Especially for the citizens of STAN-ton, Fred-RICKS-burg, and BEYOON-a VIST-a, and other parts of the Commmonwealth.
Nevadans are angry.
More specifically, nev-VAD-ahns (said with the long ‘a’ in cat) are angry at being called ne-VAH-duns:
Westerners generally pronounce the state’s name correctly, but others inadvertently show disrespect when they can’t get it right, Rocha said.
“This onslaught has got Nevadans to the breaking point and they’re not going to take it anymore,” he said. “You need to pronounce it the way we do.”
For our more erudite readers, you can guess what is coming next:
Daniel Enrique Perez, professor of Spanish at the University of Nevada, Reno, said Easterners’ mispronunciation of Nevada actually is closer to the original Spanish pronunciation. Nevada derives from the Spanish verb “nevar,” which means “to snow,” and was possibly Anglicized by 19th century miners, he said.
That still doesn’t excuse transplanted Yankees from mispronouncing our cities and towns in Virginia. Besides, it’s not like we Virginians have ever mispronounced anything native to these United States of am-UR-ca before, right?