New Hampshire Lawmaker Proposes Official Pronunciation for Capital City Concord
In a stunning display of dedication to the finer points of pronunciation, New Hampshire State Representative Emma Roush has proposed a bill that would give the state an official pronunciation for its capital city, Concord. The proposed pronunciation? Kon-kid.
Yes, you read that right. Kon-kid. As in, “I’m just heading up to Kon-kid to grab a lobster roll, you wanna come?” I mean, it sounds like something straight out of Dr. Seuss.
Now, I don’t know about you, but I’ve been pronouncing it “Kahn-kord” my entire life and I’ve never once heard anyone say it differently. But apparently, Rep. Roush feels like the people of New Hampshire need to be saved from their terrible mispronunciations of their own capital city’s name.
In a press conference, Roush defended her bill, stating that the current pronunciation is confusing and “not intuitive.” She explained, “We need to have a unified pronunciation so that people from out of state know how to say it properly. Plus, ‘Kon-kid’ just sounds so much cooler than ‘Kahn-kord,’ don’t you think?”
Yes, because nothing screams “cool” like changing the pronunciation of a city’s name that has been around for hundreds of years.
But it’s not just the absurdity of the proposed pronunciation that has people scratching their heads. Some are wondering why this is even a legislative issue in the first place.
“I mean, I get that New Hampshire has a lot of problems it needs to address,” said one resident we spoke to. “But I don’t think anyone was clamoring for an official pronunciation for Concord. It just seems like a waste of time and taxpayer money.”
It’s hard to argue with that logic. The state has plenty of issues that it could be focusing on, from education to healthcare to the environment. And yet, here we are, debating the proper way to say the name of a city that most people can’t even locate on a map.
But perhaps we’re being too harsh. Perhaps there are some benefits to having an official pronunciation for Concord. Maybe tourism will increase now that people know how to say the city’s name correctly. Maybe it will be easier for people to find it on Google Maps.
Or maybe we should just stick with the pronunciation we’ve been using all along and let Rep. Roush focus on more pressing issues. Like, oh, I don’t know, maybe the fact that New Hampshire has the second-highest student debt in the country or the fact that the state’s opioid crisis shows no signs of slowing down.
But hey, what do I know? I’m just a journalist. I’ll leave the important stuff to the politicians who are busy debating the pronunciation of a city’s name. I’m just curious to see how this all plays out. Will Kon-kid become the new Kahn-kord? Only time will tell.
