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September 15, 2008

Welcome to Boston, Home of the Gahden

Students learn to speak Bay State

By Alan Wong

You may have already tried to pahk your cah on Comm Ave, but have you been to Woostah yet? What about Bill-rick-a, or Hay-vrull? When students come to Boston University, they get a little extra education when it comes to pronouncing some of the state’s archaic city and town names, many dating back to the 1600s.

BU Today called the cops for help — specifically, lifelong Bostonian and BUPD Captain Robert Molloy — to set the record straight. Think you’re a pro? Try tackling Leominster.

Alan Wong can be reached at alanwong@bu.edu.

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Comments

What about Concord? It's not

Submitted on Wed, 09/24/2008 02:06 pm.
What about Concord? It's not the airplane, it's Kahn-kerd.
»

Could have included

Submitted on Tue, 09/16/2008 04:57 pm.
Could have included Leicester and Scituate, too. And any of the towns with an 'h' in the middle of their name.
»

I think I need a course on

Submitted on Tue, 09/16/2008 01:05 pm.
I think I need a course on New England phonetics
»

Worcester

Submitted on Tue, 09/16/2008 11:34 am.
I've lived in New England all my life and my father was from Worcester. It's pronounced "Wistah" not Woostah.
»

Haha, our silly names. There

Submitted on Tue, 09/16/2008 09:25 am.
Haha, our silly names. There could also be a very effective video on translating everyday sentences like "theah's a bubblah in the next rum" into normal English. That made my day!
»

You should have thrown in

Submitted on Mon, 09/15/2008 06:45 am.
You should have thrown in Woburn.
»

A lot of towns in New

Submitted on Mon, 09/15/2008 06:44 am.
A lot of towns in New England--if not all of them--are named after English ones, so I'm kind of surprised that these only date back to the 1600s. Where does a person get that extra "i" in Leominster?
»

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