Lord knows I should have made a stink about this before, but it’s been done: the people who run the subway have corrected their shameful mispronunciation of the neighborhood of Queens known as Newtown. They called it “Newton” (as in Sir Isaac). But even New Yorkers who have never been to the neighborhood have crossed over or seen the Newtown Creek on maps, and know it’s pronounced New Town.
It’s also the home of the Newtown Pippin, the local apple so praised by Jefferson. “They have no apples here,” he said, speaking of France, “to compare with our Newtown pippin.” More information about the original Big Apple here.
And if we bring back the proper outer-borough pronunciation of Kosciuzsko Street – KosskeeOSSko (with KozzeeOSSko an acceptable variant) – Peter Garrett has promised to come to New York and do his Kosciuzsko dance (seen at 2:53 in the video here – I think of this song every time I am at the station).
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The Two Man Gentlemen Band has a great Song about Newtown Creek and they get it right.
As for Kosciusko, I’m shocked that you consider the Anglo-pronunciation of the name as the “proper” one. With all due respect, I’m not going to trust Midnight Oil for pronunciation. It is a Polish name, so Ko-SHEW-Ko it should be (I may have botched it a bit).
I’m interested in Americanization of other names from English-speaking countries. These seem to be far more ingrained with our culture. It is odd to me to name a building or city after someone yet to pronounce the name differently than the person you are naming them after would (e.g. Car-NEG–ee v. CAR-na-gee or BAR-klee v. BURR-klee).
Naturalization of names I consider a high compliment: the people/places that have different pronunciations in different languages have them because they are important. Homer, Aristotle, Vergil, Horace, Caesar, Jesus, Confucius, Rome, Paris, etc. have English pronunciations, which is a sign of how important we think they are. And reversing that process of naturalization – “the law of Hobson-Jobson” – strikes me as terribly affected and counterproductive. About as useful as the Turkish government determining that “Istanbul” has to go as a pronunciation, because it’s a Greek name and should be pronounced Eez teen poleen. Honestly, if the MTA announcers say, “57th street, Car-NEG-ee Hall,” they should be mocked for their affectation. Or if they say “Oo-gno” for Huguenot or Ko-shoosko for Kosciuzsko or Peter Min-wee Plaza (for Minuit) or Krom Moerasje Park (Gramercy) when no residents actually speak that way.
If your standard is that the MTA should call things by the way that the residents call it, I’m not sure how you can say that we should name things differently than the person pronounces his own name — it sounds like you’re saying that the local rules apply. What is more local than someone’s own pronunciation of their own name.
While I don’t completely disagree with you, I find the issue far less black and white than you seem to. I obviously pronounce Detroit like my fellow Americans do. At the same point, some of these “naturalizations” are just mispronunciations (e.g. Carnegie). Others become identifiers to separate insiders from outsiders (e.g. Quincy v. Quinzy in Boston). This is the sort of ignorance and cliquish alienation that I never have taken you to support.
At any rate, I look forward to the day when I get invited to the ribbon cutting at the Koo-ner Library. I’m sure that you’ll take that as the highest of compliments.