Seattle Tip of the Week Three: Sound Language

Seattle is a pretty smart city. I like that, by and large. I enjoy the fact that I don't need to define my terms in a casual conversation, or explain what vegan means. I got really tired of that over the years. Living in rural West Virginia, you develop an appreciation for education when you finally meet it. Irrelevant to that opening statement, here is a picture of Pretty Sue at Carkeek park.

Then, there is the dark side. The correctors and the know it alls. They flock to locations in Seattle, ready to scowl disapprovingly at you for your errors, or correct you with layers of condescending facial expressions until you are more knowledgeable and annoyed than you were previously. This is a well known Seattle trait, and people often comment on it, apparently under the mistaken assumption that mentioning something makes it less of a problem.

One of my favorite examples of this is the Puget Sound. I often, casually, refer to it as a the ocean, or the bordering sand as the beach. This is a gigantic affront to the water, I have learned. Although it seems to me to be technically correct, it is not appropriate. Some of the weird corrections I get make sense, if they are irritating. Some parents yell at me about the level of clothing my kids wear; one woman practically threatened me once when Viri went out on a pier at Green Lake without me. But this makes no sense. Why does anyone care? I often get the same look as Arkaedi Sue when people do this:

This is one thing I won't miss about Seattle, if I ever move. Oddly enough, I will really miss the sound itself. I'm sorry, I mean the ocean.