
How do you pronounce Detroit? (2013) - evo_9
https://glossographia.wordpress.com/2013/07/21/how-do-you-pronounce-detroit/
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alricb
You use the French pronunciation, [detʁwɑ], obviously. Although when it was
founded they might have pronounced [detʀwe].

Edit: but note that in English I would use an English pronunciation.

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pygy_
[https://translate.google.com/#fr/en/D%C3%A9troit](https://translate.google.com/#fr/en/D%C3%A9troit)
for the curious.

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evo_9
I grew up next to a canadian family (the Bryants) and the dad worked as a
penalty box time keeper for the NHL. I played hockey with his son for years,
and went to games regularly with him and his dad; he would drop us off at
their seats about 15 rows behind the penalty boxes, and head down ‘work’. He’d
often bring home broken sticks - like Ken Dryden’s one game. I also watched
'Hockey Night in Canada' religiously and the announcers always pronounced it
the 4th way; I think this is why I pronounce it the fourth way myself, I heard
it said by my friend and his dad and those classic CBC announcers more than
anyone else I knew.

De-TROY-it!

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NittLion78
I only pronounce it by the original French day-TWAH.

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danans
Growing up in the Detroit area, I always associated the DEE-troit
pronunciation with exclamations of a hyper-local flavor, like an announcer at
an (american) football game saying "DEE-troit Lions!", also with fans chanting
at sports games: "DEE-troit! DEE-troit!". I actually can't think of any other
way to chant it.

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Brendinooo
I went to high school in a city called Latrobe, and while most outsiders
pronounce it lah-TROBE, plenty of natives (including myself) tend to call it
LAY-trobe. Interesting to see Detroit have some similar variants.

And to all the day-TWAH folk in here - better stay away from Western PA -
DuBois (DOO-boys) and North Versailles (ver-sails) would drive you nuts!

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ctab
The LAY-trobe phenomenon is real and something that outsiders have picked up
on in my speaking (as a fellow Latrobean) after I moved away. My theory is
that Latrobe as an adjective is "LAY-trobe" and the noun pronunciation is
"lah-TROBE"; not really sure if that holds up to scrutiny though.

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ams6110
The DEE-troit variant is what I've commonly heard from more rural southern
dialects also (a/k/a "redneck" or country)

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analog31
When I lived in Texas for a while, I was introduced to IN-surance.

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sgentle
I recently discovered that some Americans say COM-ponent (I say com-PON-ent -
same sounds, different emphasis). Not sure how regional it is.

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rmason
Native Detroiter and I've heard all these pronunciations. But I must object to
Don Cherry referred to as a blowhard but he is most definitely a character.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W7PzS1A08Wg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W7PzS1A08Wg)

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analog31
While we're on the subject, there are a lot of interesting names in the
Detroit area. There's a street called Livernois Avenue, which is pronounced
Liver-Noise, and a town of Milan, that's pronounced MY-lan. I wonder if this
is just the result of the melting pot.

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amyjess
Well, that's interesting.

I'm not from Detroit -- in fact, I've never been there, and I don't have any
family there either, but I've always pronounced it /ˈdiˌtɹɔɪt/, which
according to the article is an uncommon pronunciation only used by locals.

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ZenoArrow
I can't read phonetic spellings, do you know of any audio samples for the
pronunciations?

This video has the pronunciation I use, I don't know if that's the 'locals
only' one or not:

[https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=UfsmfJ_fYMU](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=UfsmfJ_fYMU)

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zrail
I've lived in the Detroit area for a few years and that's basically how I say
it, except without the "WHAT" suffix.

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jdfellow
I spent a couple of years in Ontario, including a few months in Sarnia (about
an hour and a half north of Detroit), and I certainly heard a lot of the "de-
TROY-it" variant. I found it amusing.

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radicalbyte
I'm British so my natural pronunciation would be very close to the third
example.

However I've watched enough 30 Rock to know that the correct pronunciation is
a slow "deeeTROIT".

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swamp40
My guess is that after saying it for the millionth time, some locals just
naturally speed up their conversation by shortening it to the two-syllable
version, di-TRITE.

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afgho
like this
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uH7u1ZeRK34](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uH7u1ZeRK34)

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nv-vn
Interesting. The most common pronunciation I've heard was something like
"deeTROIT".

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wernercd
"Shhhh-eeet-hole"

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grubles
Lived in Indiana as a kid until 13 years old. I pronounce it Deh-troit.

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chasing
Duh-TRERT.

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anthk
As in Spanish:

Day-troit .

