What Are You, Retarded?

Many of our place names come from Northwest Native-American
languages and can be a mouthful for newbies. And there are a handful of
other potential verbal snares that can expose your immigrant status.
Don’t open your trap until you’ve practiced these slippery terms alone
at home.

Oh, and I’m sorry to reinforce a Seattle cliché, but people
do drink a lot of coffee here and you will have to stand in line to get
yours. You can save us all some time by memorizing the following
formula before attempting to order an espresso drink (aka “a coffee”).
Seattleites run their drink specifics together into one word, in this
order: shot(s), size, milk, extras, drink (e.g.,
singleshortnonfatnowhiphazelnutmocha). And it’s espresso, not
expresso.

Alki AL-kye (like “sky”)

Anacortes anna-COUR-tess

Barça BAR-sa

Bumbershoot that’s a B, not a P

chinook (type of salmon) shin-NOOK

Coeur D’Alene core-da-LANE

Duwamish duh-WA-mish

geoduck gooey-duck

Hoh Rain Forest “the ho”

Interstate 5 eye-5 (never “the 5”)

Leschi LESH-eye

Macy’s the-BON

Medina ma-DINE-a

Mt. Rainier “ray-NEAR”

Nordstrom (not Nordstom’s)

Oregon ORA-gun

Pike Place Market (never Pike’s Place)

Puyallup PEW-alup

Quilcene qwill-seen

Safeway (not Safeway’s)

salmon SA-men (silent l)

Sasquatch SA-squatch (not saw-squash)

Sequim skwim

Spokane spo-CAN

Uwajimaya oo-WAH-gee-MY-a

Wenatchee when-NAT-chee