I was having a discussion with a female friend of mine and was summarily mocked for I mentioned that back when I was all of 6 or 7 years old I thought there were two distinctly separate states;
One called "Arckensaw" and one called "Arkansas."
The reason for my confusion was the obvious spelling of "Arkansas" is not pronounced "Arcken-saw" but "r-kansas."
Did anybody else have this confusion as a child so I can point out to my female colleague that I am not the only one that thought this way in their youth?
12 comments:
When I was young, I was told by someone (can't remember who) that the state is pronounced Ar-ken-saw and the river is pronounced Ar-Kansas.
I had a few different but similarly peculiar misconceptions.
I grew up in New Jersey where townships abut against one another - you leave one town, and you're in another one.
When I started college in On a road trip with friends in Colorado, I saw a sign that said we were leaving Boulder County. I asked what town we were in. The response was, "We're not in any town." I asked, "How can we NOT be in a town? We must be somewhere?"
The second misconception was about religion. I went to Catholic school for 9 years. The only people I knew who weren't Catholic were Jews. So my world consisted only of Catholics and Jews. When a new student in my school told me he was Episcopalian, I had no idea what he was talking about. I didn't realize that there were other groups of Christians.
Then, I was shocked to find out that not only aren't Catholics the only Christians, they are a MINORITY of Christians in the US.
But teachers aren't always right. In 7th grade, I got into an argument with my science teacher. He asked us if anyone had seen a solar eclipse. I told him that I had recently seen a lunar eclipse. He told me, "Robert, that's not possible. A lunar eclipse is invisible." All the kids in class laughed at me.
He was obviously confused between a "lunar eclipse" and a "new moon." I showed him photographs of a lunar eclipse in an astronomy book and he asked to borrow the book. He never apologized to me for being wrong and never gave my book back.
Education majors!
Ah, from Wikipedia:
The word is a French pronunciation of a Quapaw (a related "Kaw" tribe) word meaning "land of downriver people" or "people of the south wind". The pronunciation of Arkansas (ar-kan-saw) was made official by an act of the state legislature in 1881 after a dispute between the two U.S. Senators from Arkansas. One wanted to pronounce the name ar-kán-sas and the other wanted ár-kan-saw.
And Wiki of the Arkansas River says:
Though many in the state of Kansas pronounce it as IPA: /ɑrˈkænzəz/, people in the state of Arkansas pronounce it /ˈɑrkənsɔː/ according to a state law passed in 1881[4]). People in the Southern United States pronounce it /ˈærkənsɔː/.
So you are not totally confused, except the part about their being two states. Of course, Kansas and Arkansas are two separate states which might be the source of the confusion.
The two are, of course, related. One means "people of the wind" and the other means "people of the south wind."
Yes, I had the same problem. In fact, even to this day when I see the word in print, my first thought is "r-Kansas" - I have to remind myself that it's actually "Arkansaw".
I will stand with you there, cap'n. Being forced to take many spelling tests as a child, I ALWAYS sounded out words as they were spelled. However, one tends to look like a fool when saying words like Arkansas, quiche, Hors D'Oeuvres, or pretty much any french word adopted into American english.
I did too, Captain. Till about the same age. But then I live in India, so some slack ought to be cut.
I can't say I did as I have an aunt from Arkansas. Of course I would intentionally pronounce it phonetically and over-emphasize the last syllable for fun sometimes.
Thank you gentlemen, you have proved my point admirably.
Someone I know once pronounced Gettysburg as "Jettysburg". I can only assume they inferred that from the gas station, Getty (pronounced "Jetty").
I had the exact opposite problem when referring to said gas station.
I too was confused by the state which appeared on the map but was never talked about in class. A couple of years ago I was working with a young man who grew up in Argentina until he was about 12 years old. At that time his parents could finally afford to have him come live with them in New Jersey. One day someone was talking about Arkansas and another guy grabbed an Atlas and pointed out Kansas & Arkansas to him. I'll never forget the look of utter confusion as he turned around and said, "Say, what's going on here?"
Like I said earlier, I had a problem with these two. I also had a problem with the pronunciation of "Tuscon". But when you live in another country, you either hear the name or read it -- but not both at the same time. Hence the confusion is understandable.
see also Lafayette.
When I was a kid learning the alphabet, I often wondered what an "Elemento Pee" was. Was it some special type of P?
When I was seven I played a word game similar to Hangman with my brother and sister. I spelled it Arkansaw.
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