Wilkes-Barre

From the inbox:

I was born and raised in w-b, went to u of scranton, then to new york
law school. the debate on the pronunciation of barre has gone on for years. you
may be correct that the correct pronunciation is berry. that depends on
two factors i believe one of which i know the answer. his surname is
french and he spelled it with an accent mark over the e. so we know that it is
not pronounced like shoppe and barre. ie english way of doubling the last
consonant and adding an e to the end of the word , but as u know the last two
letters are silent. so bar and barre are pronounced the same like shoppe
and shop.

however, this man's dad was french. and his name was
spelled Barré, Isaac (bâr'ē) .
âr care ē bee , so technically it is
not berry but bar ee. with the accent being on the last
letter.

since he spelled his name with the accent, and since
he was born in dublin irland , spoke fluent english, and some french, the accent
mark would indicate that he prononced his name the french way. bar
ee. however, to be certain on the pronunciation, i was researching how in
fact he prononced his name. i could not find anything on that. would u
happen to know? In conclusion, since our spelling is without the accent mark and
when the city was founded, they know that he spelled his name with the accent
mark, maybe it was deliberatly left out so that the name would be
pronounced bar. i tried to post this on your blog. but was
unsuccessful. could you post is for me. maybe one of your readers, could
add some info.

Because truly without knowing how he
pronounced his surname and why the accent mark was left out, one really cannot
know how to pronounce barre.
'
i enjoyed reading your blog very
much. thank you.