It drives me crazy

...when place names are mispronounced by news readers on television.

For example, yesterday the small town of Alvarado, Texas, was in the news. This town is very close to Mansfield, Texas, where I was raised or reared or grew up or however you think I should say it. Amost everyone who mentioned the town on television news broadcasts mispronounced it. For the record, even though in Spanish Alvarado rhymes with bravado, and even though the town was named after Alvarado in the Mexican state of Veracruz, the correct pronunciation of the town in Texas rhymes with Play-Doh or Day-Glo or Laredo, take your pick. All day long on the news channel the people were saying 'al-vuh-RAH-doh' until 4 p.m., when Will Cain, a man who actually is from Texas and broadcasts from Texas, said 'al-vuh-RAY-do' and I felt vindicated. At 7 p.m. I heard Laura Ingraham say it correctly too, but everyone else was back to 'al-vuh-RAH-do'.

I have friends from California who become agitated when people say Paso Robles wrong. Robles does not rhyme with 'go blaze' but with the English word 'nobles'.

I guess it depends on whether you aim for Spanish purism or go with the flow of the local populace.

There is Spanish and then there is Spanish.

In Texas, the San Jacinto monument near Houston is pronounced 'san juh-SIN-toh' or even 'san juh-SIN-tuh'. But actress Betty White, who lived in California, referred to it once as 'san hah-CHEEN-to', which I guess is technically correct but made Texans everywhere roll their eyes.

I have the strange feeling we have discussed these things before, but I may be mistaken.

Waxahachie (another town in Texas) is not WACKS-uh-hatch-ee, it's WALKS-uh-hatch-ee.

The G in Nacogdoches is not pronounced. And the word sounds nothing like the town of Natchitoches a few miles away in Louisiana even though they are named for the same Native American tribe (I think). In Texas it's 'nack-uh-DOH-chiz' and in Louisiana it's 'NACK-uh-tish'. I'm not even kidding.

The Brazos River in Texas is 'BRAZZ-us', not 'BRAH-zose'.

People in Illinois do not pronounce the S in the name of their state but a lot of other people do.

In Florida, Boca Raton is not 'boh-ka ruh-TAHN', it's 'boh-ka ruh-TONE'. Trust me, I lived there for six years.

Don't even get me started on Mackinac Island, Michigan, or Sault Ste. Marie (also in Michigan), or Dahlonega, Georgia, or Poughkeepsie, New York, or Puyallup, Washington.

In North Carolina, the town of Beaufort is 'BOH-fort' but the South Carolina town of the same name is 'BEW-fert'.

Call me anything you like (and I've been called a lot of things), just don't call me late for dinner.

What place-name mispronunciations get your knickers in a twist dander up?

Greek mythology tells us

...many things, not the least of which is that Athena sprang full-grown from the forehead of Zeus. I had a similar experience upon waking this morning. No sooner had I opened my eyes than the entire lyrics of a decades-old song called "I Love Paris" sprang out of my mind, which, when you think about the makeup of our physical bodies, is in my forehead:

I love Paris in the springtime
I love Paris in the fall
I love Paris in the winter, when it drizzles
I love Paris in the summer, when it sizzles
I love Paris every moment
Every moment of the year
I love Paris! Why, oh, why do I love Paris?
Because my love is here.

I have never been to Paris and my love is not now and never has been there. "I Love Paris" was followed almost immediately by another old song, as though someone somewhere was dropping quarters into a jukebox:

A foggy day in London town
It had me up, it had me down
I viewed the morning with alarm
The British Museum had lost its charm
How long, I wondered, could this thing last?
But the age of miracles hadn't passed
For suddenly I saw you there
And in foggy London town the sun was shining everywhere.

I have been to London only once, in March 1969, and it was not foggy.

I didn't tell you these things to impress you concerning my powers of recall. My memory is actually not so impressive. As a matter of fact, sometimes I can't remember things that are very important. What I remember, I remember. What I do not, I do not. What I know nothing at all about would fill libraries. Stadiums. Continents.

Let's move on.

What if the song "Gary, Indiana" that little Ronnie Howard sang in The Music Man were about another city? What if he had sung "Kansas City, Kansas" or "Charleston, West Virginia" or "Kodiak, Alaska" or "St. Cloud, Minnesota" or "Helena, Montana" or "Hannibal, Missouri" or "Waxahachie, Texas"?

In the overall scheme of things, it wouldn't make any difference at all except that Professor Howard Hill's encounter with Marian the librarian might have occurred somewhere else than right there in River City.

Please note that when you say "Waxahachie, Texas" the first syllable should not rhyme with "tax" and if it does you are saying it wrong. When you say "Waxahachie, Texas" the first syllable should rhyme with "hawks". I know this because I grew up in the town of Mansfield, just a few miles from Waxahachie. Let it further be noted that there is no 'T' in Waxahachie; it is not Waxahatchie. On second thought, maybe there should be a 'T' in Waxahachie because here's what a certain online encyclopedia that shall remain nameless has to say about the etymology of Waxahachie:

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Some sources state that the name means "cow" or "buffalo" in an unspecified Native American language. One possible Native American origin is the Alabama language, originally spoken in the area of Alabama around Waxahatchee Creek by the Alabama-Coushatta people, who had migrated by the 1850s to eastern Texas. In the Alabama language, waakasi hachi means "calf's tail" (the Alabama word waaka being a loan from Spanish vaca).

That there is a Waxahatchee Creek near present-day Shelby, Alabama, suggests that Waxahachie shares the same name etymology. Many place names in Texas and Oklahoma have their origins in the Southeastern United States, largely due to forced removal of various southeastern Indian tribes. The area in central Alabama that includes Waxahatchee Creek was for hundreds of years the home of the Upper Creek moiety of the Muscogee Creek Nation. Again, this would suggest a Muscogee Creek-language origin of Waxahachie. "Waxahachie", therefore, may be an anglicized pronunciation of the Muscogee compound word wakvhvce from the Muscogee words wakv (meaning "cow" derived from the Spanish vaca) and the Muscogee word hvcce (meaning "river" or "creek").

A second etymology that has been suggested for the name is insisted on by speakers of Wichita, the language of the tribe that used to live in the area, but now lives mostly around Anadarko, Oklahoma. Wichita people claim the name comes from their word waks'ahe:ts'i . It means "fat wildcat".

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I am suddenly reminded that 30 years ago I purchased some land that I still own here in northern Georgia at a place called Wauka Mountain and the locals told me at the time that Wauka meant "low-lying cow". Maybe that is connected to Waxahachine in some way.

As Mr. Spock used to say on Star Trek, "Fascinating!"

Perhaps you have never said "Waxahachie, Texas" and, with God being your Helper, you never will.

I have just one thing to say about that.

It takes all kinds.

I am sure of one thing. Just as the Bible tells us nothing at all about cable television, Greek mythology tells us nothing at all about Waxahachie, Texas or why it is called The Gingerbread City.

Fot that matter, it doesn't tell us why Smyrna, Georgia, is called The Jonquil City either, but that is a topic for another day.

If this post of mine doesn't make sense to you, why should today be any different?

P.S. -- Today is our oldest grandchild's 25th birthday. Greek mythology didn't tell me that either.