In NYC Houston rhyms with house (mouse, louse). but when we speak of the city in Texas that is Houston (the first sylable is hue (as in hue and cry) or cue. But we are consistent.. one way for the street, an other way for the city in texas..

but we are not alway so consistent.. as an article in this week's New Yorker points out, we haven't reach consensus on how to pronounce the names of a highway and two bridges..
http://www.newyorker.com/THE_TALK_OF_THE_TOWN/CURRENT/?TALK_DEPT_OF_ONCE_AND_FOR_ALL

It this a NYC thing? or do you have place about town (or country) that have two alternate (and equally valid) pronounciations?

Lived downtown in NYC for awhile...so I know Houston Street well, of troy!

In Atlantic City (NJ) they practice the same strange linguistic dichotomy with Arkansas Street...pronouncing it
'ARE--kansas' instead of ' ARE--can--saw' like the state...don't know why. Just a localism, I guess.

Which brings to mind this question...Why do we pronounce Kansas one way and Arkansas another? Anybody have the background on this one? ( I would assume it has to do with has to do with American Indian tribal language)

The territory was called Arkansaw. I don't know whether it's related to Kansas at all. As it was (I presume, without checking a map) originally part of Louisiana, it could have been spelt Arkansas in French and retained the pronunciation Arkansaw.

I recently figured out the Midwest's excuse for their insistent mispronunciation of my home state for which I depart anon... apparently there's some little burg in Wisconsin (I think) named Oregon, but they pronounce it or-uh-gone rather than the more melifluous (and right) or-@-gun.

Oooooooh it steams me when I hear or-uh-gone! Agreed, Geoff?

Oooooooh it steams me when I hear or-uh-gone! Agreed, Geoff?

I'm amused when I hear folks from Eye-O-Way calling it Aura-Gone. Of course, with the massive population influx, THEY'RE RIGHT!

Arkansas is a French variant of the Siouxian word Quapaw (also a tribe located in the area around the area where Kansas, Missouri, Oklahoma, and Arkansas almost meet, and, additionally, a town in northeastern Oklahoma, between Miami and Baxter Springs, Kansas). Quapaw means, literally, "downstream people." see http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/markansa.html

It seems that Arkansas retained the French pronunciation, while Kansas went with an English spin. The Arkansas River which runs from Colorado, though Kansas, Oklahoma and Arkansas, is pronouced like the state of Arkansas in Colorado, Oklahoma, and Arkansas, but while in Kansas, it is pronounced "Are Kansas". see http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=72271

and do "Ouichita" Louisiana (where my niece is currently on exchange with the National Parks service), and Wichita have anything in common apart from the same pronunciation (I think)?

Rod

Ouichita and Wichita

Dunno, but the early music group Ensemble Ouabache gets its name from the Wabash in Indiana.

do you have place about town (or country) that have two alternate (and equally valid) pronounciations?

We have a river in New Hampshire called the Piscataqua.
And a group of folk have a club with the same name. You have to have Colonial ancestry to join.
However:
The river is the Pis-CAT-a-kwah.

The club is the Pis-cuh-TOCK-wah.

Odd that both pronunciations supply a gratuitous S (???)

Picataqua

We had a town adjacent to Plainfield (where I grew up) in Central New Jersey called Piscataway , pronounced Pis--CAT--a-way. You can imagine the mispronunciations, both intentional and accidental, that folks inflicted on that. But I'm wondering, wow, if it has any relation to Picataqua since the pronunciations are so similar? The tribe in this area was the Leni Lenape (more properly pronounced "Len--EYE LEN-uh-pee" not the commonly heard "Lenny Le--NAP--ee"...though many variations) of the Delaware Nation. Was Picataqua a Mohegan name? And were the tribal languages closely related thoughout the Eastern tribes? And was this the case (or not) in other regions of North America as well?

And, by the way, there is a small hamlet just "offshore" (which, in South Jersey dialect means "on the mainland"
not "out to sea," especially among us barrier-islanders) from our barrier island called Rio Grande. After over 27 years of involvement in this area I'm just finding out that once the locals pronounced it RYE-o Grande . No one seems to know why, or why and when the change was made either. Both forms pronounce Grande as "Grand."

Thanks David-I didn't have a decent map-- and couldn't remeber how to spell the Piscataway in NJ-- I think NJ has some of the most interesting (and strange ) place name in any of the states-- (not the NY or CT or even Maine are lacking strange place names...)
Mahwah
Ho-Ho-Cus
Hoboken
Hackensack (A riot at the 7-11?)
Matawan
Lackawana
Parsipany

I grew up visiting reletives in NJ and these place name still sound strange.. and at time comical.

a gratuitous S
Thanks for the gentle hint on Piscataqua, AnnaS. I went back and corrected it!
Of course I paid no attention to Spellwrecker ... ouch!

Of course I paid no attention to Spellwrecker

Oh, yeah! Like Spellwrecker is going to recognize Piscataqua.

(For the Record, Ænigma suggests Piscataway for Piscataqua and picayune for Picataqua)

This reminds me of an election in Vermont several years ago. The Republican Party had put an imported, career politician up against Dem. Pat Leahy for the US Senate seat, so some local Vermonters convinced Fred Tuttle, a 70-some-year-old dairy farmer to run against this scalawag (carpetbagger?) in the Republican primary. In one of their debates Fred handed this guy (I'll remember his name sometime) a list of Vermont cities and towns and asked him to read it. The list included:

Charlotte (pron. shar-LOT)
Barre (BEAR-ry (kinda))
Berlin (BER-lin)
Vergennes (ver-JENZ)
and Randolph (RAN-doff, no L)

The guy flubbed 'em all and Fred won the primary. He lost to Leahy (but no one really had a chance against him). You still see "Spread Fred" bumper stickers around. Just goes to show you how important being local is to Vermonters.

Great story, Flatlander. Charlotte, Michigan, is also pronounced "shar-LOT," and its pronunciation is one of the local screening devices. Others are "Okemos" (OH-kuh-mus), "Aurelius" (Au-REE-lee-us), and Onondaga (On-un-DAY-gah).

Re: Onondaga (On-un-DAY-gah).

another one of the place name in Michigan that is also found in NY-- Until you pointed it out-- i had never noticed. not that i have spent much time in Michigan--a weekend in Kalamazoo some 30 years ago-- and several hours in "lay overs" at airports is about it.

Here's some more New Jersey names I was going to add for you, of troy, before my software crashed:

Rancocas; Manasquan; Musconetcong; Metedeconk; Mulhockaway; Hopatcong; Kittatinny (Mountains--yes, folks, there are actually mountains in the Northwestern section of New Jersey!...now called the Skylands: Get off the turnpike!!); Piccatinny. Many of these are rivers and lakes I know well (I'm a trout fisherman...yes, folks, there are actually trout in New Jersey!...Get off the turnpike!!)

On the other hand, "Who wants a house out in Hackensack/Is that all you get for your money?" --Billy Joel

Whitman will have you believe that Jersey is the "garden state"-- Ha--
we all know NJ has more superfund sites than California has lawyers!

actually he is right-- there are some beautiful parts of NJ, and mountains, and rivers, lakes and streams

And then there are the other sections of NJ, such as Secaucus, which you always knew you were transiting in former times from the stench arising from the pig farms of Farmer Henry Krajewski, perennial presidential candidate of the Communist Party. Both Krajewski and the pig farms are now gone, the latter paved over for the Meadowlands Complex, supposed to be the final resting place of Jimmy Hoffa (plus ça change ...)

On second thought, I don't want to seem to be too hard on NJ. There is one good thing about it -- it's against the law there to pump your own gas. When you buy gas in NJ, someone comes and pumps it for you, just like they used to in the dear dead days gone by, although they don't check your oil and tires or wash the windshield, and they don't wear uniforms with those little black leather bow ties.

You want scenery *and* enforced laziness at the pump, Bob? Might I suggest Oregon, the best of both worlds...

But does it have great place names-- that are funny sounding too? Ho Ho kus to you too!

Secaucus

Growing up in a tree-lined suburb in Union County (not far from that microcosm in immediate proximity to New York City where the swamp/factory stench cliche does exist), we, too, made regular jokes about "you smell like you're from Secuacus" or "you smell like the pig farms in Secuacus". Pig farms have a tendency to smell that way even if they're in a pristine state like Montana! The original Saturday Night Live blasted us with their "stench over in Jersey" jokes in the '70s, and everybody bought that image hook, line, + sinker! But it's just that little dot in the extreme Northeast corner of the state! Again...Get off the turnpike!

And, personally, I think Jimmy Hoffa wound up in the meat packing plants in Newark...salami or head cheese anyone?

And if somebody says Joisey I'll scream!