Natives blame newcomers, but even longtime residents of Carroll County don?t notice they add an extra syllable to the county seat?s name, calling it “West-min-IS-ter.”
Francine Livingston, a Westminster resident for nearly 20 years, did so Thursday without realizing it.
“Everyone I ever knew always said it that way,” she said.
Westminster Mayor Thomas Ferguson, a lifelong resident, said he?s noticed the colloquialism.
“It?s like fingernails across a blackboard,” he said.
Commissioner Dean Minnich, who has lived in Westminster since 1963, remembers being surprised at age 4 to hear the real name after a few years of listening to adults say it incorrectly.
But how did this linguistic phenomenon start?
Language is constantly changing, said Jasna Meyer, an expert in language and discourse at McDaniel College in Westminster.
Some people, even natives, may say “West-min-IS-ter” because it sounds unique or because people mirror what others say, so natives may have heard the mispronunciation from a newcomer, non-native or even a television personality and then used it themselves. She said people do this mirroring all the time for successful interactions.
Kevin Dayhoff, a former Westminster mayor and well-known blogger, blamed newbies to the county.
“You don?t hear us crusty old locals saying it,” he said.
A sign erected 20 years ago may have cemented this facet of the Central Maryland county?s dialect, he said.
A sign, placed along Interstate 795 when it was completed in the mid-1980s, stated the incorrect spelling of the city?s name ? “Westminister.”
Just as the idiom?s impetus remains elusive, so too does offenders? awareness of the idiosyncrasy.
“I?m going to go out on a limb and say most people don?t even realize they do it,” said Christina Calp, who works in Westminster. “I must have heard it from [my parents].”
