The Republican journal., 1911-11-02
Maine Town Names.

If Them are Said to be Hard for
Strangers to Pronounce.
r.o man who in Massachusetts, says
minister at once reveals himself as
.snk outsider.
ont if the Massachusetts man goes up
y New Hampshire and inquiries for
81 he -alls Goose county, or Cooze
,,.y the natives of Coos county won
uaere he went to school.
,,4 in Maine, Saco is the test word
hetrays the stranger within the
.+s For variety of pronunciations
,,,sp who don't know that word of
sour letters is believed to hold the
J y's used to tell the story that as each
earring summer visitors started up
NJ Biddeford, just across the river,
srakeman announced thus:
The next station is Sayko-Sacko-
-.5.Sawco- Sayso-Sarso!"
r., ne people will tell you that it is
exactly as it is spelled
no, Sawko.
1ry Maine man recognizes fellow
..rs man at once by his pronunciation
d. rown name. 1t is the same now as
Vas in Scriptural times, when the
.aiites held up every probable Eph-
, 'SI at the passage of the Jordan.
Then said they unto him, say now
,ahoIeth: and he said Sibboleth, for he
III not frame to pronounce 1t right.
-.r they took him and slew him at the
s.,5ss of the Jordan: and there fell at
= tine of the Ephraimites forty and
n taousand."
in these modern days it is the sum-
- rsitor who is the true Ephraimite.
:, -re Gileadites of Maine take his
mot his life. If new arrival in
sort the natives call Sca-bro starts
% call it Scar borrow, the members of
Ibbv clan usually feel justified In
srging him accordingly.
Moreover, when the citizen OF Machlas
ia.-sbv-us, with the accent on the chy),
srs his town referred to as Mackey-us,
4 man who says he lives in a city call
N Yark, he feels like appealing to the
,arstate commerce commission.
Par all this aside, the pronunciation
,s.y Of Maine towns may well be OF
t.rtsr to everybody who lives in Maine,
-rervb body who has been in Name and
4veryhody who would like to visit
rsse the town of Skowhegan: the
ING man who calls it Skow-he-gan
-oown for a newcomer, at once. tor
somerset county knows the place is
t.w-hig-an, with the accent on the hlg.
The eapital of Maine is almost unlver-
IN ysferred to in Maine as Aw-gus-ty.
III almost" is here given as con-
.,yon TO the prim and precise few who
ssjng thought are able to call it
ag-sta.
5etg Worcester and Webster declare
w Bangor is pronounced Bang gor,
w, the accent on the Bang, but about
--4 people there cut the corner on
# inst g and make the word just Ban
9.gnning in the southwest corner of
Safe. Kittery folk make it a two
s5..d word kit-ry, while in nearby
.~z.l5. North Berwick and South Ber-
hey slur the w so that the word is
-,s Bur-rik.
nebunk, 1.-TWO hunks this side of
-rr-Sunkport, gets the accent on the
.r. while Biddeford loses the and
IF the o, making it pretty nearly
tur. Speak it quickly, please, with
.,ant on the Bid.
Parsonsfeld there are some new
e-rs who are trying to modernlze the
= of the town name by dropping
and making it Parsontield; this IN
IT, IF the fact that the town was named
.r an early settler named Parsons,
spite of the further fact that the
s-lscript act Of incorporation, to be
.-r Oh the fourth floor of the State
.lsz IN Boston, has it Parsonsheld.
NHtham, Gorham, Durham and near
the other towns with that ending
r. :-onounced dictionary fashion, by
Inning out most of the ha. But in Bow
am and Waltham there must be no
of the ham; sound it out in full.
Bowdoin, by the way, is not Bough-
int Bo-dn.
a4ihdin, too, is pronounced phoneti-
bout as Thoreau spelled 1t -
.s.a.s. Sebec ard Lubec are accented
N the Canadian Quebec; although
world city of Lubec was named
rted on the Lu.
-rn there is Calais, down on the New
wick line; to the native it is Kali
the travelled Ephraimite amuses
FL by calling it Kal-lay, though the
.,-. city is not frequently called like
K u inc town by Englishmen, and even
Of its own residents.
ne island of Mt. Desert, where Bar
5ar6or is, has on it also the town OF
" Desert. And while Mt. De-zert is
%'d ne generally accepted and fashion
Al ronunciation, still in use in many
2a-s # the island and on the mainland
Mt Dez-ert. The dictionaries and
back them by following either
a7uaciation, and old-timers argue that
h. present affected pronunciation is
i.Itcer English nor French.
4 town that a man who had never
-:ara Of and would want at least three
Eesses on is Olamon. Take the guesses,
tl hen know that it is Oh-lam-on,
bout ike Oh Lemon with an a in it in
9aai
Then there is Canaan; great many
rope, even some in distant parts OF
Zane, speak it in three syllables-Ca-
Gan Perhaps most of these are mis-.
f by following the old hymn writer who
&-g
u Canaan! bright Ca-an-an!
I'm bound for the land of Canaan.
a-na-an it is my happy home;
I'm bound for the land of Canaan.
5i, it won't do. The place is called
man, both in the town itself and in the
-~07Haries, the gazetteers and the Bibli
'oucordance. Boston Globe.
PITTSFlELD PERSONALS,