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So how did Faneuil pronounce Faneuil?

By adamg on Tue, 05/22/2012 - 10:26am

J.L. Bell begins an investigation.

Neighborhoods: 
Downtown
Topics: 
History
Free tagging: 
Faneuil Hall Marketplace


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Comments

By jp_guy on Tue, 05/22/2012 - 12:46pm.

I believe the family was of French Huguenot origin. If he was bilingual, he might have pronounced it fa-nuh-yee among French speakers, and fan-you-uhl among English speakers.

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By JohnAKeith on Tue, 05/22/2012 - 1:16pm.

I was brought up pronouncing it "fannel" hall, like flannel without the extra l.

We pronounced Filene's correctly, too. "feleens".

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By Chris Dowd on Tue, 05/22/2012 - 3:17pm.

. . . last weekend. I always pronounced it "Fan-Yull".

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By NotWhitey on Tue, 05/22/2012 - 4:08pm.

How did your family get it right? Not based on that blog post.

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By anon on Tue, 05/22/2012 - 3:27pm.

For whatever it's worth, people I know who attended the Peter Faneuil school pronounced it to rhyme with "Samuel"

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By anon on Fri, 05/25/2012 - 7:34am.

In the mid-80s I went to a high school located in the old Faneuil School on Joy St.

It was pronounced very similarly to Samuel but with a little less emphasis on the U.

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By MC Slim JB on Tue, 05/22/2012 - 4:46pm.

I pronounced it to rhyme with "manual' growing up, heard somewhere that longtime locals properly rhymed it with "flannel", and laughed when Brendan Fraser's character in The Quiet American (2002), purportedly from Boston, pronounced it FAN-WHALE.

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By Michael Pahre on Tue, 05/22/2012 - 11:03pm.

A few of the park rangers insist the proper pronunciation is "Fannel." Not sure their historical sources.

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