The real reason you can’t get there from here.

By Bruce Pratt

Pronouncing Maine place names by relying on rules from away leads to confusion when asking for directions to Calais instead of “Callus,” Vienna instead of “Vyenna,” Madrid instead of “MAD-drid,” Carmel instead of “CAR-mul,” or by omitting the H in Amherst. Other names non-Mainers stumble over include Eggemoggin, Machias, and Eustis—sometimes pronounced “US-tis” by tourists.  Is it Moscow or “Mossco”? “AND-aver” or Andover? If Corea began with a K, it wouldn’t become “Corey-ah,” or “Corayuh.” Detroit is often stressed on the first syllable as in the old Bobby Bare hit.

At Sugarloaf, I heard a woman say she’d flown into “Banger,” prompting my buddy to say (which, of course, he would never, ever say now): “Bang her? I barely know her.” We might blame Roger Miller, but nothing brands one From Away more than that mangling of the Queen City’s name, unless it’s a relative of mine reading Kenneth Roberts to some young children and pronouncing Norridgewock as Nor Ridge A Walk.  Is it LU-bec or Lu-BEC or Lu-Bec? Who hasn’t heard the first two letters in Chebeague pronounced as if it were Chewbacca? And unlike the woman in the folk song “Corrine, Corrina,” it’s Corinna—short I—here.

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