Crazy-NESS

*Author's note:  I've been having a hissy-fit since last night.  I'm about to bring it to my blog.  Consider yourselves warned.  Also?  Feel free to agree with me.  

This was my Facebook status update last night:

Stupid argument with the husband and the in-laws... The way people pronounce towns around here drives me straight up a freaking WALL. There is a town nearby called Madrid. Now, you and I would pronounce it Muh-DRID, like the city in Spain, yes? Well, apparently? We would be WRONG, because everyone around HERE, including the people who LIVE THERE, pronounce it MAD-rid. Just like that... accent on the first syllable: MAD-rid. Like the word mad. Then the word rid. This? Right here? Is annoying the shit out of me right this second.

I can't even beGIN to explain how freaking irritating this is to me.  Granted, it's petty and silly and pointless to get so bent over the way people have been pronouncing certain words for most likely hundreds of years, but I can't wrap my brain around the fact that they're still doing it.  

I can make allowances for the early settlers... Perhaps they were uneducated and had only a tentative grasp on geography and languages other than their own.  After all, they didn't have the internet and Google at their disposal and had to go on their own personal interpretations.  But doesn't it stand to reason that if there are surrounding areas named Antwerp, Rome, Mexico, Amsterdam, Venice, etc. that they would eventually figure out how to pronounce MADRID?  

(Obviously, when it came to naming cities, the early New Yorkians were somewhat lacking in imagination.  "Sooooo... I just came from York so let's call this... NEW York!!  Yeah!  Give me some skin, brotha!  High 5!  Down low!  Ohhhh... too slow!!  Hey... Remember Antwerp?  Let's call this place Antwerp.  I heard Cortez was in Mexico... let's called this place Mexico!  Then we don't have to come up with anything new!!"  And when they ran out of European and southwestern cities and countries, they just stuck the word "Falls" after the name of every town that had water running downhill, and "Ville" after everything else.  Because you can't go wrong with "Ville.")  

Moving right along, my previous rant about the pronunciation of a local hamlet was:

Theresa.

Let's discuss.

Now me, being me, sees a town called Theresa and I think, "We're in Theresa..." which would, of course, be pronounced just like the name Theresa.  Right?  Of COURSE right.

Only I'm wrong.

Because it's not Theresa... it's THERESA.

Confused?  Me too.

Rather than saying "Theresa" with a hard "T"... "Teresa"... they pronounced it with a soft "TH" as in "thumb."

Ther-esa.

Because they're all fucking Hooked On Phonics or something.

Right?

No.  It's WRONG.  It's so very, very, very WRONG.  And they won't listen to me.

These conversations usually begin with Dan saying something like "We're going through MAD-rid" at which point I correct him, because let's face it, I HAVE TO.  Then he tells me I'm saying it wrong , that's not how anyone says it, blah blah blah...  Then I say something like, "So if everyone called you "Din" instead of "Dan" would you just start calling yourself "Din", because that's what everyone else was saying even though you knew they were wrong?" and he rolls his eyes and sticks to his guns and we argue non-stop until I scream, "YOU'RE ALL MORONS!  I'VE MOVED TO MORONVILLE IN THE STATE OF NEW MORON!!"

Then the argument is effectively over because we're no longer speaking.

Why does this bother me so much?

I don't know.

(Oh my GOD... I just realized I'm channeling Kate Gosselin.  "Do I feel this way?  Yes I do.  Am I a screaming bitch?  Yes I am.  Was my reverse mullet a poor hair choice?  Absolutely." GAHHHH!  I apologize for that brief lapse.)

I had every intention of making New York my bitch, but it seems that instead, New York is turning me IN to one.  

New York:  1

Dani:  0