I have noticed that people from Colorado and Nevada pronounce the name of their state with a flat a, as in “had.” People from outside the state can pronounce it as if it were Spanish: Colorahdo and Nevahda. Bob Dylan pronounced Colorado right in “Man of Constant Sorrow,” but he was from Michigan, close enough to get it right.
Ah, interesting.
What gets me is how I grew up hearing “coyote” pronounced as “ky-OH-tee” but then I hear some people, perhaps from the west, say “KY-oat”.
(Barbara Cameron’s RR Theme song):
Road runner, that ky-oat’s after you
Road runner, if he catches you you’re through.
(somehow doesn’t seem the same that way!
One peculiar one, there’s a town of Nevada in SW Missouri. They don’t pronounce it like the state at all... Pronouncing it Nuh-VAY-da. Sometimes peculiarities occur even one state apart. There’s a Newark in Delaware & New Jersey. In NJ, they say, “New-work”, but in DE, it’s “New-ARK.” Ditto Beaufort in SC and NC. It’s “Byoo-furt” in SC and “BO-fort” in NC. One teeth-grinder in TN is with a local county in Middle TN, called Maury. Anywhere else, you pronounce it “Morr-ee.” Here they pronounce it “Murray.”