OK, so there’s Kansas which we pronounce “can-sas”. But then there’s Arkansas which we pronounce “ar-can-saw” despite the fact it’s spelled like it should be pronounced “ar-can-sas”. Or, perhaps we should pronounce Kansas “can-saw”?

English is stupid.

@patrickrhone The Arkansas River in Kansas is pronounced “Ar-can-sas”…at least they’re consistent?

@bethanyh God bless them! At least someone cares about this besides me.

@patrickrhone The people of Kansas pronounce Arkansas as “ar-can-sas” because it is the 2nd most hated state behind Missouri, which they pronounce as “misery”. At least some folks did when I was growing up there in the 1980s and 1990s.

@joelhamill This is the way.

@patrickrhone fell down a rabbit hole looking into this, and the best I can do to summarize my findings is: this isn’t one of those “English is a stupid language” things, its more one of those “English-speaking people are stupid” things. It’s a big tangle of words indigenous people use for themselves and each other and the white people injecting themselves into the whole thing having no idea whats going on.

@patrickrhone blame the french - they are the ones that called arkansas - ar-kan-saw - and this isn’t just because I am English.

@restlesslens two different European nations - not just ‘white folk’ - it’s like wondering why Africa isn’t on the list of countries in a drop down.

@JohnPhilpin I think the lesson here is that it all looks and sounds (inaccurately) the same from the other side of an ocean. 🙂

@JohnPhilpin it’s really interesting: the French used the (mispronounced) Algonquian word for the people living in the region, not the local word, because the French encountered Algonquian-speaking peoples first. Later, the Americans encountered the local Siouan-speaking people and mispronounced their name for themselves. So yeah, lots of confusion of languages to go around!