By Michael Kelly

World-weary musicians onstage at Infinity Hall will sometimes express bewilderment as to where on God’s earth their tour buses have deposited them; then ask, parenthetically, just how do we say the name of this remote hamlet bordering the Berkshires?

What these musicians don’t know is that Norfolkians are just as confounded by the proper pronunciation of Norfolk as are they. A random survey of Norfolk residents perplexes. Though we live in a region of New England with no identifiable accent, dialect or speech pattern, in the course of a day around town, one might hear it pronounced Norfork, Norfolk, Norfuck, Norfick, Norfok, Norfeck and even Nahfuck  – often with subtle syllabic cadences. Interesting that, in a 256-year old village infused with history and culture, there is no consensus on a precise way to utter such a simple locution.

The town in Great Britain from which ours gets its name has always been called  “Norfuck.”

In 1738, when the General Assembly in Hartford divided the Greenwoods wilderness into townships, they chose names reminiscent of their British heritage. Norfolk was named after Norfolk County, east of London on the North Sea, which itself was named in the fifth century to differentiate the northern folk from the southern folk of Suffolk County. On YouTube there are several videos of Norfolk, England natives speaking in Norfolk, a distinct regional, almost comical, dialect – and they all pronounce it, in a clipped accent, Norfuck (diametric to neighboring Suffuck, which, incidentally, seems to be pronounced the same way everywhere).

Only five states in this country have a Norfolk. At 1,667 residents, we have, by far, the smallest population and, paradoxically, the most diverse pronunciation parlance. Norfolk, NY on the Canadian border has 4,688 residents, all of whom say Norfork. The 11,200 residents of Norfolk, Mass., 35 miles southwest of Boston, say Norfuck, similar to their namesake ancestral cousins in England. Boyhood home of comedian Johnny Carson, Norfolk, Nebraska has 24,300 residents, and was named in 1819 for its location at the north fork of the Elkhorn River. Over time, the spelling morphed to Norfolk, but, yes, they still pronounce it Norfork. Norfolk, Virginia was named in 1667 after a prominent early settler from King’s Lane, Norfolk County, Great Britain. One would think such a bustling, international port city of 242,800 would have several ways to say Norfolk, not dissimilar to the assortment we hear in the Northwest Corner, but most Virginians say Norfock (not too naughty they claim), albeit with southern flair.

Hardly Balkanized, the population of Norfolk is layered, demographically, with amorphous, overlapping subgroups. There are the Norfolk natives, who could well belong to the curling or coon clubs and whose families have been living here for generations; the Doolittle Lake dwellers and country club members (echoes of the urbane summer colony that thrived here in the early part of the 20th century); weekenders, mostly from New York, who buy homes in search of respite from the city; year-round residents who may have to commute a great distance to work but choose to raise their families in a setting rich in culture and natural beauty; and the progeny of a landed gentry that built estates on large tracts a century ago and remain in situ.

It is at the nexus of these groups that the pronunciation of Norfolk is muddled. If you are a native, you most likely say Norfork just as your parents and grandparents always have. If you are a Doolittle dweller, a country club member or belong to the landed gentry, you could very well say one of several iterations, Norfolk, Norfuck, Norfeck, Norfick, perhaps a bit differently each time, but you never say Norfork. Weekenders are more inclined to say Norfolk, phonetically, the way it’s spelled. If you live here and work elsewhere you might say it any of the aforementioned ways or, Norfork, like the natives with whom you may most often associate.

There may be no correct way to say Norfolk, Conn. However, should one move to Norfolk County, England and start pronouncing it Norfork or Norfolk, they would know right away that you’re not a local. The same probably holds true here. If you don’t say Norfork as do the locals, then you’re probably pronouncing it wrong.

With this in mind, let us ponder this excerpt from Hayden Carruth’s “A Short-Run View”,

“One year there was frost in every month, so I’m told by Mrs. Barnes, whose family has lived in Norfolk for generations, like other proper Norfolkians, she pronounces it Norfork.”