• Avon - (AH-vahn) town name, pronounced like 'have on' without that h, accent on the A.1

  • Berkeley — BERK-lee street, near Park Avenue. The pronounciation here presumably agrees with the pronounciation of the California university town for which the street is presumably named. But this pronounciation is a corruption of the name of Bishop George Berkeley, whose surname was pronounced by the English as BAR-klay.

  • Castile - (CAST-isle) in Genesee County.

  • Charlotte - (shar-LOT) neighborhood name, with the accent on the 'lotte'.

  • Chili - (CHIY-liy) town name which (round here) does not rhyme with 'frilly' or 'silly'. rhymes with 'jai-alai', 'mai-tai', or 'fry-lie' 2 Please see Origins of the Name Chili

  • Honeoye - (HUN-e-oy) town name with more of a confusing spelling that might suggest "HONE-oy" but is pronounced like "honey-oy."

  • Le Roy - (luh-ROY; LEE-roy) town southwest of Rochester frequently pronounced "luh-ROY" (bastardized French pronounciation)3 with emphasis on the second syllable, and sometimes as the man's name, "LEE-roy."

  • Lillac - (LIE-lock)

  • Lima - (LIY-mah) town name which is pronounced like the bean (or like -I'm a-), not the city in Peru.

  • Monroe - (MUN-ro) county with the emphasis on the MUN, not the ro

  • Nunda - (NUN-day) town in southern-central NY that is pronounced with a long "A" at the end.

  • Rochester - The 'o' is often pronounced something more like 'ah', yielding: Rahchester

  • Rundel - (RUN-dul) Rundel Memorial Library Building name with the emphasis on the RUN. It's how Morton Rundel pronounced his name.

  • Across - (uh-KROST) from one side to the other. The addition of the 't' sound at the end appears to be a local phenomenon.

  • 1This is actually the correct pronunciation of Avon, as in the River Avon in England. Think of Stratford-upon-Avon, where Shakespeare was born. Avon (Ay-von), as in the cosmetics company from Croton-on-Hudson, NY is a mispronunciation of this.
  • 2A couple of years ago, an out-of-towner criminal was exposed because he said he lived in the town of "Chilly" as he went door-to-door soliciting fraudulent donations (not entirely sure about the details, fill in if you've got em)
  • 3The correct french pronunciation would actually sound something more like "luh-wrA"