<html>
<body>
<font size=3>At 09:28 PM 5/20/2003, you wrote:<br>
<blockquote type=cite class=cite cite>I find it surprising to see a
current nationally-published guidebook, the<br>
American Austomobile Association (AAA) "Campbook" for the
Northwest states,<br>
including a description of a campground in Washington's San Juan Islands
as<br>
having a "salt chuck". No one but a few geeks (sorry) on
this list & a few<br>
old-timers from the Pacific NW would understand that term, right?
</blockquote><br>
I think the boating/yachting culture of Puget Sound keeps the term alive
there, even among those unaware of its origin. As "salt" is
English and "chuck" has an English homonym, the expression
isn't obviously something else.<br><br>
I seem to recall the Sound and Lake Washington were once distinguished as
"Big Chuck" and "Little Chuck." (Or was it the
ocean and the sound? They might have had different meanings to sea
sailors and weekend boaters.) A hasty search of Google didn't turn up an
answer right away. Memories of my "Seattle days" are getting
fuzzy. (They weren't all that clear at the time...)<br><br>
(Off-topic nautical digression, from my long-ago Coast Guard service:
Anybody else here know what it means to "kiss the camel," and
why you very much wish to avoid doing so?)<br><br>
Due to the total lack of email from Seattle-area whites during the six
years my site's been on-line, asserting the Jargon is or was their
"insider slang" (practically a challenge), I suspect nobody
bandies Jargon terms about they way a few still did when I was there
twenty years ago. People were already quite shy about it then, refusing
to explain or even acknowledge it when a Jargon word "slipped
out" occasionally, leaving me baffled until I finally looked it up a
decade later.<br><br>
When I built the site I presumed the high-tech, progress-boosting
Seattleites were still just trying to gloss the relative recentness of
their rough frontier days. But they really got over that
self-consciousness during the sixties, after the World's Fair, the
Seafirst Tower, the 747 and the Kingdome firmly established their place
in the 20th century. I now think they were already becoming sensitive to
cultural issues, and realized the Jargon brought up a touchy historical
area. As an "outsider" (from the disdained "rival"
Portland) who was pretty naive about Native history, I overlooked that
angle completely--and they were loath to spell it out for me.<br><br>
Regards,<br><br>
Jeff</font></body>
</html>