You’re Not From Around Here, Are You?

It is easy to spot a newcomer to Houston by the way they mispronounce our mispronunciations.

I suppose that statement is probably true of any city you could name, but to a native Houstonian, a newcomer can be glaringly obvious – especially if the person speaking is on the air as a newscaster or a traffic reporter. Let me show you what I mean:

Just northwest of downtown, White Oak Drive hits a “Y” – If you veer left, you stay on White Oak, but stay to the right and you will head north on Beauchamp. If you were from New Orleans - or just about anywhere except Houston - that would be called Bow-shawm, with a soft accent on the second syllable, but native Houstonians know that it is Beech-um Street with a hard accent on the first.

A reporter who refers to the San Jacinto Battleground as Son (rhymes with Don) Ha-seen-to is either just in from California, or he is a young Chicano trying to make points with la Raza. Either way, someone will soon take him aside and explain that the Mexicans Lost that battle. Natives say San (rhymes with Dan) Juh-sin-tuh, or if we’re trying to be formal, Juh-sin-toe.

I grew up on the northwest side of town, but there are a couple streets in the Southeast part of the city that also make the newbies stand out. Anywhere else Almeda Road would be awl-made-uh (And they would probably spell it correctly – Alameda - like they do in Corpus Christi) but here it’s Owl-meed-uh. Neither one makes much sense as a street name – Alameda is Spanish for  boulevard, so basically the name means Street Street.

Also in Southeast Houston, you’ll find Fuqua Street. I’ve been told that it was named for a hero of the Texas Revolution, but I’m not sure which one. There was a Benjamin Fuqua who was one of the “Old Eighteen” - those who refused to give up the town cannon at the battle of Gonzales, and there’s Galba Fuqua who died at the Alamo just three days short of his seventeenth birthday.

In any case, Fuqua street is normally pronounced as Few-kway or Foo-kway, or even occasionally Few-kwuh. Several years ago, I heard a young TV reporter describe a fatal accident that occurred at the intersection of the Gulf Freeway and Fuqua Street. I can’t give you a pronunciation guide to what he said – I do try to keep my postings P-G – but if you’ve ever heard it, it was the second half of an exclamation, and  came right after mutha.