Help me talk like a local.

[Shollin]

I heard someone pronounce Macomb Mack-um

[Honky Tonk]

Ok, While we're on the subject, why is the constellation Oh-rye-un the Hunter, but people live in Lake Or-eee-un? Both are spelled Orion.

[marshamusic]

MANY thanks for the help everyone. I got what I asked for and a whole lot more...the pronunciation of "Macomb" came as a big surprise. I'd never have guessed "MUH-comb".
Keep 'em coming!

Macomb is pronounced Muh-COMB, accent on the last, not the first syllable.

Also, West and East Grand Blvd. are colloquially called "The Boulevard" - as opposed to "West Grand, or East Grand". If you refer to East or West, you use the whole name, West Grand Blvd or East Grand Blvd.

Also, of the near mile roads - 6 mile, 7 mile, 8 mile, 9 mile, etc., Six Mile is also known as McNichols.

My husband just moved here from Chicago, after our recent wedding, so I am all to aware of these sometimes maddening Detroit usages, as he learns to navigate around town.

[Zacha341]

Yeah many pronounce the German word Goethe wrong. It's actually like "Gearta"! My favorite is Yosemite as YOSS-MITE!

Goethe = Go-thee

Pronunciations may vary by native side of town and ethnic origin of speaker.

Edit: Damn, we fast. But pretty much in agreement.

[MidTownMs]

Macomb is pronounced Muh-COMB, accent on the last, not the first syllable.

Also, West and East Grand Blvd. are colloquially called "The Boulevard" - as opposed to "West Grand, or East Grand". If you refer to East or West, you use the whole name, West Grand Blvd or East Grand Blvd.

Also, of the near mile roads - 6 mile, 7 mile, 8 mile, 9 mile, etc., Six Mile is also known as McNichols.

My husband just moved here from Chicago, after our recent wedding, so I am all to aware of these sometimes maddening Detroit usages, as he learns to navigate around town.

Six Mile in addition to McNichols is also known as Seymour. E. Seven mile is also known as Moross. Fenkell is 5 mile and Cadieux.

[MidTownMs]

Macomb is pronounced Muh-COMB, accent on the last, not the first syllable.

Also, West and East Grand Blvd. are colloquially called "The Boulevard" - as opposed to "West Grand, or East Grand". If you refer to East or West, you use the whole name, West Grand Blvd or East Grand Blvd.

Also, of the near mile roads - 6 mile, 7 mile, 8 mile, 9 mile, etc., Six Mile is also known as McNichols.

My husband just moved here from Chicago, after our recent wedding, so I am all to aware of these sometimes maddening Detroit usages, as he learns to navigate around town.

I have heard some people call the Boulevard the Boulevoid.

[Zacha341]

My dad an Ohio born man, always pronounced Michigan with a hard CH and G.... Like MICH-i-Gan!

Ok, While we're on the subject, why is the constellation Oh-rye-un the Hunter, but people live in Lake Or-eee-un? Both are spelled Orion.

[MidTownMs]

Why are certain sections of 8 mile called Baseline?

[JVB]

Also, of the near mile roads - 6 mile, 7 mile, 8 mile, 9 mile, etc., Six Mile is also known as McNichols.

And on the eastside 7 mile is Moross.

Then of course there is 16 mile/Big Beaver/Metro Parkway...

edit: you guys are fast

[JVB]

Why are certain sections of 8 mile called Baseline?

I think it had something to do with when they were platting the northern townships like Novi, but I could be wrong.

Fenkell is 5 mile and Cadieux.

Cadieux isn't 5 mile/Fenkell. It doesn't even run east/west.

[dtowncitylover]

Macomb is pronounced Muh-COMB, accent on the last, not the first syllable.

I think Kiraly was stunned by the "muh" part hence why it was capitalized, but thank you for making sure where to put the accent, I'm bad at that.

[dtowncitylover]

Why are certain sections of 8 mile called Baseline?

Because 8 Mile was the "baseline" for surveying the Northwest Territories back in the day of the late 1700s.

[EastsideAl]

Because 8 Mile was the "baseline" for surveying the Northwest Territories back in the day of the late 1700s.

Baseline [[8 Mile) and Meridian Rd., which runs just east of East Lansing were indeed the lines from which all land was platted in Michigan.

Except for what is now the southern part of the City of Detroit, of course, which was laid out by the French and oriented to the Detroit River long before there was a State of Michigan. If you look at a map today you can see pretty clearly where the city's street and land grid "turns" from its river orientation to the due east-west 'mile road' orientation of the Northwest Ordinance platting.

[EastsideAl]

Das Strasse ist nicht ausgepragt "go-thee," es ist ausgesprochen "guh-teh!"

German Detroiters and readers of great literature know this, now so do we

This is coming from someone [[me) who can barely speak proper english of course...

Ahhh, but when I went to elementary school at the corner of Burns and Go-thee, trust me, no one ever considered pronouncing it any other way.

Cadieux, mentioned here, is another east side street that often causes pronunciation problems for outsiders.

It is, of course, "cad-jou". And even that bastion of east side Belgianness, the Cadieux Cafe, pronounces it that way. Damn the Walloons!

[DetroitPlanner]

K-mart = K-marts
Ford = Fords

as nauseum

[Zacha341]

Target store as TarJAY but that is more in the realm of disdain! LOL!

[gazhekwe]

Lahser has different pronunciations depending on latitude. South of 8 Mile it's Lash - er, or even Lay - ash - er.

Between 8 and 12 Mile, it's Lah - sir.

North of 12 Mile, Lah - zer.

This rule is not comprehensive though, there is a good mix throughout depending on where the people actually grew up.

[Huggybear]

"A shibboleth [[/ˈʃɪbəlɛθ/^[1] or /ˈʃɪbələθ/)^[2] is a word, sound, or custom that a person unfamiliar with its significance may not pronounce or perform correctly relative to those who are familiar with it. It is used to identify foreigners or those who do not belong to a particular class or group of people. It also refers to features of language, and particularly to a word or phrase whose pronunciation identifies a speaker as belonging to a particular group."

[Ray1936]

I once heard a talking head on The Weather Channel giving out severe storm warnings for "Grah-tee-ott" [[Gratiot) county. Didn't matter, she was pretty and I was in Vegas.

[canuck]

Hello Detroiters.

Can you help me with the local pronunciations of these. I've seen them in print a lot but have never heard them spoken aloud. I'd like to know where the syllable stress goes too. e.g. Gratiot = GRASH-it [[I think I have that one right?)

The list so far:

Charlevoix
Livernois
Joseph Campau
Dequindre
Chene

Thanks from a Detroit-phile on the west coast.

I'm just gonna chime in some french prononciations, but not to offend the local pronunciations.

As 313WX says, Dubois is pronounced pretty much Do-bwah, and the "u" sound in french has no equivalent no english so its a pointier "oo" sound than the one spoken in english.

Charlevoix's last syllable in french is like Dubois, it sounds like vwah.

Same with Livernois, the s and the x are mute consonants.

Campau sounds something Cahn-poh, with as little stress on the n as possible.

Dequindre sounds like Duh-kaindre.

Chene sounds like Shane alright.

Gratiot as far as I can tell would be Grass-yo, which should please some here...

Kercheval would be Ker-cha-val and is a breton name but not as prevalant a name in Canada or the US as Kerouac for instance...

I get a kick out of the french names in Detroit which for the most part are french canadian family names and are often found as street names in Montreal like "Beaubien" which is a major street here.

Lejeune, Cicotte [[Sicotte here) Labadie, Mercier, Collette, Rivard, St-Aubin are all names I recognize in my own neck of the woods.

[Jimaz]

Dequindre -> de-QUIN-der [[Oops. MidTownMs already covered that one.)

I was surprised that "y'all" is still used so much in Detroit. Never heard that word once in Phoenix. It was common in New Orleans.

Had to break my Phoenix "howdy" habit. It's friendly in Phoenix but I think it sounds hicksville in Detroit.

Thanks to dtowncitylover for the Lake Orion reminder. A friend by that name pronounced it OR-in. The constellation is pronounced or-I-in. Now I remember it as Lake OR-ee-in.

This thread could become a very practical reference for visitors.

[JVB]

Six Mile in addition to McNichols is also known as Seymour.

If you're talking about eastside Seymour, that's not McNichols. It just happens to roughly line up with where McNichols ends at Gratiot but its just a residential side street. However, before McNichols takes that angle NE if you follow it straight across on the map it would line up with Houston-Whittier which might be what you're thinking.

[rb336]

Or how Lahser is pronounced LASH-er.

depends on what part of town. Everyone I knew said LAH-sur. I think it changes around 11 mile/south to lasher

[rb336]

if you're canadian, you pronounce detroit as detroy-it

[prokopowicz]

Baseline continues in pieces all the way across the state to lake michigan, and then across the lake it is the border between Illinois and Wisconsin.