How do you pronounce the name Carnegie? The Scottish industrialist and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie, pronounced it with an accent on the second syllable, as his namesake the Carnegie Corporation of New York takes pains to make clear. Good luck explaining that to New Yorkers, though. They may know that the famous concert venue is named in his honor, but it’s become traditional to stress the first syllable in Carnegie Hall. In the 19th century, people would have encountered his name in print first rather than hearing it by radio broadcast and incorrectly surmised it was CAR-neh-ghee, not car-NEH-ghee. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Carnegie”
Hello, you have A Way with Words.
Hi, good morning.
Good morning. Who is this?
This is Jeanette from San Diego.
Hi, Jeanette. Welcome to the show.
What can we do for you, Jeanette?
So I was wondering, I’m from New York originally, and I’m now living in California, and it’s about the pronunciation of the word Carnegie.
So growing up in New York, you know, we have Carnegie Hall. We’re familiar with Carnegie, the steel industrialist who, you know, was a philanthropist and built Carnegie Mellon, Carnegie Hall, etc.
But on your show, I keep hearing about, you know, such and such a show was funded by Carnegie Trust Fund and Carnegie. So I was wondering about the pronunciation and which is the correct pronunciation, Carnegie or Carnegie?
Yeah, well, if you’re talking about the industrialist and philanthropist who gave the money for all of those things, he was from Scotland originally, Andrew Carnegie.
He was actually a Scot, right?
Right.
He was an Americanized Scot.
Right.
Irish.
Right.
Or Scotch-American, yeah.
Yes, and if you go to his little hometown in Scotland, that’s what you’ll hear again and again. Carnegie.
Carnegie.
Carnegie, accent on the second syllable.
Oh, yeah.
More of an A than an eh.
Right.
So the Carnegie Hall that exists in New York should actually be pronounced Carnegie Hall?
Well, I’m not going to argue with 9 million New Yorkers.
No, he tried that and it didn’t work.
That’s a battle that won’t be won, huh?
It is a local pronunciation. As far back as the 1940s, you can find people in the Carnegie Journal, which is about Carnegie Museum and the Carnegie da-da-da-da, all this stuff, complaining about the New York pronunciation of the word.
So it’s only in New York that it’s pronounced Carnegie.
Everywhere outside it’s pronounced Carnegie.
Yeah.
Yeah, Western Pennsylvania, they get Carnegie right.
Yeah, they say Nagy or Nagy.
It’s kind of a combination of those two.
But, you know, Jeanette, you raise an interesting larger question, and I’m so glad you’re from San Diego because I have a question for you.
Sure.
About three or four times a week, I go hiking on the highest mountain in this area, and you probably know it, and it’s spelled C-O-W-L-E-S. How do you pronounce the name of that mountain?
C-O-W-L-E-S.
Mm—
I would pronounce it Cowles Mountain.
Right, right. I know. And that’s my problem because properly that mountain is pronounced Coles Mountain. It was named for a guy whose last name is Coles. And in fact, if you go to the trailhead, there’s all this information from the Mission Trails Regional Park that includes the pronunciation, the proper pronunciation of the mountain. But my problem is when I tell people here in San Diego, even that I hike on Coles Mountain, they correct me and say, oh, no, it’s Cowles, C-O-W-L-E-S.
So my question to both of you is what do you do about that? If you know the technical name for something, but everybody else calls it something else or you think. I mean, it’s like every time I switch to Cowles, I always find somebody who says, oh, but it’s Kohl’s. So it just always stops down the conversation.
So I just sort of say the mountain near my home. As a person who works with a lot of, has worked as an English teacher, you know, for immigrant individuals, right, with lots of different accents that they bring into our English.
Right.
I have to say what I say to that is, viva la differance. And I applaud the diversity, right?
Yeah.
And I think that living in today’s global society, we have to really applaud diversity and, you know, welcome nuances in accents and in phrases.
Your show is all about that, of idiomatic expressions from different regions and different eras of time.
So that makes life interesting.
Yeah, we’re all about diversity.
And when in Rome do what the Romans do.
Exactly.
So when in New York say Carnegie.
Don’t fight with New Yorkers, I wouldn’t fight with.
That’s right.
We know it’s Houston.
Houston Street, yeah.
But there’s one little note I want to toss in here about Carnegie versus Carnegie. And that is that he became a well-known figure before radio. So you were more likely to read his name rather than to hear his name.
There you go.
And so the local New York pronunciation… So that opened it up for interpretation with pronunciation. And people, the regular person, did not have that personal access to the Carnegie family in order to adopt that actual pronunciation.
Well, that makes sense.
Well, Jeanette, thank you so much for your call.
Well, thank you so much.
That was very interesting.
Thank you.
I appreciate your taking my call.
Yay.
Okay.
Take care.
Bye.
Bye-bye.
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