the Puget Sound

[Anne Gilbert]

All

One of the ways I can tell whether somebody who is speaking is a "real" Puget sound native is whether or not they refer to the body of water in question as "the Puget Sound" or not.  If they do say "the Puget Sound", I'm almost certain they came from somewhere else.  Recently.  It's true that people around here tend to refer to Mt. Rainier as "the Mountain", but no native who hasn't completely lost his or her senses would ever refer to "the Puget Sound".  It even sounds weird to me.
Anne G
 "A. Maberry" <maberry at U.WASHINGTON.EDU> wrote:For some reason, it doesn't sound odd to me, although I think that I would
only use "Puget Sound" or, the equally common "the Sound." Maybe the usage
is just an extension of "the Sound" by some Seattleites. There really
isn't much room for confusion as to which "sound" is meant around here.

allen
maberry at u.washington.edu

On Thu, 14 Nov 2002, Peter Richardson wrote:

> Recently three of my students who are from the Seattle area have referred
> to "the Puget Sound." And this morning on Morning Edition there was a
> background comment about "the Puget Sound"--a comment made not by the
> reporter, but by someone native to the area. Now, I've always said, "the
> Puget Sound area," but otherwise just "Puget Sound": Puget Sound is
> pretty, they live on Puget Sound, etc. Has anyone in this neck of the
> woods noticed what seems to be a recent phenomenon? (Or any other neck of
> the woods, for that matter) It's doubtful that these three students are up
> to something, hatching a plot to drive me crazy; and I know that they're
> all natives of the area and not from east of the mountains, where one
> tends to say "the Coast."
>
> Peter R.
>