doll.
You guess what street I'm pronouncing.

I've always said that latter. Weird cause there is no 'R' in the word.

Go figure.

[Original Timmy Chan's]

JLWM8609, on Monday, April 23rd, 2007 @ 9:16pm, said:

How do y'all pronounce "Chartres"? What's also funny is hearing non-locals try to pronounce "Tierwester", for some reason, that one gets them.

"Tie-west" (no "r") is the common pronunciation amongst the locals in our neighborhood.

[dbigtex56]

Branard...is it BRAY-nard, or BRAN-ard? bra-NARD?

[jmancuso]

dbigtex56, on Tuesday, April 24th, 2007 @ 12:34pm, said:

too-am
san fuh-LEE-pay

Had a friend who insisted on calling Genesee Street je-NEE-see instead of JENN-uh-see.

gen-nuh-see. or just...genny.

[Rehan]

Chartres: I used to say shar-tres when I was younger until one day in school, probably in art history if I remember right, when I learned about the City of Chartres (pronounced shart) in France. So now I say shart...

This post has been edited by Rehan: Friday, April 27, 2007 at 5:24 PM

[dbigtex56]

jmancuso, on Thursday, April 26th, 2007 @ 6:53pm, said:

gen-nuh-see. or just...genny.

Especially if you're talking about this:

[KinkaidAlum]

Wow, that green can brought back some rough memories from Hobart. The only thing worse than a day after drinking Genny was a day after drinking Piels (sp?).

[DaTrain]

I thought Kuykendahl (sp?) is pronounced KYE-Kendall.

I use to pronounce Gessner with the J-sound (Jessner) when I first came here.

For some odd reason I always tend to pronounce Almeda Street like I'm saying "Alameda", as in Alameda County, California (my home county). "Almeda" always throws me off regressively.

Early on because of Beechnut's unique name and spelling, I used to say Beak-Nut; was I ever wrong, I say Beach-Nut now.

@ this thread

I didn't know Humble was pronounced "Umble." Anyone have explanation on Umble?

[nativehou]

DaTrain, on Saturday, April 28th, 2007 @ 12:20am, said:

I didn't know Humble was pronounced "Umble." Anyone have explanation on Umble?

"Umble" is supposedly how the Humble family (for which the city is named) pronounced their last name.

[TAK]

I've never heard "too am" until i read this thread - i've always heard "twom" and have always said "twom" - been in houston since '76. that's probably the wrong way to pronounce it, but that's all i'd ever heard...

i know kirkendoll

[EastEnd Susan]

TAK, on Tuesday, May 1st, 2007 @ 4:26pm, said:

I've never heard "too am" until i read this thread - i've always heard "twom" and have always said "twom" - been in houston since '76. that's probably the wrong way to pronounce it, but that's all i'd ever heard...

i know kirkendoll

I've always called it 2-AM. Thats what my great grandma called it back in the 50's and great grandma had to be right...right? I agree with the Kirkendoll 100%.

[houstonmacbro]

EastEnd Susan, on Wednesday, May 2nd, 2007 @ 7:52am, said:

I've always called it 2-AM. Thats what my great grandma called it back in the 50's and great grandma had to be right...right? I agree with the Kirkendoll 100%.

Grandmas are always right ... even when we know they are dead wrong.

[krix]

that reminds me, we should make a list of street names called Houston across the country.... I always try to ask locals how the street is pronounced but unfortunately I don't write it down (I think it was Hughston in Savannah, not Howston like in NYC). Well, of course there is the perennial debate about the correct way of saying it in Houston itself: the [h] mute (like many outsiders seem to say it), the [h] pronounced but with the glide [j] (which seems to be the mainstream pronunciation in Houston) or the [h] pronounced but without the glide [j], which seems to be a sociolinguistically marked variant..

[musicman]

krix, on Wednesday, May 2nd, 2007 @ 2:56pm, said:

Well, of course there is the perennial debate about the correct way of saying it in Houston itself: the [h] mute (like many outsiders seem to say it), the [h] pronounced but with the glide [j] (which seems to be the mainstream pronunciation in Houston) or the [h] pronounced but without the glide [j], which seems to be a sociolinguistically marked variant..

Didn't realize there was a question. You pronounce the H. the others just have speech problems.

[krix]

musicman, on Wednesday, May 2nd, 2007 @ 4:39pm, said:

Didn't realize there was a question. You pronounce the H. the others just have speech problems.

do you pronounce the glide though?

[Original Timmy Chan's]

What's a glide j?

I pronounce it "Yew-stun" with just a little bit of "h". Like "hYewww-stun".

Have I been wrong all these years?

[krix]

Original Timmy Chan, on Wednesday, May 2nd, 2007 @ 4:57pm, said:

What's a glide j?

I pronounce it "Yew-stun" with just a little bit of "h". Like "hYewww-stun".

Have I been wrong all these years?

a glide [j] is what is written "y" sometimes. For instance the word "new" can be pronounced with a glide or without one, so in RP English it has to be there, while I think there is more variety in Standard American English. (And in linguistics, there is never wrong or right, there are different norms, some being more prestigious than others).

[musicman]

krix, on Wednesday, May 2nd, 2007 @ 4:42pm, said:

do you pronounce the glide though?

i use a hard H.

[krix]

musicman, on Wednesday, May 2nd, 2007 @ 6:20pm, said:

i use a hard H.

what's that supposed to mean? do you say "hyew" or "hoo"?

[musicman]

krix, on Wednesday, May 2nd, 2007 @ 6:31pm, said:

what's that supposed to mean? do you say "hyew" or "hoo"?

you're asking more than the H then. i guess the first would be my usage.

[musicman]

Plastic, on Thursday, May 3rd, 2007 @ 11:56pm, said:

It's like Humble, why is the H sometimes silent.

for the city, it should be silent.

[sevfiv]

what about Fuqua?
fyoo-qway just seems...not right

[musicman]

sevfiv, on Saturday, May 5th, 2007 @ 11:20am, said:

what about Fuqua?
fyoo-qway just seems...not right

few-kwa is how it should be.

[Heights2Bastrop]

Quote

Oh yeah and it's El-gin (like the kind you drink).

El-gin Street in Houston is named for a guy named El-ghen. El-ghen is the pronunciation of the town east of Austin. Don't know if the town and the street are named for the same guy, though.