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I won't be in Rocky Mount this weekend but I'll be close by and I hope to see a lot of my friends from that fine city. I will be performing in Tarboro at Edgecombe Community College with my Celtic-fusion band Lorica in a special St. Patrick's Day show. Tarboro is pretty easy to pronounce unless you're from Brooklyn. Rocky Mount is another matter.
A viewer left me a voice message the other day saying: "Ya'll folks in the media need to learn how to say Rocky Mount correctly." The caller complained that many newscasters put the wrong emphasis on the two words.
I may be incorrect but I was told early in my career that Rocky Mount is pronounced with equal emphasis on each word. You say it as if it were just one word instead of two. The criticism comes when people put extra stress on ROCKY. There's probably a good reason for that. Historian William Powell says the city got its name for the rocky mounds and ledges on the falls of the Tar River.
I should probably call famous Rocky Mount native Tom Suiter to get him to weigh in on this but he is asleep as I write this.
Rocky Mount natives? Please settle this debate with your blog entries.
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"People are always asking me where to take vacation. What’s a cool place? What’s the most scenic drive?" WRAL News Anchor Bill Leslie attempts to answer those questions and others in his Carolina Conversations blog.
How Do You Pronounce "Rocky Mount?"
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March 15, 2007 10:31 a.m.
March 15, 2007 7:57 a.m.
Which, oddly, gets pronounced with a mystery T in there
For a sound like Wiltson....
Why is that???
Bill, that deserves a post from you on its own... :-)
March 14, 2007 11:57 p.m.
March 14, 2007 11:44 p.m.
March 14, 2007 10:15 p.m.
March 14, 2007 8:53 p.m.
Kure Beach is most definitely CURE-ee.
Topsail is TopSUL, but if I were trying to sell an over-priced, soon-to-be-hurricane-food house out there to an out-of-towner, I'd probably go with Top-Sail. :)
March 14, 2007 7:50 p.m.
March 14, 2007 6:14 p.m.
What I want cleared up is Kure Beach. You know, between Carolina Beach and Fort Fisher. My aunt had a home there when I was a kid, right across from the Trading Post at the entry posts to Ft. Fisher, and have always called it CURE-ee (long e's, 2 syllables). And in the news I hear it pronounced KERR, CURE, and all sorts of other ways. What say y'all?
At least we seem to have all the local newscasters pronouncing my current hometown properly, Angier (Ann-Ger). More than once in the 90s when watching the news, I heard several broadcasters/reporters pronounce it like it's a country (Ann-Jeer). lol
Where's all the folks from Chalybeate Springs? They have a great one for pronouncing too... (KUH-lib-it Springs is how the folks at the convenience store there say it...).
March 14, 2007 5:26 p.m.
Vickie - Rocky Mount, NC
March 14, 2007 5:15 p.m.