Munson: IPR helps Iowans utter tricky place names

Barney Sherman first took to the Iowa Public Radio airwaves in 2001 only to be scolded by his erudite audience of classical music listeners that he had mispronounced the name not of some obscure, dead composer but of our very state.

Not two syllables, they corrected him. It's three: "I-oh-wah."

Sherman, a Chicago native who had lived in Iowa since the 1980s, knew he was in trouble. So he began to compile a list of hard-to-pronounce Iowa place names to avoid future pitfalls.

All these years later, Sherman has provided an antidote for this common bane of broadcasters: an online guide that builds on his original scribbled list with an alphabetical directory of Iowa audio pronunciations.

No more must the towns of "Nevada" — "neh-VAY-duh" — or "Madrid" — "MAA-drid" — confound Iowa newcomers whose first, understandable instinct is to model their pronunciation after the more famous Western state or the capital of Spain.

Now the newbies — or Iowans in a particular corner of the state unfamiliar with the quirks of another region — can listen to Sherman sound out these unintuitive names.

Sherman launched his online guide a couple months ago at iowapublicradio.org and has since stirred chatter on Facebook and the public airwaves.

He first commiserated with IPR colleague Pat Blank, who convinced him that he should be the one to voice the list.

He recorded his first blast of names in a single weekend. Sherman followed a two-source rule: He phoned city halls, libraries, local journalists and other sources to confirm his pronunciations.

"I could sort of hear the smile spreading over their face when they found out what it was for," he said.

This is how the locals spot strangers at the corner convenience store, right? If they haven't already spied your out-of-county license plates, they've definitely pegged you if you didn't pronounce, say, "Tripoli" as "trih-POE-luh."

Sherman's guide includes the occasional case of multiple pronunciations when even the locals are conflicted. "Keokuk" boasts no fewer than four versions: "KEE-uh-kuck" or the quicker "KYOH-kuck" (favored by locals in my own experience), plus two options that insert an "l" in the middle, "KEE-uhl-kuck" and "kee-UHL-kuck."

Sherman also was inspired by the example of the late Charles Black, an agriculture professor at Iowa State University in Ames who helped WOI compile a voluminous guide to classical music pronunciations that remains an industry standard available online.

The Iowa pronunciation guide has accumulated more than 40 names and isn't limited to towns. Sherman already has strayed into geographical features such as western Iowa's Loess ("luss") Hills. You can listen here.

The guide will be an "ongoing process," he emphasized.

"Thanks for the continuing input!" Sherman wrote Monday on the website. "We're looking into the names and pronunciations you've suggested. Here's a short list of what's in process: Rolfe (pronounced 'rawlf'); Moscow (there are different opinions); Delmar (we're working on it!); Festina (pronounced Fes-TIE-nuh, according to one source); Calmar (CAL-mer, says our source); Wapsipinicon (the last syllable might be a "schwa," according to one source.) Stay tuned!"

Now you have no excuse to trip over the pronunciation of Tripoli. Pretend you're a local wherever you roam in I-oh-wah.

At least until you mangle the name of the mayor.

Kyle Munson can be reached at 515-284-8124 or kmunson@dmreg.com. See more of his columns, blog posts and video at DesMoinesRegister.com/munson. Connect with him on Facebook (Kyle Munson's Iowa) and Twitter (@KyleMunson).

To consult Barney Sherman's Iowa Place Names Audio Guide go to iowapublicradio.org.