LAKE CHARGOGGAGOGGMAN-CHAUGGAGOGGCHAUBUNAGUNGAMAUGG, Mass. - It is spelled just the way it sounds.

Unless you spell it differently, like in the sign put up by the chamber of commerce at the southern end of town, which has an O for one of the U's and an H for one of the N's.

Or the postcards at Waterfront Mary's, the lake's best-known restaurant, which have smuggled an extra "gaug" into the name.

Even for the locals, this sprawling central Massachusetts lake with the even more sprawling name, Lake Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg -- the longest place name in the country -- is not for the tied of tongue.

Gone are the years when Ethel Merman and Ray Bolger made it a name you could dance to in a tune called "The Lake Song":

Oh, we took a walk one evening and we sat down on a log

By Lake Chargoggagoggman-chauggagoggchaubunagung-amaugg.