People are often confused by how the locals pronounce the name of our little town. In this episode, we explore who put the "kit" in Prescott ("Press Kit"), and why some might consider pronouncing it any other way as downright unAmerican.
Video Transcript
hello hello my little poops pickle peeps pickle beeps this is randall and diane bro here in prescott he’s ramsey correct i am a pickle lady uh if you come visit us i’ll have some pickles ready for you that’s why that’s why she’s that’s why i’m a little lady in case you didn’t know that’s right but uh today randall’s going to give you a little history lesson on why prescott which howard spelled it’s called prescit instead of prescott which i mean i totally get it when i moved here i was like prescott prescott that’s how it’s spelled however we have learned since we lived here why it’s pronounced presque it yeah like biscuits biscuit yeah yeah well the first thing is follow the follow the lead of the locals you know absolutely always i mean yeah when you move here don’t say press god everybody will know they’re not from here don’t don’t argue with the locals about how to pronounce their own town immediately just start saying prescott yeah i’ve done a lot of a lot of traveling and you know i’ve been told how to say raleigh yeah and not raleigh yeah it’s not boise it’s boise yeah uh so just follow those particularly when you’re there you know when you always take the lead of the look yeah you can pronounce any way you want when you’re not around but when you’re there particularly if you want good service or you know whatever i pronounce it just adapt and adopt the local thing and and by the way as an aside uh very few people pronounce the town of new orleans new orleans yeah we are oh that’s an i’m from new orleans yeah they don’t say hey i’m from new orleans yeah sorry that’s an assignment let me get back to price case down to prescott okay so uh the town of prescott was named after after a historian uh and his name was prescott that’s how he pronounced his name uh and it was spelled prescott well the reason why his family pronounces are pronounced his name the way they did is that his family was from new england and a number of new england families who had english names changed the pronunciation of their names to indicate that they s uh uh supported the american cause not the the tory the not the british cops correct they were not this gentleman was from there yeah and he had a very british yeah his name his family’s name was uh press prescott prescott and they decided to pronounce the name prescott there are a number of families that did that in new england uh to this day there is the town of what you would pronounce as peabody is pronounced pvd uh and that’s another example so there’s a whole bunch of them uh but anyway they they were the prescients and uh with with the western accent press press cut as in cut cut steak that’s how they pronounced it prescott became press kit yeah uh so most people had a little midwestern yeah they they didn’t do prescott yeah they did press kit but press guides out unless you don’t support the american revolution and although most not very many people will call you up that out for that anymore i don’t think that i don’t think there’s anybody alive out there who will be like hey that’s a loyalist yeah you’re not you’re sort of ants iron man i think we’re way pa yeah we’re 200 plus years i think i don’t think there’s anybody else yeah yeah they might call you out on something else yeah they’ll catch you in these recent times but uh anyway so if you come to visit us and you’re like why is it press kit that’s what that’s why that’s your little history lesson so this town was named after historian from the eighteen hundreds yeah the eighteen yeah and he was a barrier a particularly bad historian well well yeah he did the best he could at that time and did well and he did okay uh but he uh he said all the indigenous people in this area uh the yavapai tribes and things like that were descendants of the aztecs nowhere and we know that’s not sex so we have uh we have a montezuma street we have a cortez street that’s right all because uh people here were supposed to be connected to uh yeah i thought the american indians that they came right from the aztec line we are named after him who came out here and and wrote about prescott and and what was going on that’s our little history lesson so if you want to mispronounce his name you know maybe you could use that as an excuse i don’t know you could yeah but anyway anyway lots of uses we just thought lots of useless information we’re full of it more useful information than that uh one place you can go is press pickle pickle411.com get it straight that is our information site whether you’re a buyer seller somewhere in between lots of information about local real estate local restaurants local events we have fun people we’re out there and we’re trying to experience it all so we can share it with you yeah press get uh the prescott experience that’s right yeah that’s exactly right so we learned a lot right since we moved here yeah well i was here like two or three years before i heard the story of why i had to say press cake i know it’s really cool there’s so many cool things here lots of there was a big indian presence here too oh yeah so you’ll find a lot of petroglyphs and so yeah we have a whole video on petroglyphs you can check that out pretty cool really cool stuff really cool anyway so that is the story of what we’re called prescott which rhymes with biscuit and uh if you want to hang with the cool kids learn how to say press kit not prescott but don’t order a biscuit i don’t know what you’d get nobody would understand we’re not saying any of it makes sense we’re just telling you what’s happened why these things have evolved give me one of those biscuits delicious i love a delicious biscott in prescott okay all right now we’re getting silly
