Saturday, March 01, 2008

Learn to Speak Like a Local

Inspired by this Tomato Nation post...

Dear Mainlanders:

We promised we would never scream at you if you ever got any of our place names wrong. That said:

1) It's O-A-hoo, not WA-hoo.

2) "AH-la Mo-WAH-na," not "A La Mona."

3) The next time somebody mentions "Eva Beach" to you, remember that they are not referring to any person in particular... and the buses don't go to her house, either.

4) We'll definitely know that you're a tourist when you keep telling people that you're going to Kap-yah-lah-nee Boulevard.

5) "La-na-ee" is the island; "La-nye" is your front porch.

And we won't take these against you if you don't take these against us:

1) "Prah-aw-ree-tee."

2) "IRK-a-tay-ted."

3) Dropping the last R, as in "braddah," "buggah," and "rubbah slippahs."

4) Not being able to agree on a proper spelling for the colloquial pronunciations of "brother" and "lickings," for that matter.

Also, we apologize for those of you who have been screamed at by certain locals for pronouncing our home state as "Ha-why" and not "Ha-vie-ee," the way it was intended by those who are of this land.

And apropos of nothing: Pronouncing the word "tita" phonetically may get you kisses and hugs from ladies of a certain age in the Filipino community, but use the same pronunciation around certain populations where Hawaiians and Portuguese last names are common, and you'll definitely learn the hard way why you should have pronounced it as "tidduh" in the first place.

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