AN-sur Man: Sound and Sense of Place

W hen I was in college at Georgetown University in the 1970s, my friends moved off campus into the neighborhood just north of Georgetown. We all called it Glover (rhymes with "lover") Park. I've been back in D.C. since the 1990s, and now I'm hearing it called Glover (rhymes with "rover") Park -- especially when I take the newer buses over that way which announce the stops over a loudspeaker. Was I pronouncing the name of the neighborhood wrong back in the '70s? Or has the pronunciation of the name changed over the years?

Amy Hubbard, Washington

You say GLOH-ver and I say GLUH-ver

You say NOOK-yu-lar and I say NOO-klee-er

GLOH-ver! GLUH-ver!

NOOK-yu-lar! NOO-klee-er!

Let's call the whole thing off!

Thank you, thank you. I'll be appearing here through the weekend.

The older Answer Man gets, the more he feels that language is an imperfect tool. He sometimes thinks he will stop speaking completely and just carry around a dry-erase board and a marker, or perhaps rely on a flipbook containing images he could use to have a "conversation":

[Picture of sandwich] + [picture of Answer Man pointing at his stomach] = "I'm hungry."

But back to the question at hand: How do you pronounce the name of the neighborhood that's west of Wisconsin Avenue and north of W Street NW? GLOH-ver or GLUH-ver?