‘Nevada’: Say What?
I touched on this briefly last October when I wrote about Nevada Day: There is an actual official pronunciation of “Nevada” and if you get it wrong, heaven help you!
I’ve apparently always pronounced it correctly, as have most people I’ve known. I do admit it is a little grating to hear it mispronounced but I’ve always figured it was a regional thing.
Yesterday, anchorman Brian Williams really hit someone’s nerve by saying it incorrectly:
The anchor mispronounced the state’s name as “Nuh-VAH-duh,” prompting a flurry of phone calls and e-mails from angry Nevadans who demanded he utter it as they do, with the “a” like in “cat” – “Nuh-VAD-uh.”
Williams was just the latest among countless public figures to unwittingly become caught up in a controversy dating to the Silver State’s founding during the Civil War.
ABC’s George Stephanopoulos was booed for saying “Nuh-VAH-duh” when he moderated a presidential candidates forum in Nevada last year. And President Bush and Sen. John Kerry both came under fire during the 2004 campaign for botching the name.
For Nevadans who complain their home is mispronounced by outsiders more often than any other state, Williams’ slip was “the straw that broke the camel’s back,” said Guy Rocha, the state archivist who is leading a crusade to get the rest of the nation to adopt the local usage.
The rest of the (admittedly entertaining) article can be found here.
So how do you say it?
4 Comments
Haha, I’ve always pronounced it Nuh-VAD-uh… but I think Oregonians could give Nevada a run for its money as far as mispronounced states. Heck, I’ve even heard people say “Illinois” wrong.
As a native, I’ve always pronounced it Nuh-VAD-uh, because I thought Nuh-VAH-uh sounded snooty and wrong.
I also have wondered why Kansas and Arkansas are pronounced differently.
And then there’s Warshington. . . .
Mary Jo – that pronunciation reminds me of my grandpa! (a good thing
)