Learn How to Pronounce This Fun Lake Name in Massachusetts
If you live in Massachusetts, Rhode Island or Connecticut, you have likely heard of Webster Lake. But do you know its original, much more fun-to-say name?
Webster Lake is better known as Lake Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg, and no that's not a typo. It's the longest place name in the United States, and it has a pretty cool meaning as well.
According to Atlas Obscura, the lake, located outside of Webster, Massachusetts and north of the Massachusetts-Connecticut border, was named Lake Chaubunagungamaugg prior to the arrival of English settlers. The early name meant "fishing place at the boundary in Loup, an Algonquian language, but changed to Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg, meaning "English knifemen and Nipmuck Indians at the boundary or neutral fishing place" when settlers started settlers started using the lake as well.
While the average person may look at this 45-letter masterpiece of a word and think 'I don't even know where to begin to pronounce that,' locals to the lake's region actually learn it from an early age, and let it roll off the tongue. One Massachusetts TikTok user, who said her dad had to recite the name monthly in school, broke it down into syllables, and even gave viewers another fun interpretation of the Loup name.
"This lake means, 'You fish on your side, I fish on my side, and nobody fishes in the middle,'" @katieliz_89 said.
Check out the broken-down version of the lake's name below, and see if you can pronounce it correctly.
Layk-chaar-gaa-guh-gaag-man-chaa-guh-gaag-chau-buh-nuh-guhng-guh-maag
Warning: Following video includes explicit language and is NSFW