I’ve been to Bois D’arc. Had to ask how to pronounce it. My guess wasn’t close. Outsiders should never try to pronounce the Cuivre River, St. Francois River or County, New Madrid, or any other French or Spanish place name in the whole state. We botched them pretty good.
“Bois D’arc”
Here in Texas we say “Bow-dark”.
I suspect most Midwest place names existed before McGuffy readers, which good as they were, provide no help with French and Spanish prounonciation, resulting in offbeat Anglicized place names. (Des Plaines Ill = “Dess Planes’.)
(O.O.: sometimes we have interesting thread slides! We like your choice of name!)
Bodark: Hedge apples were planted along property lines and the Osage Orange trees grew and were used as fence living fence posts!
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