“In Maine we have a saying that there’s no point in speaking unless you can improve on silence.” — Edmund Muskie
Many people around the country are familiar with the saying “As Maine goes so goes the nation” (which is based on our once earlier-than-usual presidential elections) and the rallying cry “Remember the Maine!” Some folks even realize that Maine has the only one-syllable state name. And that’s about it.
But it turns out that much about Maine and us Mainers is not so well understood. At least, that is apparently the case when it comes to understanding some of our favorite words and phrases — and in some cases even pronouncing them.
For instance, according to Nadiia Mykhalevych of the language tutoring website Preply.com, the slang terminology used by us Mainers is the most difficult to understand in the country with more than 88% of the population incorrectly guessing at what our terms and phrases mean. (We’re No. 1 misunderstood!)
“Right out straight,” for example, was correctly identified as meaning “very busy” by only 5% of those asked. The phrase even ended up as the No. 2 most misunderstood saying in the country (most folks thought it meant “telling the truth”). And more than a third of the people surveyed thought that “cunnin’” described a person who’s “very talkative in Maine – not something that is adorable,” according to the site.
Maine may be #1, but other states offer their own twists on being misunderstood. Two of my favorites, according to Preply.com:
— In Pennsylvania, “yinz” is sometimes used as a word for “you all”; more than one in three respondents thought “yinz” was an entirely made-up word that meant nothing.
— West Virginians often call skunks “polecats”; more than one in four Americans thought “polecat” was slang for an adult entertainer.
But I digress.
Even if those flatlanders (you know, folks from away) do come to terms with what our sayings actually mean, well, that’s just the beginning. They still have a lot of work left to do when it comes to pronouncing the names of many of the places that are scattered around our wonderful part of the world.
They might pass through Bangor (“BANG-gore,” not “BANG-grr” as Roger Miller sang it in his 1965 hit “King of the Road”) on their way to Mount Desert Island – or is it Mount Dessert? According to most sources, explorer Samuel de Champlain called the island “Ile des Monts Desert” (island of bare mountains) upon seeing its treeless summits. So the spelling would have you saying “desert” as in the Desert of Maine, but the French pronounce “desert” as “day-ZARE, which is likely were “dessert” and its accent on the second syllable comes from.” So have it any way you like.
Up north in Aroostook County (where they tell people to pronounce the county’s name similar to “acoustic”), they actually have a guide for the pronunciation of the names of some of its cities and towns. According to the guide: Presque Isle is “Press Kyle,” Houlton rhymes with “Bolton,” Saint Agatha is “Saint a gat,” and Perham should be “PARE um” not “Per ham. (Obviously, the same goes for the endings of the more southerly towns of Topsham and Windham.)
Way Down East there’s the town of Calais, which of course is “CAL-us” and not the French “Ca-LAY” even though it rests across a body of water from a country where French is one of the official languages.
Closer to home, places in or near Androscoggin County present pronunciation problems to our out-of-state guests. For instance, there’s Minot, which we pronounce “MY-nuht,” and not “my-not” like the city in North Dakota.
Other nearby places with tricky names include Hebron (“HEE-brun,” not “he-BRON” like the city in Palestine) and the picturesque but deceivingly spelled Range Pond State Park. Oh, how you can spot the out-of-towner when they stop and ask you for directions to one of the Range Ponds and Range rhymes with “change” and not “bang.”
One travel website offers a small bit of help for such visitors, suggesting you can sound more like a local by dropping the “L.L.” and simply saying “I’m going to Bean’s this afternoon.”
Granted, many of our place names came from Native American, British and French words and can be tricky to pronounce anyway — and we native Mainahs have the advantage of having lived here a while. So the next time you come across tourists who are hopelessly lost in the willywags (“boonies”) and trying desperately to pronounce the name of the place they want to get to, just tell them not to worry because they can’t actually get theyah from heeah anyway.
Jim Witherell of Lewiston is a writer and lover of words whose work includes “L.L. Bean: The Man and His Company” and “Ed Muskie: Made in Maine.” He can be reached at jlwitherell19@gmail.com.
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