Arkansas, Arkansaw
Jenni from Kansas wrote the following on her blog, Prairie Air, last week, and I loved it.
From Brick’s, Ark City:
(She’s talking about traveling to her daughter’s youth basketball tournaments in south central Kansas.)
The second to last tournament was held in Arkansas City. That’s Ark City to folks ’round these parts, and boy am I glad. After living in Kansas for almost 20 years, the word Arkansas now sounds wrong to me no matter how it’s pronounced. (Ar-kan-saw for the state, Ar-kan-zes for any place name within Kansas–and people are serious about this pronunciation thing.) Ark City is just so much easier to say.
I loved Jenni’s line: “… the word Arkansas now sounds wrong to me no matter how it’s pronounced.”
Personally, I kind of like how Kansas has made the word Arkansas our own. I grew up a mile from the ArKANsas River, so the pronunciation comes naturally to me, but I get a bit confused in Colorado or Oklahoma where people pronounce the river like the state.
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