It seems that “Sequim” doesn’t mean “quiet waters,” like they’ve been telling us all this time.
Instead, Timothy Montler said Sequim translates in the Native language to “place for going to shoot” — a reference to the Sequim-Dungeness Valley’s once great waterfowl and elk hunting.
“Basically, it means hunting ground,” said Montler, an expert in the study of dying languages who since 1992 has been studying the Klallam language and has interviewed tribal elders with the Jamestown S’Klallam tribe.
“It has to do with the abundance of elk and waterfowl in the area.”
Apparently, the old translation was just “something that somebody made up.”
Okay then.
In related news, “Puyallup” turns out to really mean, “eat shit and die, motherfuckers”.
@1 that gives the phrase “do the Puyallup” such better context.
“Quiet waters”? Seems like if you’re going to pull a bullshit Native American translation out of your ass, you’d go with something unique to the area, like, “dry Earth”, or “we wanted to be like Carmel, but people in RVs just don’t buy that much art, so…. when is that IHOP opening?”
Well, they’re sort of connected, since, as everyone knows, in order to be a successful hunter one must be “vewwy, vewwy qwiet”…
So, I guess they’ll be removing that superfluous “e” any day now, huh?
“Shootin’ Sequim” sounds dirty.
This kind of discussion always gets back to something I heard a long time ago:
“We met at a Bothell. He started us out with a bottle of Tumwater, and then likkered me up with some 12-year, single malt Chehalis he also brought along. I didn’t know he’d slipped a Mukilteo in my drink, because I passed out quick. Next thing I knew when I came to, he had Chuckanut and stuck his Muckleshoot in my Tulalip in an act of Humptulips until he managed to get his Sequim to release. This sucked, because two days later, I learnt he gave me a wicked case of the Cle Ellum that burnt like Fife. And adding insult to injury, nine months later I gave birth to twins named Yelm and Elma.”