Pronunciation Anecdote

Hi everyone,

A few weeks ago, I visited an exhibition in Paris: "Dark Knees".

This exhibition showed lots of photos by Mark Cohen (still alive).
Cohen is an American street photographer... something noticeable with him is that he doesn't want his photos to be reproduced: he develops himself and makes one impression only; he very rarely accepts to make more than one so that you've to go to the museum where the photos are (in his home city)... he recently accepted to lend them to a few places in Europe... I could see one of them.
The guy came to Paris to visit the room and what and how the photos would be displayed (the guy doesn't want money or fame, he is just rigourous regarding art).

The photos were shown at the MOMA before Mark Cohen became famous throughout the world.

The photos were taken in the Streets of his city of Wilkes-Barre.


What I want to say in posting here is that our French guide was always pronouncing "bere" for the city.
At the end of the visit, I asked her whether she was sure of her pronunciation. I explained that due to the double "r", the pronunciation should have been "bar" as in "car".
She responded that was the way Cohen pronounced the name.

I asked Krystyna who confirmed what I was thinking.
Krystyna investigated and she discovered we were not the only guys questioning about this weird pronunciation...

-> (wikipedia) Mark Cohen (photographer)
-> (wikipedia) Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania
-> So, how do you pronounce Wilkes-Barre?

the name of our fine city can also prove to by tricky to pronounce. The two widely accepted ways to pronounce Wilkes-Barre are "Wilkes-BERRY" and "Wilkes-BEAR".

As to the pronunciation of this name...The name--a compound word of three syllables--is pronounced neither Wilks-bä r, Wilkes-bä r, Wilks-bare-ry nor Wilks-bare-eh as so often heard, but Wilks'-ba-ra--with a slight accent on the first syllable; 'i' in the first syllable being sounded as 'i' in 'pin', 'a' in the second syllable as 'a' in 'mat' and the final 'è'; as 'a' in 'mate'. The French 'e' with the 'close' accent has the sound last noted."

So I was right to wonder about the pronunciation. I was wrong about the response and the reason.

There are lots of web pages speaking about the pronunciation... due to "Isaac Barré", the guy after whom the name of the city comes.
-> (wikipedia) Talk:Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania "Talk:" is the part of the web page of Wikipédia articles where the writers discuss before concluding
-> Wilkes-Barre
-> Wilkes â?¦ uhh â?¦ Bear? Bar? Berry?
-> The proper way to say Wilkes-Barre

The proper way of Wilkes-Barre was to pronounce it as Wilkes-Barre` because Issac Barre` was a frenchman to whom Wilkes-Barre takes part of its name, until the depression the city was spelled as Wilkes-Barre` but for some reason the dialect of the immigrants broke it down, howver from 1806-1930 this was how it was to be pronounced so for those who pronounce it as Wilkes-BarrA your right, its not Wilkes-Barree, or Wilkes-Bar its how our founders named it, This was taken from the Luzerne County Historical Society.
Read more: http://www.city-data.com/forum/northeastern-pennsylvania/398937-proper-way-say-wilkes-barre-luzerne.html#ixzz2oDW03Mpf

-> (Urban Dictionary) Wilkes-Barre

Well enough with this! There are oodles of web pages that you can get asking your reasearch program with "How do you pronounce Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania?".


Worth an article here Hey!!