MADISON, WIS. — Even for native Cheeseheads, speaking like a local can be a linguistic nightmare.
Just ask radio reporter Jackie Johnson, who grew up in Wisconsin. On the air, she has butchered the proper inflection for "Chequamegon" National Forest, and struggled to sound out town names like "Oconomowoc." Her friends have garbled the pronunciation of "Lake Butte des Morts," and gotten tongue-tied over some of the state's Native American tribes.
Even her sources have trouble: Voters here in the state capital have struggled so much with saying the mayor's name -- Dave Cieslewicz -- that his 2003 campaign lawn signs spelled it out phonetically.
"People even say the state name wrong: They call it 'Wes-consin' all the time and it annoys me each time I hear it," said Johnson, who reports on politics for the statewide Wisconsin Radio Network. "I figured that I can't be the only one who has this problem and is secretly embarrassed."
So, in her off-hours, the broadcaster created MissPronouncer.com, a website that provides free audio files of the correct pronunciations of more than 190 Wisconsin cities, 400 villages and nearly 1,300 towns.
MissPronouncer also gives an oral guide through a quagmire of high-profile names, including scores of judges, state officials and sports celebrities.
While researching for the site, she learned that many names were bestowed by Scandinavian, Polish, German and Irish immigrants, who were drawn to the region's farming, mining and lumber industries. Other names were rooted in the rich Native American heritage of the region -- it is home to 11 of the 12 tribes of the Great Lakes Inter-Tribal Council.
The result is family names drawn from the languages of immigrants and local pronunciations of towns thickened by regional accents.
"The more people I talk to throughout the state, the more I realized everyone takes ownership and pride in their town names," Johnson said. "They really care about it, its history and its pronunciation."
The site, launched in January with little fanfare, has built such a strong grass-roots following among language lovers that Gov. James E. Doyle awarded Johnson a special commendation last week for her effort to promote proper pronunciation.
Praising Johnson for protecting her home state "from verbal annihilation," Doyle suggested that "it behooves visitors and Wisconsinites alike to take advantage of MissPronouncer .com's expertise and acquaint -- or reacquaint -- themselves with the language before venturing into the verbal minefields of the great state of Wisconsin."
