Ok this might sound stupid but how exactly does one accurately pronounce “Rensselaer”?
[Here’s what one scholar of the Old Dutch says about it;](You say RENseler, I say renseLAR)
*"Let’s start with Rensselaer. Would it be Ren-suh-LEER or REN-sa-ler?
Neither, Venema said. The Dutch would say Ren-sa-LAR – with the last syllable rhyming with “car,” but with an extended “a” sound: The ae, an archaic spelling replaced by an aa in modern Dutch, indicates that the vowel sound should be drawn out."*
In NY, we pronounce it Ren-suh-LEER. Of course, New York also has a town called Monticello (which we pronounce Mon-ti-CELL-oh). Southerners pronounce it Mon-ti-CHEL-oh, so what do we know. But when in Rome…
Now if I could just figure out how to say the nearby town watervliet
@Sunnydaydream You might try looking at the link I posted.
WAW-ter-vleet
My friends who went their and their friends referred to it as “REN-sell-ear”, rather quickly.
But they only went there…