Skaneateles

Skaneateles?!

July 14,2009

Skinny-atlas, Skan-ee-atlas, or Scan-atlas… How do you pronounce it? I came to New York from Georgia to start graduate school at Syracuse University.  I kept hearing about this lakeside town and village called Skaneateles, and people were pronouncing it different ways. As a reporter for NCC News, I decided to go find out how to say Skaneateles.  I asked half a dozen people in the town and village how to say it and the popular pronunciations were “Skinny-atlas,” and “Scan-ee-atlas.”  I spoke to the Chamber of Commerce assistant director thinking that she would know how to say it, and she told me that even she was corrected!  She had been pronouncing it “Skinny-atlas” and a local historian told her to pronounce it “Scan-ee-atlas.”  Whether you call it “Skinny-atlas” or “Skan-ee-atlas,” the locals won’t correct you, they have heard it many different ways.