By Christopher Klaver
CIO
Posted: January 24, 2017 4:52 PM

Ever irked by someone who doesn’t know how to pronounce that nearby town or landmark? Or worse, ever the target of, “That’s not how we say that here”?

The state is here to help.

The Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs, through its Bureau of Services for Blind Persons, has launched a website, You Say it How in Michigan?, to explain all those pronunciations.

The site has more than 2,200 names that you might hear mispronounced by visitors to the state, or to a region of the state.

“We initially developed the ‘You Say it How in Michigan?’ guide for narrators across the country during audio book production to get Michigan name and place pronunciations right,” Susan Chinault, manager Michigan Braille and Talking Book Library, where the guide was developed, said in the statement announcing its launch. “Actually the guide is invaluable for anyone, especially since Michigan has so many unique names that can be mispronounced.”

And if you can’t read the pronunciation guides, each word has an audio file with it being said properly.

For those newbies, Charlotte is pronounced “shar-LOT”. The emphasis is on the second syllable.

We’ll avoid a phonetic spelling for Gratiot (as in the county, avenue or Fort Gratiot Township) for, um, obvious reasons. If you’re not sure how it’s pronounced, look it up.