You're A True Pennsylvanian If You Can Pronounce These 10 Words The Right Way
By Beth Price-Williams|Published August 15, 2020
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Beth Price-Williams
Author
A professional writer for more than two decades, Beth has lived in nearly a dozen states – from Missouri and Virginia to Connecticut and Vermont – and Toronto, Canada. In addition to traveling extensively in the U.S. and the U.K., she has a BA in Journalism from Point Park University (PA), a MA in Holocaust & Genocide Studies from Stockton University (NJ), and a Master of Professional Writing from Chatham University (PA). A writer and editor for Only In Your State since 2016, Beth grew up in and currently lives outside of Pittsburgh and when she’s not writing or hanging out with her bunnies, budgies, and chinchilla, she and her daughter are out chasing waterfalls.
Every state has its own lingo, but none is as interesting as Pennsylvania. Ask someone if they’re going to outten the lights before they go dahntahn, and they might look at you as if you’ve sprouted a second head. We can usually spot if the other person is a tried and true Pennsylvanian by the way they speak and, in particular, how they pronounce some of those hard-to-pronounce Pennsylvania destinations.
A charming town in Western PA, Dubois can be a tough one to pronounce if you’re not from PA. We Pennsylvanians are known for pronouncing its "doo boys," rather than the French version of du-bwa.
Okay, this one doesn’t really count as much as the others, because just about everyone in the U.S. knows about Punxsutawney because of Phil. Still, if you weren’t from PA and haven’t heard of Groundhog Day, you might struggle to say Punks-uh-taw-nee.
Here’s another one plenty of non-natives struggle with. They might be tempted, in fact, to pronounce the "s" in Duquesne. Yet, those in Pittsburgh say it the way the French might – doo cane.
If you don’t live in Eastern Pennsylvania, you might also have difficulty saying or even spelling the name of the town of nearly 150,000. It’s actually quite easy to pronounce – SKOO-kill.
Pennsylvania has its fair share of amusement parks. Most are easy to pronounce – Hersheypark and Kennywood Park, for example. Knoebels, however, can go one of two ways. How do you pronounce it? Kuh-no-bells or kuh-no-bulls?
There’s also some debate as to how you’re supposed to properly pronounce Wilkes-Barre, so we should probably leave it up to those who live there. However, most would likely agree that it’s either Wilkes-Barr-A or Wilkes-Berry.
Unlike most rivers, the Monongahela River flows from south to north. In addition to that interesting tidbit, it’s also a bit difficult to pronounce for those who haven’t heard of it before. Do you say it muh-nong-guh-hey-luh, too?
You’ll find a lot of French and Welsh-inspired named towns in PA like Bala Cynwyd, which sits just five miles from Philadelphia. To pronounce it – bah-lah kin-wood.
While we may keep the double l silent when we talk about the Palace of Versailles in Paris, we don’t say it that way if we’re talking about North Versailles in Western PA. We say it North Ver-sales.
