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How do you pronounce Wilkes-Barre?


Wilbur

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It is a primary navigation aid when flying into Newark and other NE airports from the north, so I hear it a lot on the radio.

Controllers and pilots have said:

Wilks Bar

Wilks Bare

Wilks Berry

Wilks Bar-E

I still talk a little like a Texican and tend to go all one word like  Wilksbury or Wilksbree

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My mother, who grew up there, pronounced it "Wilks Bare-ruh" - the last word pronounced just like "Sarah" with a B replacing the S.

I spent some of my teenage summers there (actually in Lynnwood, along the Susquehanna just south of Wilkes-Barre city limits), living with one of my aunts' family, playing baseball in the Lynnwood-Breslau-Iona little league, playing along the river, hiking up to Tillsbury Knob, looking for fossils on the coal slag heaps, etc. EVERYONE I ever met in my youth living there called it the same as my mother.

BUT...I'm still friends with many of my first and second cousins who still live in that area and when I drive up to visit or for weddings, etc. I hear the radio stations call it "Wilks Barry."

I asked my cousins about it and they say it's apparently more correct and more locals are now using that pronunciation.

That's all I know. I just spoke earlier this evening by phone with a cousin living in Kingston, on the other side of the river from Wilkes-Barre. Next time I talk to her - within a week - I'll ask her if she knows any more about the "Barry" phenomenon or who else does.

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