National TV Show Features Maine and Botches How to Say Skowhegan

As Mainers, we feel like we've heard every botched town name, ever.

If you've ever tried to explain the correct way to say a Maine town name to anyone before, you were probably either entertained or exasperated by the way the other person was trying to say it. I had someone trying to describe Orono to me once, and the kept over-doing the middle O. So it sounded like o-RO-no.

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It was even more fun trying to tell them to all but leave out the middle O... but not quite. You have to leave a tiny bit of it in there. On another occasion, a person tried to say Saco like it was SAY-co. I just shook my head and told them they were making it way to hard, and it was hurting my brain.

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However, this national TV show definitely has a whole new way to say Skowhegan.

A Reddit user posted a video on the r/Maine page, that featured a bit from a show on Max called Weird & Wild America. It's basically a video clip show that features funny clips from around the country of people doing dumb things. Sort of like Ridiculousness on MTV. But this time, it was the narrator of the show that got the big laughs.

As they're beginning a segment that seems to feature Skowhegan, Maine... the narrator proceeds to pronounce Skowtown like: Skoh-ka-gone. Like, what? How do you even come up those sounds, with the letters given? I mean, for one thing, there's only one K. And the narrator literally butchered every syllable of the name. It's insane. Check it out in this video...

That's a pronunciation I've never heard before 😂
byu/lunar_108 inMaine

I'm no TV producer, but...

Wouldn't you do a bit of due diligence and check on town names before you go to air? Granted, it's probably a low budget show and no one cares, but still. As other people pointed out in the comments on Reddit, it's possible the voice isn't even real. It's quite possible producers use an AI-generated voice.

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Regardless, it's just another awesome example of Maine getting the shaft on these things. We just try to live over here, not bothering anybody. And when we do make the national spotlight, things like this always happen. Maybe we should just rename every town Portland to make it nice and easy for TV shows from away?