Tuesday, September 11, 2012

Funny Words

On my post about my Oregon trip I asked how you would pronounce "tillamook" and it got me thinking about other weird words where I live. You see, Washington has a lot of Native American influences and so a lot of the cities and things have Indian names. So I came up with a list for you! Yay!

First up, I wanted to set "tillamook" straight, its pronounced: till-uh-muck

I went to high school in Puyallup, its pronounced: pew-all-up (not as hard as you'd think right?)

Issaquah: Iss (like hiss)- uh- kwaw

Snoqualmie: snow-kwall-me

Steilacoom: still-uh-come

Cle Elum: clee-el-um

Yakima: yak-uh-muh

Quillayute: quille-ute

Sequim: skwim

Wenatchee: when-at-chee (not that hard but you'd be surprised!)

Chehalis: shuh-hay-liss

Kennewick: ken-uh-wick

Sammamish: Suh-mam-ish

Tulalip: two-lay-lip

Nisqually: nis-kwall-ee



Okay, I might have gotten a little carried away; but there's even more than that and I could keep going on and on and on. But I'll stop. I just thought it was interesting! So how did you do? Would you have pronounced them how I said? Do you have weird city names that you don't usually realize are weird until someone visits and can't say the town you live in? :)

5 comments:

  1. I grew up in WA (just recently relocated to AZ) and it cracks me up to hear people trying to figure out the pronunciation! Duvall is not pronounced "Du-VALL," it's pronounced "DU (DOO) vall."

    Thanks for this - I love WA.

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  2. My brothers served LDS Missions in Yakimah and kennewick areas so I did good on most of them.

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  3. I could hardly say any of them! We are so close to Mexico and have Navajo, Hopi, Zuni, and Apache Indians surrounding us on all sides. Then there are the Indians down by Mesa/Phoenix as well. We have a bunch too, but they are completely different than yours! Very interesting!

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  4. The only one I would say differently is Sequim isn't sea-qwee-um it's more like skwim:) And look what else I found! Northwest Pronunciation Guide, haha!!
    http://www.stevensauke.com/say/northwest.html

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  5. Dude Kristie, you're right!! hahaha You know when you're staring at the same word for awhile and it starts looking really weird?? I must have done something like that! I'll have to change it! haha

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