Pronounciation

Many years ago, a good friend of mine had a wicked manager named "De-BORE-ah". This is the common name "Deborah", with the accent on the wrong syLAble (my friend appreciated this perspective). That lady must've been from Northern Oregon, because a lot of their nouns are acCENted just that way. My theory is that it was One Guy in the early settler days who made funny pronunciations on purpose, as a legacy to future generations.

Whe I encounter suspect words, I just never utter them aloud, like at a party where I've immediately forgotten the person's name I'm

Peony: "p-OH-nee".
My physical therapists claimed it was a West/East thing. If you're from the East, you say "PEE-uhnee". I told them I grew up in California and had never even HEARD "pOHnee" and it was probably just a Northern Oregon thing. They didn't like that.

Dahlia: "ah" like in "apple". "DAL-ee-uh"

Willamette: "Will-AA-mit" rhymes with 'Dammit".
We were crossing the Willamette, and I was emphatically practicing "WillAmette!" and Max pipes up, "DAD! That's a bad word!"

Tigard: "TIE-gard"
Not "tiggerd", which does sound cuter.
There was a Robert Crais book that had a psychopath in it who hailed from Tigard.

Tualatin: "t-WAL-a-tin"

Willamina: "Wil-a-MEEN-a"

Chemeketa: "...uh... sha-MEK-e-tuh"
I figured out how to pronounce this be hearing the BMX announcer pronounce "Chehalem"

Chehalem: "sha-HAY-lem"

Champoeg. Guess. No, really, guess.
"sham-POOey"
My physical therapists* were like "how did you think it was pronounced? "uh, 'cham-PO-egg'."

Soda: is pronounced "pop."


*I had surgery for a broken arm, and I've been going to McMinnville Sports Medicine for physical therapy. They're great, and we talk about all sorts of stuff while they're causing my anguish.