I’m picking “Colonel” needs to be respelled to match how it’s pronounced.

Try to pick a word no one else has picked. What word are you respelling?

    • fubo@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      “Arkansas” and “Kansas” are both from the Osage language, but the former passed through French on its way to English.

        • fubo@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          America has a lot of place names that come from Native American / First Nations languages; but they also come via different European languages.

          And some of those names are actually words that refer to a different Native group. “Arkansas” and “Kansas” are from the Osage word for the Quapaw people. The name of the Snake River between Oregon and Idaho is a translation of the name that Plains people used to refer to the Shoshone: they were the “snake people” and that wasn’t a compliment.

      • merc@sh.itjust.works
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        1 year ago

        I’ve heard that, but “Ar Kan Saw” is nothing like how a French person would pronounce “Arkansas”

      • Carlos Solís@communities.azkware.net
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        1 year ago

        In Spanish they do rhyme and their endings are pronounced the exact same, as in Kansas. I was greatly puzzled when I discovered that the French managed to mangle the name Arkansas that badly back in the day

      • kender242@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        2010 Arkansas Code Title 1 - General Provisions Chapter 4 - State Symbols, Motto, Etc § 1-4-105 - Pronunciation of state name.

        Be it therefore resolved by both houses of the General Assembly, that the only true pronunciation of the name of the state, in the opinion of this body, is that received by the French from the native Indians and committed to writing in the French word representing the sound. It should be pronounced in three (3) syllables, with the final “s” silent, the “a” in each syllable with the Italian sound, and the accent on the first and last syllables. The pronunciation with the accent on the second syllable with the sound of “a” in “man” and the sounding of the terminal “s” is an innovation to be discouraged.

    • charlytune@mander.xyz
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      1 year ago

      Brit here, I only realised a couple of years ago that the Arkansaw I heard mentioned in American TV and movies was actually the Arkansas I could see on maps. I think it was something said on Reddit, probably a thread similar to this, that was the revelation. And when I tell other Brits they’re invariably similarly clueless, and quite gobsmacked. I’m not sure if anyone I’ve mentioned it too has said “oh yeah I knew that”.