Quote:"Hollow" comes easier to my tongue than "Holler" when speaking of a tight valley branching off a larger one. Actually we might call it a "ravine" here too.
Not to be anal about it, but I was corrected by an Ozark hillbilly sort who explained that when mountains are pushed up, the low areas between them are valleys. When the low areas are created by millions of years of erosion creating what look like mountains, these low areas are called hollows. I don't know if that is correct, but he was certainly emphatic. Who was I to argue; I'm from Kansas. I've used ravine, but also refer to it as a "cut" or a "fold", too.
Lots of terms get to me. Canada geese are not "Canadian".
Sabot is say-bo, unless you are a hick and can't speak even the most rudimentary French. Then again, why would you want to?
The father of modern wildlife management was Aldo Leopold, pronounced Lay-o-pold. The guys that invented the scope's last name was Leupold, pronounced Loo-pold.
I've heard that one on Hornady. Never caught it though.
The worst is my last name, Homman. For future reference, it is pronounced Hah-mun, not Hoe-man or Hoe-mun. Two m's. short "O". You'd think that was obvious, but not even my college profs knew how to read. Amazing how far some people can get with a half-arsed education.
Whenever someone mispronounces it, I beckon back to a training officer in my EMS days who told me, as far as using a patient's name, "Ask for their name. Make sure you use it and pronounce it correctly. It's the first thing you're given when you're born and the only thing uniquely yours which you take with you when you die. It's THAT important."
(Edited for spelling. Doh!!!)
