Please Stop Butchering The Names Of These New Jersey Towns
It's the time of year here at the Jersey Shore, when all those tourists visit our little piece of paradise, use our beaches, support our favorite restaurants, and inadvertently butcher our town names.
Not every town can be a Point Pleasant, or a Belmar, or a Seaside. Those town names pose exactly zero challenges.
But other towns pay the price for their more intricate pronunciations. Here are the five most mispronounced Brown names in Monmouth & Ocean Counties.
Mantoloking - No, it's not Man-TAH-luh-king, or Man-tuh-LOCK-ing, but even more commonly, most people just drop the last letter and we're left with Mantolokin. This town is too beautiful to be mispronounced.
Forked River. The first word is not a verb. The town is not getting "forked". If you've lived here for more than a minute, you know it's Fork-ID river. Please never say it the other way again.
Manalapan. There is no kitchen item mentioned in the name of this town. How many times have you heard Muh-nah-luh-PAN. It hurts my ears. Just put a pin in it. Muh-nah-luh-PIN. Thank you.
Avon-by-the-Sea. We're not selling makeup here. If you want makeup, call A-von with a long A. If you want a beautiful, serene beach town, you'd go to Avon with a short A.
Barnegat. Why do some people insist on Bar-nuh-GAT (rhymes with cat)? On second thought, I think we need to blame the pronunciation on this one. If you had never heard it out loud, you might say the same thing.
If you know someone who is visiting the area this summer, you might want to share this with them. Let them know we appreciate their love of our area and their support for our local businesses, but we want to give them an edge over all the other tourists. Tell them it's like GPS for the mouth.
