"Get to Know Your Neighbors"

Step outside Seattle, you step into a linguistic land mine.  What's worse, Washingtonians become extremely insulted if one of their town's names they stole from the Indians is mispronounced. 

Here are some gems to practice before you come out for a scenic visit:

"Sequim" is pronounced "Squim." They call this town 'the banana belt" as it has less rainfall than any other spot in the state as the Olympic Mountains block the clouds.

"Puyallup" is pronounced "pyoo-AHL-up" and don't even think about using a "w" sound between the pyoo and the AHL. You WILL get corrected.

"Sedro-Woolly" is pronounced "SEE-dro-wohl-ee," and it is their Berwyn," unsophisticated,  only rural.

"Hoquiam" is just like "hookworm" but without the "r."

Oh, and do not mix up "Snohomish" with "Snoqualmie" or "Sammamish" or "Swinomish." The way I keep these four straight is the first two are in the mountains, and therefore have snow.

The second two are by rivers and have fish. Or maybe it's the other way around.

Also, there is a crime-ridden town called University Place. So when you go on craigslist looking for an affordable apartment near the University of Washington, a great but "spendy" (as they say here) neighborhood near downtown Seattle, your eye always finds University Place, which is 40 miles away from the university but has a hell of a lot more vacancies than its leafier counterpart. But you CAN find an apartment in University Place for under $1200 a month.

Also, a little trick those snarky Seattleites might pull on you Midwesterners is when they mention Vancouver, as there are two, and you have to listen carefully to the context of their sentence. One is just across the northern border, in Canada. The other is this side of the Oregon border, in Washington, and is a Portland suburb. They are both a two and a half hour drive, just in opposite directions. 

If a Seattleite says, "We went to Vancouver last weekend and had a good time-great restaurants, and you can smoke weed outside the coffee shops," they are talking about the one in Canada. If they say, "We spent the weekend visiting our niece and nephew in Vancouver. My how they've grown up fast," they mean the other one. If their comment is more ambiguous,  just don't ask which one. It's better that way.