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Place: Cotopaxi
Usage: Small town in central Colorado (according to the 2010 Census, 47 people were living there)
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Shares a Name With: Active volcano in Ecuador
Pronunciation: K-oh-toe-pax-ie (not k-oh-toe-pah-x-ie)
Expert: “People mispronounce the name all the time. It happens a lot over the telephone, when they’ve got something written in front of them. There’s a big pause, and then they give it a shot, and move right on.” —Nancy Oswald, historical fiction author who lives on a family ranch in Cotopaxi. Oswald has been a resident in Cotopaxi for the last 22 years.
Fun Fact: Oswald says that the old postmaster used to keep a list on the wall of all the letters that came through with terrible misspellings of the name Cotopaxi. It was a pretty long compilation.
—Image courtesy of Shutterstock