Latest southern Colorado news, weather and sports from FOX21 News

COLORADO SPRINGS, COLO. -- It is an ongoing debate in Colorado Springs that may never be resolved.

The names of some of the streets in the city seem to have a number of ways they are pronounced, such as Vermijo Avenue. Is it pronounced 'Ver-muh-ho' or 'Ver-mee-ho?'

The answer depends on if you prefer culture or tradition.

"Certainly here in town it it is 'Ver-muh-ho,'" Matt Mayberry, director of the Pioneer Museum, said. "It probably doesn't follow the strict Spanish dialect, the way it would be pronounced in Spanish."

Mayberry said when Colorado Springs was founded in 1871, it was planned that the city would have streets laid out in a typical grid pattern. While it is not certain who was responsible for the names of the streets, Mayberry said they were likely names General William Jackson Palmer and the men he hired to help construct the city.

"We know that [the names] were carefully chosen," Mayberry said. "Typically, south of Pikes Peak Avenue streets are Hispanic in name. North of Pikes Peak they are often American Indian or French. That's why we have Cache La Poudre to the north and Costilla to the south."

Yet it is that foreign cultural twist to the street names that has some unsure of how to properly pronounce them.

"Here in Colorado Springs we drive on 'Will-a-met,'" Mayberry said. "If you go to Oregon, it's pronounced 'Will-am-ett.'"

Mayberry said for unknown reasons, residents in the city have adapted their own version of how streets are pronounced. He said it makes the city unique and creates a city tradition that may never change.

"It is very typical, I think, in local communities for them to adapt names that fit and it is passed down from generation to generation," he said. "People are passionate about what they know and change is hard. It is what it is." 

To hear how some residents pronounce certain streets in Colorado Springs, such as Vermijo, Tejon and Cache La Poudre, watch the video above.