mccain pronounces Washington as WARshington. I wonder why?

[Philosoraptor]

My freinds, when governer palin and I are elected in 49 days, we'll make sure its not business as usual in WARshington.

[monmouth]

1. My mother used to say Chicargo, drove me nuts!!..Don't know why..n/t

[Philosoraptor]

4. That would make me go totally nuke ya ler

[AvaMae]

18. pronounces Washington Warshington

I'm sure, just like why he's not computer literate, its due to his years of captivity and
torure...

[Vickers]

2. My grandma was always talking about "warshing" the clothes.

Tragically, she was never a POW.

:(

[kansasblue]

3. That's a typical pronunciation..

I hear it a lot in the midwest.

Warsh the car..

Like Cubar (Cuba)

[Philosoraptor]

6. You hear that a lot in Muh zurrah

[justiceischeap]

16. Took me a long time to lose my Muh Zurrah accent and not adopt a PA Dutch one

I think I'm pretty accent free. :)

[Skittles]

34. it's a mispronounciation

[SharonAnn]

5. The hillbilly ticket! She says they'll "fixin' some things", he says WaRshington.

Listening to her this AM,

"Listen, guys and gals" and then dropping "g's" right and left, I said to my husband that it was the "Hillbilly ticket".

What bozos.

[Lancer]

9. I think it's mostly a Midwestern thing.

I have known several people from the same area -- right where Ohio and Pennsylvania meet at that little spike -- who say "these clothes needs washed," or "this room needs painted." Never heard that construction anywhere else.

[ShortnFiery]

24. It is IMO also a Midwestern thing "worsh" but my husband, from New Orleans teases me about it

as I often tease him about his penchant for pronouncing words with "a" as instead, ending in "er."

Be thankful that our regional differences only involve pronunciation?

On Edit: Sorry, it's McCain who says that? Hum, no comment. :shrug:

[gateley]

7. My mom -- Boston -- pronounced khaki as car key.

But she totally blew off the r's when they were needed. Family friends, the WARlings, were the Wahlings, according to Helen.

[Canuckistanian]

35. I thought that was just the Canadian pronunciation

Or rather, the British pronunciation.

[Contrary1]

8. You hear it pronounced that way all the time here in Indiana...

McCain probably just heard it that way growing up.

[MzNov]

10. Oh I just hate that!

I have relatives in PA who say Warshington. gaaaaack

[hvn_nbr_2]

13. I grew up in PA and always said it that way.

You warsh your hands before meals, you warsh the car, and the capital is Warshington. Oh, yeah, George Warshington was the father of his country too.

[MzNov]

27. I did too. Half the people I know say "wash" half say "warsh"

very interesting with the dialects....

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

11. "WARshington"? Seems appropriate consinder the "defense" budget.

[WilliamPitt]

12. Old southern pronunciation

"Warsh-none" was the common pronunciation, especially in the 19th century.

[SeattleGirl]

14. Lots of people do that.

And being a resident of Washington state, it drives me nuts.

[sentelle]

32. as a more recent transplant to the pacific NW

I am always amused that its 'warshington' but the town is not 'Brothell'

Oops gotta get on a ferry

[tkmorris]

15. My Mom used to pronounce it that way.

I did too for awhile I suppose. I was born there, Mom can from rural Virginia. I don't see anything particularly unusual in this.

[LeftinOH]

17. Some folks here in Ohio still "worsh" their clothes....n/t

[Odin2005]

19. It's a dialect thing. Probably something he picked up in Northern Virginia.

[firedupdem]

20. I'm orginally from Chicago and Imust say I'm guilty of that too.

At least I'm not a dirtbag repig!

[bowens43]

21. so does most of my familiy

it's sw Pennsylvania thing.....

[scorpiogirl]

22. My in-laws pronounce it that way too

Both were born and raised in the SF bay area. It's beyond annoying!

[MadHound]

23. It's an accent thing,

I pronounce it the same way, along with warsh for wash also. Sorry we all don't speak the Massachusetts version of English.

[Skittles]

33. it is a mispronunciation no matter where you are

[MadHound]

36. Oh please, all dialects are about mispronunciations

And virtually everybody has some idiomatic idiosyncrasy. Nobody, but nobody in this country speaks English correctly, so please, get off the high horse.

We're a dialectical society, which means that we're all mangling the Queen's English:eyes:

[Skittles]

37. THERE IS NO 'R' IN THE WORD WASH

P E R I O D

[MadHound]

38. Well d'uh, of course there isn't

But there is an R in many words, yet if you live in Boston, you couldn't tell. Do you go up to Bostonians and yell at them about the missing R?

It is a dialect thing, something that everybody has. Deal with it. Besides, it's not like having some internet post scream at me is going to change anything. It is a regional accent, I'm sure that you have one that we could nit pick over to. But whatever you scream about in all caps isn't going to change my accent, so deal with it. Or don't, it doesn't matter.

Warsh, warsh, warsh warsh. . .

[Diane R]

25. It's often 'Warshington' in Washington state, too.

[Dukkha]

26. my dad says warsh all the time

be sure to warsh your hands! he'd say

[tjwash]

28. That's Pennsylvania speak...you warsh the deeshes in the deeshwarsher.

I have a million relatives and friends in PA, and they all talk like that.

Unless you're in Philly, and "youse de one with de accent you jagoff"

Sorry. You propelled me back home for a second....

[Igel]

29. It's Midlands dialect.

Google "Midlands dialect map" and you're likely to
find where the dialect group's spoken--Delaware and Jersey
through to Oklahoma, a wide band roughly matching migration
patterns in the early-mid 1800s.  

The dialect's spread and mixed outside of its traditional
territory quite a bit.  

McCain could have picked it up from N. Virginia, or while in
Annapolis, or from his parents.  Hard to know.

As with other things, note that American English has quite a
bit of dialectal diversity, most of which doesn't matter in
the least for communication except those who are blindly
prescriptivist.  From Kennedy and Kerry's r-less codas, to
Carter's "nukyulah" to FDR's annoying pronunciation,
and the masses of Westerners who can't distinguish
"cot" and "caught", we've seen a lot of
variation.  Obama lapses into his non-native adult-acquired
AAEV-tinged speech when needed for group-identification
purposes; Palin half-tenses what most Americans pronounce as
lax [I] ('pin', 'sincere').  I'd expect Biden to say
"warsh", unless he's following strictly
prescriptivist standards--giving his father's striving for
upward mobility, and his own, I'd expect him to approximate
the standard most of the time unless he's trying to bond with
working class stiffs (as though Midlands is marked in any way
for class).

For most Midlands people, "Warshington" doesn't
rhyme with "war".  For some on the northern tier,
where /a/ backs and rounds before /r/, it's at least close.

[ikojo]

30. People from Springfield IL and parts of Missouri pronounce

it like that. I taught myself not to pronounce wash and Washington like that when I was in college.

[codjh9]

31. Freudian slip. WARshington.