That Pecan is one tough nut to crack!

P'Koum-Kwa, aka Pacan, aka Pacanne
as sketched by Henry Hamilton,
the lieutenant governor of Detroit
and superintendent of Indian Affairs,
circa 1779; read his description
of his subject on the
National Parks Service site

If you have been keeping up with this blog, you know that we have relocated to a street in Ft. Wayne named for the legendary Miami chieftain né P'Koum-Kwa, aka Pacan, aka Pacanne (but not Paccanne-- see June 25 post), the spelling of whose name continues to vex me. When we were given our new address by the leasing office while we were still in Texas, the street name was spelled (and still is by them) Paccanne Ct., with 2 c's. It was also the official spelling in the USPS database.

I hadn't bothered to look at the street sign closely enough to see the one-c spelling; my wife pointed it out a couple of weeks ago. But I did find it odd that the street name on Google Earth was Pacanne when I looked it up while still in Texas. Then, once we had moved in, we ordered a pizza and the driver called because she couldn't find our street on GPS. I had given her the two-c's spelling...

Well, before my wife pointed out the street sign spelling, I had emailed Google Earth about their spelling, that it was wrong, and they changed it to two c's. At that point, I thought all was good...

...until I saw the street sign. Dang!

There was only one thing to do. Take a picture of the sign, put it in a letter to the post office, and let them handle it. Well, within 3 days I got a phone call from someone in Indianapolis who didn't know why the name they have is the two-c's version, but, after a little digging, agreed that it needed to be corrected. The mailman now delivers to Pacanne Ct. But, wait, what about Google Earth? Dang!

I emailed Google Earth and tried to explain the whole thing, but I haven't heard back and I haven't checked to see if our street is even on their maps anymore...

I blame all of this on the French (at least initially), the language and the settlers who spoke it that crossed paths with the The Man, The Myth, the inimitable P'Koum-Kwa (which if pronounced sideways with the -Kwa removed sort of sounds like pecan, which is what his name purportedly means in Miami, an Algonquin derivative dialect). The great Chief Pecan apparently got his nom de noix from the French word for pecan, pacane (pronounced PUH-kehn), which the French got from the Algonquian word for "hard nut": paccan (which more likely meant walnut). The anglicized version of this, of course, is pecan; I suspect that since there was no such word in French (or English), the French-from-Algonquin became pacanne in the same way the Algonquin word tepaqan became tabaganne in French (and then toboggan in English). In the end, it's all for naught anyway, since the pecan is actually classified scientifically as "an Illinois walnut" (carya illinoinensis)...

The word pecan has apparently troubled American English speakers from the get-go:

From the Proceedings of the Second Annual Convention of the National Nut Growers' Association held at Audubon Park, New Orleans, Louisiana, in October 1903:

Mr. J. В. Wight, of Cairo, Ga, said he would be pleased if someone would tell him the proper way to pronounce the name of the nut they were discussing; that at the last meeting of the Convention it was decided to pronounce it after the eastern way, "pecan," but that he noticed the majority gave it the broad sound, "pecawn." Dr. Y. R. LeMonnier answered him by saying that ah it was taken from the French "pacanne," he thought that it should be pronounced "pecawn" and not "pecan." Mr. Sam H. James suggested that each one pronounce the word to suit himself.

From the Report of the Proceedings at the Sixth Annual Meeting in Rochester, New York, in September 1915:

Question: Are pecans a variety of hickory?

Dr. Morris: Yes, pecans are hickories. The Indians gave it the name of pekan. The French spelled it pecanne, so that has been spelled as the pecan, without the necessary other part of its name, hickory. We should always say pecan hickory-- always.

Ha! No wonder they couldn't get the street name right!

So. If the letter you sent me comes back marked "no such address," send it again, but change Ft. Wayne to Pacan's Village...if that doesn't work, change Pacan's Village to Kekionga...awww nuts. Just call me.