Utah Town Names Can Trip Up Newcomers

Here in Utah, we may feel pretty proud on how we can pronounce on words that bring nothing but mystery to people from out of the area. Let's start with everyone's favorite.

Tooele, a name that looks like “tool-ee” but is actually pronounced “too-will-uh.” This single town has caused more verbal traffic jams than Interstate 15 at rush hour. Newscasters approach it with the same hesitation as a porcupine petting contest.

There is Levan, a small town south of Nephi, allegedly got its name by spelling “navel” backward—because it’s located near the “center” of Utah. Whether that’s true or just creative civic mythmaking, it’s hard not to appreciate the effort.

Read More: Plenty Of Spooky Places Around Here

Drive farther and you’ll meet Koosharem, Mantua (that’s “Man-a-way,” somehow), and Myton (which rhymes with “brighten,” not “mitten”). Each is a linguistic obstacle course that separates locals from out-of-towners faster than a Pioneer Day parade.

And of course here in our area we have our local pronunciation landmine to outsiders with Hurricane, which locals pronounce “Her-uh-kun.” Tourists, trying to sound polite, go with “Her-uh-cane,” prompting locals to look at them as if they’d just ordered fry sauce without fries.

Well, we may be good at pronouncing names near and dear to us, but what words do we as Utahns have problems wrapping our lips around? The folks at Cleveland.com reported on research conducted by the website Unscrambler.com that looked at Google trends from the first of this year until October 27^th.

Gyro topped the list as the most searched “how do you pronounce” word in the country. But we seemed to handle that well here in the Beehive state.

Maybe Utah Residents Should Avoid Travel To The Middle East

The word that tripped us up most in Utah is Qatar (KAH-tar), which doesn't bode well if we are planning to do some travelling to the middle east. Our neighbors to the east in Colorado also find that the hardest to pronounce, along with those in Maine, so we're not alone.

Up in Montana, they can't seem to handle Dachshund, Idaho stumbles over Kefir (KEE-fir), and apparently, Wyoming can't hold the mayonnaise.

Interestingly, those living in North Carolina struggle with Raleigh. Really? Everyone in Utah knows how to say Parowan, you guys can't pronounce your state capitol?

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Anyway, we can pat ourselves on the back because we can pronounce Kanarraville with the best of them, but how do we handle Hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia?