It’s the same thing with Altamonte Springs. I’ve heard AL-ta-mont, ALL-ta-monte, and Al-ta-MONTIE.
Even Lake Monroe is occasional spoken as MON-roe, with the accent on the first syllable.
Because of all these variations floating around, I’d like to ask your help. I’d like to develop a pronunciation guide for those often-mangled words around the community.
I’d bet you’ve also heard multiple pronunciations for some persons, places and things, too, so maybe it is time to develop this guide, both for newcomers and even the old-timers who don’t know that it is supposed to be the Flor-i-dan Aquifer, not Flor-ID-ian. (It is spelled Floridan – Florida with an “N” at the end.)
So what have you heard? (And just how is it correctly pronounced?)
Please send me your suggestions at my address below by the end of the year so we can develop the guide to share with everyone.
As an reminder: We published the Herald’s local stylebook a while back for the community to use. Check it out on our MySanfordHerald.com website.
‘Heard in a day’
Author and radio entertainer Garrison Keillor composes The Writer’s Almanac, an online site about writers and their compositions.
On Monday, his daily entry included a birthday look at lyricist Ira Gershwin, who penned the words to many of his brother George’s compositions, which are some of the most beloved songs of the 1920s and 30s, such as “Summertime,” "They Can't Take That Away From Me," "Let's Call the Whole Thing Off," and "I Got Rhythm."
Ira – the writer – kept a detailed diary. In one entry, Keillor pointed out, Gershwin wrote: "Sniffed in a day: Onions, whiskey, garbage, fur and camphor balls, fountain pen ink, fresh newspapers.”
But the entry that interested me was: “Heard in a day: An elevator's purr, telephone's ring, telephone's buzz, a baby's moans, a shout of delight, a screech from a 'flat wheel,' hoarse honks, a hoarse voice, a tinkle, a match scratch on sandpaper, a deep resounding boom of dynamiting in the impending subway, iron hooks on the gutter."
I don’t keep a diary, but the day after I read this about Gershwin, I thought I’d try to be more aware of the sounds of Sanford.
I didn’t notice some of my favorites that day – such as the Rivership Romance blowing its horn as it paddles across the St. Johns River, and the passing trains that can be heard in the nighttime distance – but here’s a few others that were “Heard in a day”: a tinkling wind chime, a screen door slamming behind me, birds chirping before dawn, a cereal bowl tapped by a spoon, a noisy out-of-date printer clattering in the office, gurgling of a water cooler, a single-engine airplane whining overhead, the Christmas song “Silent Night” sung in the original German.
Many of the sounds took me back in time. Try it yourself.
Overheard in a park
I recently saw a family checking out the historic trees and their markers in Sanford’s Touhy Park, sometimes called Tree Park because it contains trees from historic sites around the country, such as the Alamo, Ellis Island and Monticello.
The parents were strolling around the park as their son, about 8 or 9, excitedly ran ahead from one tree to the next and shouted: “Where’s this one from?”
I love seeing people explore the neighborhood park on 6th Street appropriately between Elm and Myrtle avenues, which is a confluence of history and nature. But it is unfortunate that some of the trees – identified on a map and with stone markers – are gone or they have been replaced by others that may not be from the original historic site – but are still indicated as such.
I hope that 2011 will be the year Sanford can refocus on the historic grove and nurture it back into shape.
Comments can be sent to Herald publisher Gene Kruckemyer at GKruckemyer@MySanfordHerald.com.