Blue Highways: A Journey into America

by William Least Heat-Moon

AN Englishman once had a good laugh when I asked how far it was to Chichester, a name I hadn’t come close to pronouncing properly. I tried three other ways and still didn’t get it right. He was in stitches. “Oh, you Yanks just slay me.” “Okay, pal,” I said. “Tell me the body of water Seattle is on. That ought to be easy—it’s only five letters.” I started to spell it. “I can spell it, mate. P-u-g-e-t. And I’ll pronounce it for you too. PUG-it.” I laughed and he tried, “Poo-GET.” More laughter made him desperate, so he tried a little French, the last resort of the English: “Pooh-ZHAY.” “Nope. It’s PEW-jit. You Limeys just kill me.” “Look,” he said, “all you have to do to pronounce Chichester is soften the vowels and swallow more than you say.” The English must do well in Rhode Island, what with all the softening and swallowing necessary to pronounce the descriptive Algonquian place names: Chepiwanoxet, Annaquatucket, Usquepaugh, Woonasquatucket, Nannaquaket, Quonochontaug, Quanatumpic (if you like the letter q, you’ll love Little Rhody of the big names). Someone once said that if Niagara Falls were in Rhode Island, the English settlers would have pronounced it “Niffuls.” There are other names here, thank heavens, just as distinctive but still pronounceable. Take, for example, the meandering county roads that most states would identify by numbers or letters: Willie Woodhead Road, Widow Sweets Road, Hog House Hill Road, Molasses Hazard Road, Biscuit City Road, Boom Bridge Road...