Freedom of My Mind

Whenever I am talking to people who live outside of the PNW (Pacific Northwest), I make sure to say that I live in Washington State. This is because if I am not clear, they will assume I am talking about D.C. As a Washingtonian, I want to be clear about that. Washingtonians are so much more chill, easy-going, a bit hippy-ish, outdoorsy, and bookish than people in D.C.

The story is that when Washington became a state, it was told that it had to choose a name of a president for its state-name. This might be legend, but I am fond of the story and like to wonder what if Washington had instead been Adams or Jefferson. Imagine being an Adamsian? It doesn’t have the same ring. Though Washingtonian is a mouthful, it rolls of the tongue almost of its own accord.

Place names can be challenging for people who first come to Washington. For example, Sequim. I always remember how to spell Sequim by thinking SEE-kwim. However, Sequim is not a half-rhyme with ‘sequin;” it is pronounced as a one-syllable word: skwim.

I don’t think I have actually heard anyone pronounce Sequim as See-kwim, but I have been asked if I have visited Is-AW-kwaw. I starred blankly for a moment, until I realized she was talking about Issaquah (IS-ə-kwaw).

And then there is Puyallup. We once had friends visiting from Oregon, who told us of their intense discussion with friends on how to pronounce Puyallup. My favorite guess was pull-yə-ALL-up. It is pronounced PEW-all-up.

Many place names in Washington are named after the different Native tribes who live here, as well anglicized forms of Lushootseed words.

The most famous is Seattle, named after Chief Seattle, chief of both the Suquamish and Duwamish tribes. We tend to assume that men became chief because they were great warriors, but Seattle was known most for his skills as a leader and diplomat. He was baptized into the Catholic church and was given the Christian name Noah, which pleased him, because Noah was a father to all the peoples in the world.

He had an uncle, Chief Kitsap, whose name lives on in Kitsap County.

And all my life I assumed that the Puget Sound was also named after a Native American person or word, which shows that I really don’t know my French, because it turns out that Peter Puget was a Huguenot in George Vancouver’s fleet, whose family had fled persecution in France. Somehow, I suspect that in French Puget would not be pronounced PEW-jət.

But pronunciations can easily be corrupted. During a tour of the museum at the Poulsbo City Hall, we learned that Olhava was not, as we all assumed, pronounced Ol-HAW-və. Apparently, so many people have moved from California to Kitsap County, that they automatically gave Olhava a Spanish twist. Olhava, however, is Scandinavian and should be pronounced Ol-HAY-və.

But at this point, if I were to try to pronounce it correctly, most people would assume I am an outsider who knows about as much of the area as the woman who’d asked me about Is-AW-kwaw.

Finally, so I don’t entirely neglect Eastern Washington, which is so often neglected by both Western Washingtonians and those outside the PNW, I will offer this city name: George. There are people who live in George, Washington.