How do you pronounce Lafayette?

[archfan]

WHICH IS THE STRESSED SYLLABLE?

LA-fi-et
la-FI-et
la-fi-ET

La-Fi-et doesn't tell me anything!

Whoa, speaking of stressed...

la fee ET for me.

[jackie5275]

I think I've used all pronunciations interchangeably over the years depending on how fast I was speaking.

[Cincinnati_Kid]

English [[or Michigan) and French pronunciation are different to each other.

I pronounce it Luh-Fay-Ett, even if that's wrong.

In any case, there are streets passing through/past the Lafayette area whose names I struggled more with than Lafayette itself:

Antietam Street [[Ann-Tee-Tum) and Gratiot Avenue [[Grah-Shuht).

And I always pronounced Chene Street as 'Cheen' until I overheard someone call it 'Shayn'.

PS. Wherever you're from, Michigan is always pronounced 'Mishigan', LOL.

Don't forget Lasher, which should be La-sir [[Lahser)

[waz]

Maybe its a matter of how you pronounce the first syllable. Does it sound like "LOt" or "LAugh". If the former, I would expect more emphasis on the last syllable. If the laterr, then more emphasis on the first syllable. My 2c.

[EastsideAl]

Do you know when and why the name was changed?


In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth and EastsideAl

Thank you for that little tribute [[at least I think it was a tribute). The name change history of East Lafayette is a bit strange [[I think W. Lafayette was always called Lafayette). As far as i can tell from old maps, etc. the street was originally named Lafayette. Sometime around 1890 the street's name was changed to Champlain, for reasons unknown. In the 1910s though [[different sources have it as 1914, 1918, or 1920), again for reasons unknown, the name was changed back to E. Lafayette.

[canuck]

Maybe its a matter of how you pronounce the first syllable. Does it sound like "LOt" or "LAugh". If the former, I would expect more emphasis on the last syllable. If the laterr, then more emphasis on the first syllable. My 2c.

Good point. Both La and fa are pronounced like "laugh".