EmphaSIZING Long ISLAND

November 9, 2012 11:42 AM

How do you pronounce "Long Island"? Think for a second and then join me inside.

I was born and raised in New York City, though I never spent much time at all on Long Island.

To my ear (and to my recollection), it's "Long ISLAND," which strikes me as a little peculiar, since the emphasis is falling on the general descriptor word, not the unique part of the name. I hear the same thing with "Rhode ISLAND." If I hear "LONG Island" I don't recognize at as the NYC area landmass at all; it's entirely unfamiliar, and I'd ask "where's that?"

However, for example, I hear "FIRE Island," "GOVERNOR'S Island," and "RIKER'S Island"--which I think is more normal--the emphasis on the unique part of the name. I think this is also the way I hear Staten Island, but it could go either way.

At this point, I've said all these names so many times that everything sounds weird, and my colleagues are looking at me.

How do you pronounce (or hear pronounced) these names? Certainly there is a subset of people pronouncing Long Island with the emphasis on "Island"--why is that? Does it happen with names of places in your area? Is there a name for this phenomenon?

I don't think it's just due to the fact that "Long" and "Rhode" are just one syllable. For instance, up here in MA, I hear (and say) "PLUM Island," not "Plum ISLAND."

posted by Admiral Haddock to media & arts (63 answers total)

People do tend to mumble out the "long" and put all the emphasis on the Island, I quess " The Island" to mean Long Island is enough of a known chunk that every other island has to be classified first as not being That One?
posted by The Whelk at 11:47 AM on November 9, 2012

It's LonGUYland. (NYC resident)
posted by oinopaponton at 11:48 AM on November 9, 2012 [96 favorites]

I say it with equal emphasis on both words, but I am not originally from the NYC area.

When I first heard of the place, though, I was a freshie at UW-Madison, and heard it from LI kids. It sounded like LawnGUYlant. At first I didn't understand what they were saying, as I'm from M'waukee.
posted by droplet at 11:49 AM on November 9, 2012 [1 favorite]

My mom (from Yonkers) pronounces it "lawn GUYLAND". I'm from Chicago, though, and we have our own pronunciation issues (gimme two-tree of dose over by dere.)
posted by macadamiaranch at 11:51 AM on November 9, 2012 [5 favorites]

I always hear it in my head as Lon Gisland. I'm not sure where that falls on your spectrum.

(On preview, see oinopaponton. I'm from Philly.)
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 11:52 AM on November 9, 2012 [2 favorites]

Running it together with a "lawn guy" like that is a sign of a strong LI accent. For people with a more moderate accent the way AH describes it is pretty spot on. (North Shore of LI guy here)

How do you say Block? Maybe its because of those consonant sounds liked with a vowel in D and G?

Maybe because people think of them as discrete places rather than Island X?
posted by JPD at 11:52 AM on November 9, 2012

seconding oinopaponton... lonGUYland (also NYC resident).
posted by effigy at 11:53 AM on November 9, 2012

Years ago I spent most of the summer with 8 teenagers from the NY metro area.

I remember them pronouncing it as longGUYland.
posted by jamjam at 11:53 AM on November 9, 2012

LonGUYland (grew up in Jersey, live in New York State).
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 11:54 AM on November 9, 2012

Another for LonGUYland. I'm a Pittsburgher but my family's from Long Island.
posted by punchtothehead at 11:54 AM on November 9, 2012

oinopaponton: It's LonGUYland. (NYC resident)

Yep. (Queens mom, Island Park dad, family reunions are at Jones Beach ... or were until Sandy).
posted by headnsouth at 11:55 AM on November 9, 2012 [1 favorite]

I don't have any help for you on resolving which islands get their stress where, other than a vague guess about markedness - both Long and Rhode are the biggest/most important/most probably spoken about for their individual contexts, while Fire, Governor's, and Plum are less typical/common, so you're sort of stressing that you mean PLUM island and not some other island.

But it's also worth noting that native speakers have strong and pretty reliable intuitions about how noun compounds get stressed, and there are lots of types with fairly arcane stress rules. You might also find something in the depths of this pronunciation guide for English learners.
posted by heyforfour at 11:57 AM on November 9, 2012 [2 favorites]

I think, though since reading this question I've repeated them all in my head so much I can't be sure, that I don't emphasize the Long or the Island, but put roughly equal emphasis on both parts. This is also true for Fire Island, Staten Island, Rhode Island, Riker's Island, Governor's Island, and Plum Island (though when I say that I'm talking about a different Plum Island.) Also Fishers Island and Block Island. Unless I'm speaking in a somewhat formal setting I'll basically say each of those place names as one long mumbly word. Not quite Lawn-Guy-Land, but more like Lon-Gy-Lun. (Born in NYC, lived most of my life there and in CT.)

This might be b/c these are familiar places, though. I might do something different when I encounter a new island, then I might give more weight to the NAME part of NAME Island.
posted by DestinationUnknown at 11:58 AM on November 9, 2012

Former south-shore LI resident here. As far back as I can remember, I've always said it "Long (swallowed "g") Island"—so, no "GUY" here, or even a significant emphasis on on one word over the other. I gather that I'm in the minority, though, and I've lived in MA long enough to have shed the LI accent (never did like it; what can I say?).

My parents have a pretty strong LI accent, though, and there's still no "GUY" in sight, even if that is the stereotype. Given the other responses so far, maybe my family is just weird.

For your other islands... honestly, I don't place strong emphasis on one word over the other, to my knowledge. But we've already demonstrated that I'm weird.
posted by cellar door at 11:58 AM on November 9, 2012 [1 favorite]

How do you pronounce (or hear pronounced) these names? Certainly there is a subset of people pronouncing Long Island with the emphasis on "Island"--why is that? Does it happen with names of places in your area? Is there a name for this phenomenon?

I'm not sure the other examples you used work 100%, by the way. I've always heard Fire Island elided into "fierEYEland." But pronunciation of individual place names is weird. I live in a "Highland" that's pronounced not "hilund," as it's pronounced elsewhere--even in other places which are geographically close, like Highland Falls but as "High-LAND."
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 11:59 AM on November 9, 2012

....I have a strange theory about this, based on something similar I've noticed about Connecticut.

I and everyone I know from Connecticut grew up calling the cities in Connecticut "New HAY-ven", "New BRIT-tain", "New LON-don," etc. But everyone else I've ever met from outside Connecticut emphasizes the "New" part -- "NEW Haven", "NEW London", etc. The de-emphasizing the "New" bit seems unique to Connecticut.

But it also seems unique to Long Island. I wonder if there is some kind of Connecticut connection?
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 11:59 AM on November 9, 2012 [2 favorites]

I have no NY relatives and I have never lived in NY. Grew up in the south, live in Chicago now. I have only visited NY a few times. I have always said lonGUYland.
posted by phunniemee at 12:00 PM on November 9, 2012

Oh, I forgot the main reason for my markedness guess! There are a whole bunch of islands in the Boston harbor, one of which is named Long. I'll have to ask around, but I'm pretty sure that one is LONG island not long ISLAND.

It would also explain some of the speaker variation...if you go to Fire Island every summer, maybe it turns into FireISLAND.

/*end wild speculation.
posted by heyforfour at 12:00 PM on November 9, 2012

NYC native: Long EYE-land. Block EYE-land. Rhode EYE-land.
posted by chesty_a_arthur at 12:00 PM on November 9, 2012

I wonder if there is some kind of Connecticut connection?

I think it's maybe more of a vestigial British-via-New England thing to elide words/syllables together (see: Worcester, Gloucester, Marylebone)
posted by oinopaponton at 12:01 PM on November 9, 2012

cellar door brings up something interesting about swallowing the G...that is a more appropriate description of the GUY in long island, at least for me.

(Fitting that the phonaesthetic one would know exactly how to describe this )
posted by effigy at 12:03 PM on November 9, 2012

Yep - I think its because people don't think of these places as X +Island.

If someone I was talking to said they were going to Block, Fishers, Shelter or Fire I'd now what they were talking about. If they said "Rhode" or "Long" I'd look at them like they were crazy.

(Riker's works as well, but fortunately I've not been told that by someone yet)

Probably applies to the "New Xs" in CT.

(Traditionally the East End sounded like New England, but the last generation like that is very old these days)
posted by JPD at 12:03 PM on November 9, 2012 [2 favorites]

I think it's the syllables found in the name preceding Island. My brain stresses longer sounding words, so monosyllabic words get diminished in a title:

rhode Island

long Island

Riker's island

Governor's island
posted by Debaser626 at 12:04 PM on November 9, 2012 [1 favorite]

Also I don't really want to get into it, but there are two different varieties of Long Island accent. On says "guy", the other swallows the "g"
posted by JPD at 12:05 PM on November 9, 2012

Agreed, I hear it LawnGUYland too--but (if you'll permit me) I do think that pronunciation is also partly a socioeconomic marker. I've definitely heard LawnGUYland at all economic stata, but the higher up the ladder, generally the less elision I hear. I NEVER hear LONG Island, though.

Rhodies--do you hear roDYEland? I still hear two words, with the emphasis on ISLAND.

Also, as a random datapoint, I never went to Long Island, but my parents took me frequently to Fire Island, and (as I said above) I hear FIRE Island. Not a FI native though.

And of course, since I grew up in Manhattan, I pronounce "Manhattan Island" as "The City."

Is this just islands? I don't think I hear MOUNT Everest.
posted by Admiral Haddock at 12:06 PM on November 9, 2012

And Thank you... for now after seeing "island" so many times, coupled with the wonder of semantic satiation, my brain refuses to perceive it as anything other than "Is Land"
posted by Debaser626 at 12:06 PM on November 9, 2012

both Long and Rhode are the biggest/most important/most probably spoken about for their individual contexts,

I may be mis-reading you here, but one thing I considered was whether the ISLAND was stressed because there are other Longs and Rhodes--emphasizing ISLAND to differentiate it from Long Street, Long Park, and Long Avenue. But at least in the NYC area, I can't think of any other Longs. And I can't think of any other Rhode, either.
posted by Admiral Haddock at 12:11 PM on November 9, 2012

I and everyone I know from Connecticut grew up calling the cities in Connecticut "New HAY-ven", "New BRIT-tain", "New LON-don," etc.

Yup. It never even occurred to me there could be another way until just now. I suppose I have heard people stress the "New" but it just sounds so wrong, they're so obviously from elsewhere and mispronouncing it, that I don't consider it a legitimate option.

I wonder if there is some kind of Connecticut connection?

Long Island, or part of it at least, was originally part of Connecticut...
posted by DestinationUnknown at 12:12 PM on November 9, 2012

How do you say "the island." It's the same emphasis on the first syllable of island as when one pronounces "Long Island."

I'm not a linguist but the word "fire," even though it's one syllable, is pronounced FI-YER, and most people emphasize the first syllable of Fire instead of Island.
posted by phaedon at 12:13 PM on November 9, 2012

Re: Rhode Island, you will see "Vo Dilun"/"Vo Dilan" used as eye dialect for Rhode Island. This supports the view that in Little Rhody, people hear the words as being run together.

Examples:

Language Log
Providence Phoenix
Blog post
posted by goingonit at 12:13 PM on November 9, 2012

For me, i think it is a product of the length of the prior word. I say Long EYE-land, but I also say Rhode EYE-land, Goose EYE-land, etc. I say FIRE island when i'm pronouncing it FIE-ER, but not when i'm pronouncing it FYRE.
posted by ubiquity at 12:13 PM on November 9, 2012

To take out phonemic arguments: I know of 2 places named Long Island. The one in New York I pronounce "long ISland". The other one (a small island on a lake in Canada) is "LONG island".
posted by brainmouse at 12:14 PM on November 9, 2012 [1 favorite]

PS: I am Texan, but tend to have a pretty generic American accent.
posted by ubiquity at 12:14 PM on November 9, 2012

Is this just islands? I don't think I hear MOUNT Everest.

I do hear "Pikes PEAK."

And, now that I've considered this further, I do emphasize "EYE," but not the word "ISLAND" as a whole. But I also say it (and, I guess, think of it) as a single word... it all blends together with that swallowed "g." Which goes back to what JPD was saying a bit.

I and everyone I know from Connecticut grew up calling the cities in Connecticut "New HAY-ven", "New BRIT-tain", "New LON-don," etc.

Huh. I say "NEW Haven" but also "New LONdon" and "New BRITtain." I maintain that I am weird, and I still don't have a good theory as to why this happens, but I still hope my data points will help.
posted by cellar door at 12:17 PM on November 9, 2012

someone here in my office just referred to the city of "New Canaan", and pronounced it "New CAY-nan". However - he may live there.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 12:20 PM on November 9, 2012 [1 favorite]

If someone I was talking to said they were going to Block, Fishers, Shelter or Fire I'd now what they were talking about. If they said "Rhode" or "Long" I'd look at them like they were crazy.

Can someone say they're going to "Staten"?
posted by madcaptenor at 12:21 PM on November 9, 2012

It seems like single syllable words don't really have a stress syllable. So you can choose to stress it or not when you combine it with another word. It probably has more to do with whether you think of "Long Island" (or "Rhode Island") as one thing or two. Anybody who's from New York would consider "Long Island" one phrase, and naturally have only one stress syllable (which would naturally fall on the second of the three syllables in the phrase, since "Island" does have a stress syllable and it's the "eye").

I lived in New York for 4 years. I've lived in Seattle for 10. For landmarks near Seattle, I say "MOUNT Rainier" and "LAKE union".
posted by ethidda at 12:22 PM on November 9, 2012 [1 favorite]

Thanks, Brainmouse--I agree, this is not just the particular constellation of words.

Of course, I 100% understand that there are regionalisms that result in different emphasis or pronunciations, and there is no real "why" other than that's the way we do it. I'm not necessarily looking for an answer that traces the emphasis back to a wildly popular music hall number from 1889. Though if someone has a historical perspective (i.e., there was a "Long Wood" in what's now Queens that was felled in the 18th century) that would be great.

Is there a name for this particular application of emphasis, where the "category" is emphasized?

On preview: Pike's Peak is a great point, thanks cellar door.
posted by Admiral Haddock at 12:22 PM on November 9, 2012

Also, this might have to do with differentiating, like JPD said.

For my Seattle examples (because I know them better), we also have a Rainier Valley, a Rainier Beach, and a beer called Rainier. And Union Station, Union Square, and a whole bunch of other unions. So the category is emphasized and not the name. (There are only so many lakes and mountains around here, especially if you're point in that direction as you talk about them.)
posted by ethidda at 12:24 PM on November 9, 2012

Also, Rhode Island (and Providence Plantations) is not an island. So emphasizing the "island" in it seems especially silly.
posted by madcaptenor at 12:25 PM on November 9, 2012

Can someone say they're going to "Staten"

I don't think so.

Don't forget too when people say "Long Island" they don't really mean "Long Island," they mean the suburbs east of Queens. Brooklyn and Queens are on Long Island but no one would ever refer to them as "Long Island".
posted by JPD at 12:27 PM on November 9, 2012

Can someone say they're going to "Staten"?

Staten Island has a similar elision (StatNIland?)
posted by oinopaponton at 12:28 PM on November 9, 2012

Lived in NYC for several years as a young adult (Manhattan). I would say longEYEland, but if I were making fun of a specific regional accent, lawnGUYland.

Now that I am a Seattleite of 20+ years duration, I would say mount rayNEER and lake YOUnion.
posted by matildaben at 12:39 PM on November 9, 2012

To take another example, I definitely hear PROSPECT Park, but Central PARK--each with the same syllables. CENTRAL Park sounds bizarre.

I've never heard anyone saying "I'm going to Staten, Blocks, Fire, etc."

So, in summary, it seems like we've established a lot more examples of this emphasis phenomenon than just Long and Rhode Islands. And as Brainmouse illustrated, it doesn't seem to be solely a function of the length of the words in the name, the syllables, etc.

Now--does this phenomenon have a name?
posted by Admiral Haddock at 12:43 PM on November 9, 2012

I've always said it with emphasis on the EYE of "Island".

I'm originally from the south but lived in the New York area for 12 years. I never thought it was weird that people stressed the "island" aspect rather than the "long" aspect. My guess is that there are specific prosody things that English does (or maybe specifically American English) that make that the best way for most people to say that.

This phenomenon is definitely not all that weird -- for example have you ever heard a British English speaker say the word "miles" in a sentence? E.g. "I grew up ten miles away." For some reason they always emphasize the word "miles". No matter how complex a sentence, what the sentence is trying to communicate, how many miles, etc. It's "I grew up ten miles away." So English can do some weird things with stress that don't make sense logically when you try to parse them out.
posted by Sara C. at 1:29 PM on November 9, 2012

Now--does this phenomenon have a name?

That's a great question. I don't have an answer but I would love it if one surfaces. I've encountered this phenomenon and puzzled over it, but not over place names (although the ones here seem to fit right in).

I think the first time I really ran across it was baseball team names--specifically, the Red Sox and the White Sox. I referred to the "Red SOX" in conversation and my mother looked at me like I was crazy and said, "RED Sox." It made no sense to my ear; I think I attributed it to conversational rhythm (i.e., if it were actual socks, I wouldn't say "where are my RED socks?" I'd say, "where are my red SOCKS?"). She said no, it just wasn't right that way. It still sounds wrong to my ear but I've sucked it up (especially now that I'm living in Sox country).

The other time this has happened to me was with "district attorney." I read it aloud as "DISTRICT attorney," and once again, it was my mother who said no, it's "district ATTORNEY." This one I still think I'm right about.
posted by dlugoczaj at 1:30 PM on November 9, 2012 [2 favorites]

I'm a Chicagoan...I remember going to New England and being weirded out by people saying "MarbleHEAD". I thought to myself, shouldn't it be MARblehead?
posted by goethean at 2:30 PM on November 9, 2012

I used to live on Long Island and now I live in Chicago. When people ask me where I'm from and I say "Long Island" I've had to modify my pronunciation. After getting more than a few "Huh? Where?" I started enunciating it more clearly for people.

I grew up hearing and saying "Long-EYE-Lin" as one word, no hard G, no D. But now I say it as two different words with emphasis on "Long" and "Eye". Like: "Long - - Island".

Then it's: "Oh, I've been to NY but I've never been there." "I know."
posted by bleep at 2:36 PM on November 9, 2012

Lifelong New Englander here- Massachusetts and Maine.
It's Lawn-GUYland. Just like Row-Dilan. Can't you people speak English?
posted by pentagoet at 2:48 PM on November 9, 2012 [2 favorites]

I grew up hearing and saying "Long-EYE-Lin" as one word, no hard G, no D. But now I say it as two different words with emphasis on "Long" and "Eye". Like: "Long - - Island".

Brits visiting NYC do this, they make it two distinct words and no, that's just not done.
posted by The Whelk at 2:50 PM on November 9, 2012

It's done when you want people to understand what you're saying.
posted by bleep at 2:55 PM on November 9, 2012

I'm from New Zealand and I say LONG (soft stress) Island. I'm pretty sure all other New Zealanders say it the same way (despite the geographical distance this does come up in conversation, due to the cocktail).

I now live in London and had no idea this was the down under equivalent of American tourists asking for directions to Lie-Chester square.
posted by MrChuckles at 2:56 PM on November 9, 2012

Yeah, no ending D.

Native New Yorkers: "Lawnguylin"

NewYorkerswhoarenotnativebuthavebeenhereareallylongtimebuthavenodiscernibleaccent: "Longuyilin"

Somethines there's emphasis on the middle: " LawngUYlin"

God love ya, New York.
posted by sweetkid at 2:58 PM on November 9, 2012

So, in summary, it seems like we've established a lot more examples of this emphasis phenomenon than just Long and Rhode Islands. And as Brainmouse illustrated, it doesn't seem to be solely a function of the length of the words in the name, the syllables, etc.

Now--does this phenomenon have a name?

Compound stress.

In English, compound nouns are usually pronounced as if they were a single word rather than a pair of words. The standard example here is the difference between "black bird" (two separate words: BLACK BIRD) and "blackbird" (a compound noun, pronounced as one word: BLACKbird). Or compare "water cycle" (two separate words: WATer CYCle) with "motorcycle" (pronounced as one word: MOtorcycle). In Texas we've got a fast food chain called "Whattaburger," pronounced WHATaburger and never WHAT a BURGer. You get the idea.

So linguists will say that "blackbird," "motorcycle" and "Whattaburger" have compound stress, and "black bird," "water cycle" and "What, a burger?" don't.

FWIW, this is a part of English grammar that's famously irregular. ESL students hate this shit. There is no 100% reliable rule that lets you predict when you'll get compound stress and when you won't. You can usually make a pretty good guess based on the spelling: when there's compound stress, we tend to leave out the space between the words. But even that isn't perfectly reliable. Why can "ticker tape" get compound stress (TICKertape) when "Scotch tape" can't (always SCOTCH TAPE, never SCOTCHtape)? Nobody knows! You just have to memorize the difference!

As native speakers, we can say "Well, SCOTCH TAPE sounds more natural than SCOTCHtape." But that just means we memorized the difference very young, and now we can remember it without making an effort. There's no actual objective measure of "natural-sounding-ness" that will work here 100% of the time.

So with place names, too, it's unpredictable. Some get compound stress: WHITEhouse rather than WHITE HOUSE, longISland rather than LONG ISland, mountEVerest rather than MOUNT EVerest.

Others don't get compound stress, but continue to be pronounced as separate words with independent stresses: FIre ISland rather than fireISland, PIKE'S PEAK rather than pikeSPEAK, BAR HARBor rather than barHARbor.

And for some place names, there's inter-speaker variation. Some people say newORleans (compound stress), some say NEW orLEANS (two independently stressed words).
posted by nebulawindphone at 3:28 PM on November 9, 2012 [6 favorites]

lun-GUYlland, where the lun is really quiet.

people have some variation in this with "Thanksgiving." My friend from California (Palo Alto) says THANKSgiving, and I say thanksGIVING. His way sounds bizarre to me.

There is a branch of linguistics that sort of studies this. It's called prosody.

One of the difficult things about the English language (compared with say French or Italian) is that it's hard to predict prosody just by looking at a word or phrase. That makes it hard for non native speakers to sound totally natural.
posted by kellybird at 3:43 PM on November 9, 2012

I now live in London and had no idea this was the down under equivalent of American tourists asking for directions to Lie-Chester square.

No, that'd be asking for directions to HYOO-ston Street.
posted by TTIKTDA at 3:51 PM on November 9, 2012

Here's a De La Soul song where they chant "LonGUYland" over and over ("Wonce again Long Island"): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQ2767Huim0

...and that's how I learned to pronounce it as a West Coaster, though when I moved east I never heard any different...
posted by feets at 4:21 PM on November 9, 2012

Just a data point, if I were going to say Chouteau Island (island in the Mississippi River near St. Louis), I'd say "show'-toe EYE'-land." For some reason, the island part does get emphasized.
posted by limeonaire at 6:03 PM on November 9, 2012

Same for Dauphin Island off the coast of Mobile, Alabama (in my Louisiana experience - no idea how locals pronounce it). It's DAW-fin EYE-land, not DAUPHIN island. And, sadly, not at all Doe-FANH Island, which would approximate the correct pronunciation of Dauphin.
posted by Sara C. at 8:39 PM on November 9, 2012

I'm from Southern California. Long EYElund. RHODE eyelund. Catalina Eyelund (equal stress.) RYEkers EYElund. ALcatraz EYElund.
posted by blnkfrnk at 10:12 PM on November 9, 2012

Spent 18 hellish years growing up on south shore Long Island, finally left a few years later. I never heard "lawnGUYland" from anyone who actually was from there, but basically everyone from the city or other close but not quite LI people say it that way, and I worked for years and years at Jones Beach and unfortunately dealt with hordes of the public every day.

We all said Lawng EYElund, if we were from there, or "from away" for those in Montauk. There was a break there between the words though. Even "lawnguh EYElund" would be a stretch, but that "-awnguh" pronunciation is very typical in other words, so I would be denying reality to say so. I've never lived there since and have lost most if not all of my accent (many NYers ask me where I'm from and think the midwest, maybe), and I STILL do not hear many LIers saying it that way.

Also, Brooklyn and Queens are on Long Island, so if you're counting them, yes there are lots of Long Islanders who say lawnGUYland, but I'd throw in that they all deny they actually live on the ole island of Long and mock us natives as saying that way while never actually going there other than to trash the beaches and leave, so why listen to them?
posted by nevercalm at 11:12 PM on November 9, 2012

It's not necessarily that you put an emphasis on one word over another, but some sounds naturally lend themselves to more emphasis than others. Like "R." Notice your examples - all (except the "outlier," LI) have an "R" in them. For many native English speakers, emphasis is naturally put on the syllable with the "R" sound in it, wherever it falls in the name.
posted by lalala1234 at 12:02 AM on November 10, 2012

As a far-from-New-York datapoint, I'm from Utah and I pronounce it "Long Island", with about equal emphasis, exactly like I would say "Fire Island" or "Riker's Island" or "Rhode Island" or "Catalina Island".

I've learned the "Lawn GUYlund" pronunciation from TV, but I wouldn't use that unless I was trying to be funny.
posted by mmoncur at 12:42 AM on November 10, 2012