Itonically, there’s also a Ronks, PA.
There is a city in Minnesota named Wayzata. I do not know the origin of the name, but I assume they just took the leftover tiles from a game of Scrabble and threw them against a wall.
The pattern they landed in spelled out the new city’s name.
-Keviun
Which is the zip code zone where the Strasburg Rail Road is located.
Strasburg Rail Road
301 Gap Road
Ronks, PA 17572
The railroads station and shops are located just outside of Strasburg and just barely in the Ronks zip code.
And the other end of the line is Paradise…
Paradise, PA 17562
Sheldon
Both are unincorporated area/ census designated place/whatever with zip codes only. Paradise is in Paradise Township (Twp), and Ronks is in East Lampeter Twp, I believe.
Jsut like there’s no official municipality called “Hershey, PA”. It’s actually Derry Twp.
And don’t mix up Ronks with Rancks.
Actually the part of the Ronks zip code where the Strasburg Rail Road is in Strasburg Township, but you were close East Lampeter is just north of there, where the center of the Ronks community is.
Here in Maryland we actually have very few incorporated towns, and no local government below the county level outside of the incorporated towns. For example here in Harford County MD, not far real from Strasburg PA, we have three small incoporated towns, Havre de Grace (site of a famous battle in the war of 1812), Aberdeen (birthplace of baseball star Cal Ripken) and Bel Air, the county seat.
I live in the Havre de Grace postal zone, but outside the town limit.
PA has the township local government below the county government.
Sheldon
The WWII German bomber was a Dornier, developed as a mail plane…sure nuf.
A couple of my favourite English isms:
St John as a surname, not a place and Cholmondeley also a surname.
Or try Cirencester, lovely town, though the locals will chuckle if you ask how to get there.
How about Beaulieu?
There is a village with the name Slaithwaite. When spoken say Sloughwit.
Another with the name Appletreewick. Say Aptrick.
We do not want people to get lost do we? [(-D]
David
Yes, the town in Ohio is pronounced Lye-muh. Not sure about the locomotive manufacturer.
The locals in Louisville (Lew-ee-vill), KY pronounce it LEW-uh-vull. And, you have to speak it from sort of deep in your throat, like Elvis Presley would.
In my high school class, I grew up with and graduated with three unrelated kids (we think) with the same last name. Huebner.
One pronounced it Hewb-ner.
Another, Heeb-ner.
And the third, Hibb-ner.
I guess none of them liked Hebb-ner.
One kid was 6’4"“, the other about 5’6”, and the third was a girl, so it was easy to keep them straight.
And then there is Hurricane WV.
It is pronounced HER-UH-KIN by the locals.
Never call it HURRICANE!
We had a female engineer that came to work at my location for about a month.
Her last name was Kroch. She told me it was pronounced “Crook”. That was the best news I could have heard.
Whew.
That is the same way the farmers in the central-state cities here in Florida pronounce Hurricane, as in the storms.
-Kevin
A drive through rural Devon (is there an urban Devon?) I was convinced that nobody had changed the road signs back to their correct positions after 1940.
Asking for directions resulted in the need for a phrase book…and I was born in the UK.
LOL
“Wayzata” means “north shore” in the Dakota language; it’s located on the north shore of Lake Minnetonka.
It’s pronounced “why-ZET-ah” (where “zet” ryhmes with “bet” or “yet”) by the way.
Interesting. We have road named Wayzata that runs along the North side of the Caloosahatchee River in North Fort Myers. The name makes pretty good sense now.
According to your post, we are all pronouncing it wrong.
Thank you for the information.
-Kevin
If I remember correctly, the latter was Tennessee Tuxedo’s walrus friend.
For fun, how about the last name of a figure from the early New York Central days, Featherstonhaugh.
I still remember in 7th grade reading Henry V part 2 out loud and coming unprepared upon the list of place names he invokes before battle. It was NOT good for me …
The whole St John thing is rather interesting. Common use of St is an abbreviation for Saint, and no you aren’t going to confuse this Yank - Saint John, New Brunswick is not abbreviated, but St John’s Newfoundland is. When used as a person’s name, in Commonwealth countries it is usually pronounced “sin-jin” such as the alias Bond use in “A View to a Kill” - James St John Smythe. But American names like that - actress Jill St John, is “saint john”
Most of those New Jersey place names I am familiar with. Been to or through many, others are, if not served by the Reading, served by the CNJ.
It’s not just the suggestive names of the PA Dutch towns - but the actual way the roads lead - leaving Virginville (whic is a bit of an outlier being up here near me, and not a half hour to the south where the rest of them are) and heading to Paradise you do indeed pass through Intercourse, unless you make a wrong turn, which will tkae you to BB. Check the map.
Then there are the silly ones in Central PA - made ‘famous’ by Chuck Yungkirth’s model railroad. Gumstump and Snow Shoe are actual place names, not something he made up for model railroad purposes. In the depth of Winter, you probably need snow shoes to get around in Snow Shoe. Some poor sod probably tripped over the stump of a gum tree for the other.
–Randy
And then there’s Jersey Shore.
One of the original inspirations for my layout theme was from this little shortline in SW Indiana.
http://www.duboiscountyrr.com/
And if you don’t pronounce Dubois…Doo boys…you obviously ain’t from there.
There’s a Dubois PA, too. And no one says it the French way around there, either. Usually leave off the ‘s’ though, so just “du-boy”. Lot of French names out in north west PA - at the time of the French and Indian War, the French had many outpsts in the area.
–Randy
Easy to avoid being confused though, if you say you are going to jersey shore, it’s abvious you mean the town in PA. If you were going to the beaches in New Jersey, you’d say “down the shore”
–Randy