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Message: <blockquote data-quote="haakon1" data-source="post: 8875941" data-attributes="member: 25619">True.And I thought I made that distinction in defending how my home region (in the Appalachian Mountains, but in the northeast, not in Appalachia) pronounces the word for its own mountains.Anyhow, not important to the original topic of Appalachia.But a tangent criticized the northern pronunciation of Appalachian Trail as being wrong, not used by people in the Appalachians, and new, and political.  It’s none of those things.It is really how we say it in the northeast part of the Appalachian Mountains.  We, as in, including me.  I can speak from personal experience to NY, MA, and VT parts of the mountain.  My hometown in NY is on the map as being “northern highlands”.  I hiked part of the Appalachian Trail in MA near VT and NY state lines, day hikes from the town I was living in that it runs through.  The vilified Yankee pronunciation is how it’s said there - literally the local way to say a local place.  The Appalachians aren’t just local in Appalachia.I get people disliking being told their local pronunciation for a local placename is wrong (a logical impossibility, in my view) but that’s why I stuck up for my own local pronunciation, while agreeing the others are correct in their own places.If referring to the central part of the Appalachians as “where Dolly Parton lives“ sounded like I was criticizing Appalachia, I apologize.  Imho, she’s a living legend, a great American - I totally get why Bezos gave her a ton of money, as she does so much good and yes I’ve watched her specials.  I switched to that from originally saying “TN/NC/VA”, which is the part of Appalachia I was thinking.The guy I hiked part of the trail with was an environmental studies major (and a D&D player) from SW VA, and we talked about the local vegetation on the trail in MA, same as in my hometown in NY and his in VA, and he explained it’s mostly by altitude not just latitude in the Appalachians. So he (and Dolly!) are who think of when I think Appalachia, the other pronunciation, and the connection of the Appalachians the whole way up and down.  It’s not “imperialism” - it’s a shared mountain range.</blockquote>

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