Say what? Readers offer revisions for ultimate pronunciation guide to Akron

Are you fluent in Akronian?

Akron: “ACK-run.”

Buchtel: “BOOK-tuhl.”

Seiberling: “SIGH-bur-ling.”

After we published the “ultimate pronunciation guide to Akron,” we were flooded with responses. Readers suggested additions to the guide, shared quirks in local language and debated the inflections of certain words.

Today we offer an advanced class in Akronian.

Thanks to all for PAR-tiss-uh-PATE-ing.

Never say ‘Die’ at Diebold

Mike Jacobsen, senior director of corporate communications at Diebold, appreciated our setting the record straight on “DEE-bold.”

“Thanks so much for including us,” Jacobsen wrote. “We’ve always tried to use the ‘Never say DIE’ analogy, and have even included the correct pronunciation in our press release boilerplate. But after almost 30 years working in communications here, most of our attempts have been fruitless. Thanks for providing us with a handy resource!”

Nordonia dreaming

Pop quiz: What school district derives its name from a combination of Northfield and Macedonia? The answer: Nordonia.

“When I was the superintendent of the Nordonia Schools, I once received a call from an elderly resident complaining that people say Nor-DOAN-ya instead of Nor-DOAN-ee-uh,” Dr. Joe Clark wrote. “I told her I was in charge of a lot of things but had no control over the evolution of the English language.”

Sorry, wrong number

Here’s a thank-you note from a member of the Buchtel family.

“I uh-PREESH-ee-ate your mentioning the correct pronunciation of  ‘BOOK-tull,’ ” Pamela Buchtel-Andrella wrote. “I can’t even tell you how many butchered pronunciations I’ve heard. My dad, Stan Buchtel, is 95 and when we were growing up, he would tell us to be courteous and say ‘wrong number’ to anyone that called our ‘Tuxedo 2’ phone number and asked for Mr. ‘BUCK-tell.’ He said ‘If they know me, they surely know how to pronounce my name.’ Surely so, Dad, surely so.”

How to say Canton

Retired teacher David Perin, who taught for 35 years in the region, thought our Canton pronunciation (“CAN-ton”) needed a little tweaking.

“I don’t know how to spell the way we say Canton, but CAN-ton doesn’t really work,” he wrote. “I had one high schooler who always pronounced it just that way, clearly articulating the T. The other kids looked at him like he was from Mars, and eventually, one actually looked at him one day and asked ‘What is WRONG with you?’ As an English teacher, I explained the value of clear articulation (but it DID sound strange).

“After reading your story and much discussion with my spouse who worked in that city for decades, we settled on ‘CANT’n’ being as close as we could get, with the added instruction to stop the T halfway through.”

Cuyahoga controversy

We contend that Cuyahoga is supposed to sound like “kye-uh-HOE-guh,” but we acknowledge that there are roughly 3,432 variations, including the very popular “kye-uh-HOG-uh.”

Bruce Dzeda, a retired history teacher from Theodore Roosevelt High School in Kent, offered a compelling argument.

“I’m 76, an east side Clevelander born and bred, and it’s my contention that ky-a-HOE-ga is, well, pretentious; probably being pronounced by a newcomer,” Dzeda wrote. “We’re lazy with our speech here on the Western Reserve. One sees the word HOG actually in the name. In my experience, most native Clevelanders say ky-a-HOG-a. It rhymes perfectly with Geauga. That alone tells you it’s correct!”

Other thoughts on the matter:

Amanda Corsa: “As a former Akronite from 1985-2019 who now lives in Cuyahoga County, I say ‘Kye-a-hoe-guh’ when referring to the county, but if I ever refer to Cuyahoga FALLS, it’s always ‘Cogga Falls.’ My entire family and everyone local we ever knew called it Cogga Falls.”

Mark West: “Don’t know where I got this one but it feels natural to me — a 70-year resident of Summit County: Cagafalls. Surely I didn’t make that up?”

David F. Smith: “Massillon I’ve always pronounced ‘MASS-lun.’ I asked my wife and she pronounces it the same way. I’ll give you my pronunciation for Cuyahoga: ‘COG-uh.’ I guess over the years I’ve just lost syllables.”

D.A. Burkert: “Explaining the ‘CUY’ portion of ‘Cuyahoga’ to newcomers, I’ve always compared it to ‘GUY’ as in ‘high guy,’ or ‘hey, you guys.’ The comparison has seemed to be helpful for folks.”

Sue Manges: “In the Teaching Company’s Great Course on National Parks, the instructor pronounces it KWY-a-hog-a. This so offended me that I wrote to the company to complain. I mean, if you’re going to present someone as an instructor in something, he should at least know how to pronounce it.  They never responded.”

Melissa Graham-Hurd agrees that there are many variations on the name of the river, but she draws a line in the mud regarding the municipality.

“The city, however, is pronounced ‘ka-HOG-uh’ Falls,” she wrote.

For the record: That’s also the way that Chrissie Hynde says it in The Pretenders song “My City Was Gone.”

“Expanding the scope to Cleveland: Is it ‘CAR-nuh-ghee’ or ‘Car-NAY-ghee’?” Eric Mack wondered.

Oh, geez, Eric. The locals usually call it “Car-NAY-ghee.” We’re not sure why.

Do ushers at New York’s Carnegie Hall ushers ever correct Clevelanders when they’re visiting from Ohio?

Some quick points

Becky Moore: “In North Canton, we have Orion Street, which locals call OR-ee-on and nearby is Shuffel Street. One would think the double ‘f’ would require a short ‘u’ sound, but the locals call it SHOE-fuhl. Go figure.”

Jacquie Lee: “Boettler rhymes with settler (and that’s how you can recognize the newbies who are by the way the ones that gripe the loudest how Green just isn’t the ‘same’ anymore!).”

Jennifer Ripley. “Here’s a Portage County example. Berlin Lake is BER-lin. When visiting Germany, the city is ber-LIN.”

Gary Willison: “I’m pretty sure Dalton is ‘Dowl ton’ or maybe ‘Dowl tin’ but the first syllable is always ‘Dowl.’ Lakemore is ‘LAKEmore’ not ‘Lake More’ as one sign now taken down on old Waterloo Road once had it. Ohio? Take your pick. My preference is ‘Uh hi ah.’ ”

Mog-a-what?

Mogadore, a village on the Summit-Portage line, is “MAWG-a-door,” and definitely not MOE-gah-door.

“Thank you for resolving a longstanding marital dispute about the pronunciation of Mogadore,” Matt Skitzki wrote. “She was right.”

A couple of zingers

Dale F. Ryba: “With tongue in cheek, I pronounce Szalay’s ‘Sa-lazy’s’ because they’re only open six months out of the year.”

Ken Lahmers: “I’m a native Tuscarawas Countian. We sometimes call Steubenville Stupidville!!!!”

Accent in Goodyear Heights

Kelley Sayre, Akron blogger at Love the Heights , noted that Para Avenue is among the street names with multiple pronunciations in Goodyear Heights.

“Para is interesting as it is Portuguese for State of Pará in Brazil and Pará rubber trees, but the accent is not on the street signs,” Sayre wrote. “I’ve contemplated going around with a paint marker to rectify it.”

What’s a Beloit?

“Think you got ’em all,” James Verde wrote. “As I read, I was thinking a bit ahead. As I thought of one, there it was. Dalton, Wooster and Massillon were at the top of my list. Usually mangled badly. You did miss Beloit!”

Maybe that’s because we’re not sure how to pronounce the village in Mahoning County. Is it “bel-OIT”?

“Bingo!” Verde replied.

Great. Now can anyone explain: What the heck is a Beloit?

Professorial view

Dr. Gene R.  Stebbins, emeritus professor at Kent State University, pointed out that every area has unique speech language habits.

“I grew up in the Dayton area where those small woody plants around your house were called ‘boshes’ rhyming with ‘boots,’ and the covering over our house was a ‘roof’ rhyming with my version of bushes.

“When we moved to the Toledo area, I quickly found the students from outside Northeast Ohio had trouble with ‘Wooster’ and both spelling and pronunciation trouble with ‘Conneaut’ and ‘Cuyahoga.’ ”

From Montrose to Louisville

“I’m probably older than you but I say MONtrose. Once I heard a person say montROSE,” wrote Brian Barb, who resides in kuy-uh-HO-ga Falls. “Even though I’ve lived in Summit County most of my life, I often didn’t realize Mantua was pronounced MAN-uh-way.

“I say RaVENna but I heard a woman say RaVANna. East of us we have LOOisville. I can only guess how the one in Kentucky is pronounced.”

Grandfather talk

Both sides of Jim Kroeger’s family are from Akron, but 60 years ago, his immediate family lived in St. Louis, where his father’s job took them.

When his grandfather came to visit, he decided to patch the concrete on the back sidewalk. A bunch of kids gathered to watch the project and the girl across the street asked where he was from.

“On his hands and knees, he turned and out of the side of his mouth answered ‘AK-urn,’ said almost  as one syllable,” Kroeger wrote. “She asked him to repeat it several times; seeing he was getting irritated, I translated as ‘AK-ron, it’s in Ohio.’ ”

California or bust

It’s not just Ohio. Los Angeles resident Mickie Boldt, who lived in Akron for 25 years before moving west over 40 years ago, said Californians also stumble over certain words. For example:

La Jolla: “La HOYA.”

Doheny: “Do-HEE-KNEE.”

Sepulveda: SUH-PULVEDA.”

Cahuenga: “KA-WENGA.”

La Canada: “La-CAN-YADA.”

“We have the same trouble here,” he wrote.

And, finally, we have this from Ken Barnhart:

“I was vacationing in California and a couple asked me where I was from. I responded Ohio (‘oh-HI-oh’) and their faces went blank before turning into a quizzical look,” he said. “After a pause, the husband finally said, ‘Uhhm, we’ve always pronounced it ‘Eye-oh-wah’ (Iowa).”

Mark J. Price can be reached at mprice@thebeaconjournal.com

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This article originally appeared on Akron Beacon Journal: Say what? Readers offer revisions for ultimate pronunciation guide to Akron