Okay, I have been thinking about this most of the day and then I figured with as many Southerners or Pseudo-southerners that visit, I should be able to ask here and find out if I’m totally nuts.

There is a well known street in the French Quarter here in New Orleans called Chartres Street. I have lived in this city for a year and half and have been operating under the assumption that this word is pronounced like Shar-Tres. Seems logical right? I mean, it’s the french quarter, things should be, I don’t know, french-y.

Then today someone at work was going on and on about this new place on “Charters” street and I could not for the life of me figure out what she was saying until I asked and then they all laughed at me. I mean, I get that french words are mispronounced (the one I live on is pronounced pretty oddly), but they can’t really be serious, can they? My linguistics professor in college called me “the laziest speaker [she'd] ever met,” but even I didn’t jump straight to Charters. Sometimes I feel like everyone is speaking an entirely different language.

So here’s the question (I’m not willing to find one of those actual poll inserts and deal with that, so you’ll have to leave a message in the comment section): How would YOU pronounce the world Chartres?

a) Shar-tres

b) Char-ters

c) Other (specify please)

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