Waltham

Colleges and Universities A-Z Brandeis University
1

<p>How do you pronounce it? </p>

<p>Wall-thumb?</p>

<p>Wall-thAM?</p>

2

<p>Wal-thAM</p>

<p>I'm kind of a pronunciation nazi about some things and it kills me when there are people who have been here a year and still call it "Wal-thum".</p>

3

<p>So both syllables are stressed?</p>

4

<p>Yup. </p>

<p>Towns in the Boston all have wonky names. Take my hometown of Haverhill. It's pronounced Hay-vrul, but you'd never know from how it was spelled.</p>

5

<p>But the winner in the Massachusetts odd pronunciation contest really needs to be Worcester, which is pronounced "Wuss-TAH".</p>

<p>Tons of fun with that one. It's often misspelled as "Worchester", which leaves you wondering if it is Worcester or Dorchester that's being misspelled.</p>

<p>Two fun ones (for the Tufts students):
Somerville ("Sumville") which is the gateway to Medford ("Mefuhd")</p>

6

<p>Actually Somerville is pronounced Summaville. There's definitely an "ah" sound there. </p>

<p>There's also Leicester (Less-tah), Leominster (lemon-stah), and Shrewsbury (Shoos-bree). :)</p>

7

<p>My favorite is Gloucestire, pronounced GLAW-stah!</p>

8

<p>Quincy, pronounced QUIN-zee, not QUIN-see</p>

9

<p>I've also heard Dartmouth pronounced "DAHT-muth".</p>

<p>It's just crazy British pronunciations. Like "luh-bor-a-tory".</p>

10

<p>How else would you pronounce Dartmouth? I absolutely cringe when people say Dart-mouth. Ahh. Same with Falmouth for that matter.</p>

11

<p>Well, I'll go along with SilverClover on Leicester (where my wife was raised) and Leominster (where our dentist is located).</p>

<p>However, having been born and raised in Somerville, I will definitely NOT yield in how it's pronounced. Maybe the Barneys put an "ah" in there, but WE never did ! ;^)</p>

12

<p>Part of my family is from Somerville dating back a few hundred years and my boyfriend lived there for years, and they all pronounce it Summaville. Odd. Maybe one part of the city calls it one thing while the rest calls it another?</p>

13

<p>What, there's someplace other than Prospect Hill in the city ?</p>

<p>Joking aside, there are (more correctly, were) absolute differences by area, based on the ethnic makeup of the neighborhood. Mine was about 50% Italian (I was one of the few people whose grandparents spoke English at home) and 50% Irish. Made for some interesting slang.</p>