WE HAVE A FUNNY THING in Vermont that I like to call the soft “T.” When we pronounce our home state, the hard “T” is replaced with a delicate yet guttural puff of air from the bottom of the throat, which can only be written out as accurately as: “Vermon(gh).”
It’s not pretty, but it’s pure. It’s spoken the same whether you’re a suburbanite in Chittenden County, or a dairy farmer in the North Country. It’s one of the many things Vermonters share, and we tend to care a lot about the things we share as a community. Treading heavily on those things just might piss us off.