How do you pronounce Adirondacks?

allatsea

I read about Adirondacks ( mountains,aren't they?) all the time in American novels and have always wondered how the word is pronounced.
And also - what are 'good old boys'?

Nano

Actually i think you did a good job just now... good job!

BirenD

The mountains were given the name Adirondacks in 1838 by Ebenezer Emmons; the name is sometimes spelled "Adirondaks", without a "c". Some of the place names in the vicinity of Lake Placid have peculiar phonetic spellings attributed to Melville Dewey, who was a principal influence in developing that town and the Lake Placid Club. The Adirondak Loj (pronounced "Lodge"), a popular hostel and trailhead run by the Adirondack Mountain Club in the high peaks region, is one example.

oldfuzz

Add - i - Ron - Saks"Good Ole Boys"? meaning varies in different parts of the country. Here in Wyoming its a nice way of saying, "drunken cowboy".

Hilljack

you pronounce it just like it is spelled, yes they are mountains in upstate ny, scenic. and good ole boys are also called rednecks, hillbillies, etc... just depends on where you are.

smileycj305

Add-er-on-dacks, just about the way it's spelled.. And yes, Mountains in New York State

johnr

Columbia Encyclopedia:

Adirondack Mountains (?d'?r?n'd?k) , mountain mass, NE N.Y., between the St. Lawrence valley in the north and the Mohawk valley in the south; rising to 5,344 ft (1,629 m) at Mt. Marcy, the highest point in the state

Good ol' boy is a slang term used, either to self-identify as or to refer to a male, usually white and of Northern/Western-European descent, who lives in a rural area and/or subscribes to a traditionally "rural" lifestyle. The term is generally thought to originate in the rural areas of the southern and southwestern U.S. While other terms such as redneck, hick, yokel, "Bubba", and "white trash" are also applied, though usually pejoratively and are often interchanged with "good ol' boy," the "good ol' boy" is more of an idealized image of rural Americans, Canadians and Australians.

From Wikipedia

CIHRet

Adirondacks is pronounced Ada-RON-dacks. The emphasis is on the second syllable.

The term "Good old boys" has its orign in the Southern US. If a person wanted to say that someone was a good man they would say he was a "good old boy". It was much the same as saying he was "the salt of the earth". Close friends always referred to each other, when speaking in the third person, as being a good old boy. They might say something like, "Yeah, I know Charley. He's a good old boy." From that, the term "good old boy" took on the meaning of being an insider. A person who was in good with a particular group was said to be part of the "good old boy network". Often this referred to political alliances. Politicians who worked closely together to get favored legislation passed were said to be "good old boys". If someone wanted to convery the idea that a particular person was in a close political alliance with others he was said to be "one of the good old boys". Therefore, if a politician, when speaking to a fellow insider wanted to convey that idea that a particular fellow politican could be counted on to go along with a political function, he might say "Yeah, Bobby is a good old boy", thereby telling the other pereson that Bobby would vote with them on an issue.

fremontjackson

Technically, I think the first a is a separate syllable. (Grammar school is so many years ago though!)
Here's my version: a-dih-RON-dax, where the first a is the same sound as the a in apple.

seaqueen20

Also, the Adirondacks are not just a mountain range, but a state park as well. It's the largest par, state or national in the continental US, approximately 6 million acres (or the size of Vermont) of privately and publicly owned land.