A Local Breaks Down the Correct, Approved and Appropriate Way To Say the Name of the Mountain Range in Which the Smokies Are Located

I’m a little sensitive about how I pronounce things. I was a big reader growing up – I believe I may be legally obligated to use the term voracious. So, I developed what would be considered a big vocabulary. However, while I knew what the words were, could spell them and use them perfectly in a sentence, I’d never actually heard them. And so more than once, I would be speaking with friends, teachers or whoever and suddenly realize I was careening towards a word I had no idea how to say.

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Sometimes, the little social interactions would be a good learning opportunity. Other times, they would be the kind of social failure. For instance, I whiffed on provolone cheese. I went with “provoloni” like Brad Pitt and friends pretending to be Italian in “Inglourious Basterds.” I might have been 7. The waiter’s withering correction has stayed with me now for decades. There was another unfortunate incident when I thought the word cache was pronounced like cachet, but we don’t have time to get into all of that....

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I'm not offended by all the dumb blonde jokes because I know I'm not dumb - and I'm not blonde either.

🦋Dolly Parton🦋

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