Mispronouncing Wisconsin Names? Try This Genius Tool

Illinoisans may think they know everything there is to know about Wisconsin, but then they butcher pronouncing towns like Weyauwega, Ashwaubenon, or Menomonie, and are immediately labeled a ‘FIB’—look it up if you’re not familiar with the term.

Before you make a fool of yourself on your next Wisconsin getaway, I just found a website that you may find incredibly helpful.

Help For Wisconsin's Phonetically Challenged

Working in radio, pronouncing things correctly is a big part of the job, but every single one of us fails at it from time to time. Radio announcers rely on phonetic spellings of difficult words, but interpreting those spellings can be tricky too.

Here's an example of what I'm talking about: The Wisconsin town "Allouez", how would you pronounce it?

The phonetic spelling is ‘AL-oo-way’, which looks nothing like how it’s written.

Wouldn't it be helpful if there was somewhere you could go to hear a Wisconsin resident pronounce it correctly? Turns out there is!

What Is MissPronouncer?

Today I found a website called misspronouncer.com that bills itself as "A halfway decent audio pronunciation guide for Wisconsin", and this thing is genius!

The website was created by a Wisconsin woman working in radio who came up with the idea out of pure frustration. Here's the back story for MissPronouncer;

The idea for MissPronouncer came when I struggled to find accurate pronunciations of Wisconsin locations while prepping for the early morning radio newscasts. This was especially true when reading wire copy about bad weather in remote parts of the state. Nobody was around with whom I could confer at 4:00 in the morning and I certainly couldn’t pick up the phone to call someone at that ungodly hour. Something had to be done. An idea was born. No more mispronouncing Wisconsin locations.

This handy little website includes correct pronunciations for all of Wisconsin's 190 cities, 400 villages, 1,000+ towns, and 1,000+ unincorporated places and is incredibly easy to use. Give it a try today and never be labeled a FIB again!