Watching the latest "The Logistics of" video which covers Depoe Bay and Sam pronounces it as "du-poe". I've always heard people say and thought it was pronounced like "dee-poe" like the word "depot".
Many proper nouns in Oregon are based on the sounds of the Native American words in use at the time they settled the area.
Tillamook (Til-a-muk) is a coastal tribe native to the area where the little town of Tillamook resides. It hosts a dairy/creamery that makes the famous Tillamook Cheese and ice cream.
Another sweet little coastal town just down a way: Yachatts (ya-hots). I used to fish for Dungenous crabs there.
@terri As a lifelong Oregonian, it's funny to hear people from outside the Pacific Northwest try to pronounce, with conviction, names so incorrectly.
Tigard (TIE-gurd, not tie-GUARD or TIG-urd) and Aloha (a-low-wah, not a-low-HA or a-low-huh) are sometimes hard eye-roll, especially with infomercials recorded by people on the East Coast (strong NY or NE accent).
Other places and streets (outside of Couch) that really trip people up include Glisan, Willamette, Clackamette, Estacada, Tualatin, The Dalles and Deschutes.
@qlp lol, yup, I've been here nearly 10 years and I will still sometimes mispronounce Tigard because it was so long before I heard a local say it. Though some great kids from Aloha made me practice while I was helping them at a robotics competition and fixed that one! I think it's especially funny that my Canadian accent is close enough to pass for a while here (it was not close enough in New Mexico) but the place names will always out me as a transplant eventually.
@qlp@terri I lived in Tigard as a kid - a few years ago a coworker was talking about "tye-guard" and it legitimately took me several minutes to figure out he was talking about the same place.
As a Washingtonian, I'd like to add to the list Puyallup and Sequim
@benb As a listener to the TBTL podcast, I get to hear about Puyallup, Sequim, Des Moines, Sedro Woolley, and Skagit County and Valley. Puyallup was one that I had a hard time with, mostly because of my own mental and vocal block. Same mental and vocal block that caused me to struggle with saying "cartridge" correctly up into my teens.
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