However, I have had one tiny quibble--and when I say tiny, I mean tiny. It's about one word. One single word.
When I was a kid growing up in Montana, my dad always pronounced Absaroka as Ab-SOHR-kee. Three syllables, not four. When I started watching Longmire, it bothered me a bit that everyone on the show says AB-sah-RO-ka when they're talking about the county in which the series is set. It didn't bother me enough to stop watching or anything silly like that, but it was always there niggling at me.
Well, yeah.
Frankly, it wouldn't have been the first word he pronounced wrong. He spent his entire life putting the "T" in often. When I said it the way he did at school, I got a mighty scolding and some shaming from a teacher. And then there was the word chiropractor, which Dad always, somehow, pronounced CHOIRpractor, as if the doctor also led the singers at church, which was kind of funny since Dad loved listening to Mom, my sister and me pay the piano, but couldn't carry a tune himself.
Through three seasons of Longmire (I haven't started the 4th yet.) I've wondered if Dad just had it wrong. But the other day, while procrastinating, I came across a Montana pronunciation guide put out by the Billings Gazette (the trusted newspaper of my youth) in which the mystery is finally solved.
In Montana (I can't speak for Wyomingites) the correct pronunciation of Absarokee/Absaroka is, indeed, Ab-SOHR-kee or Ab-SOHR-ka, not AB-sah-RO-kuh.
There! My dad was right. Phew.
I have to admit, it makes my heart happy to find out that, at least for the place we lived at the time, my dad nailed it. And now that I know that, Walt and Henry and Branch and the rest can pronounce it any old way they want. It won't bother me a bit.
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1 comment:
Well, you’re part right. The mountain range is the Absaroka Range, pronounced ab SOHR ka. The Montana town is Absarokee, pronounced Ab SOHR key. It’s thought that when someone was writing down the name of the town, obviously named after the mountains, they didn’t close the loops on the final a, making it look like ee, and it got put in the official record that way, and remains so to this day. We still call the mountains the Ab SOHR kas. No one in Montana or Wyoming would ever say Ab sar OH ka. That bothers me about Longmire as well. I think that if you’re going to make a film about Wyoming or Montana, you ought to film it in Montana or Wyoming. That way, the guy in the food truck can tell you how to pronounce things.
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