Correctness

J. is back. His grandma, who is four and a half months past her hundred and second birthday, has gotten a bit repetitive with her conversation topics. Her father was born in Oregon, and she realizes that J. lives here now, so she wanted to be sure that he knows how to pronounce it. Many people from other parts of the country say "Or-e-gone" or "Ar-e-gone," but the way we say it is "Orrigun." Or as they say on the t-shirts, "Orygun."

Then, the name of our local river, which runs from south and east of here up to Portland, where her dad was from - it's a tricky one. Willamette. If you're in Ohio, they have a Willamette, too, and they pronounce it in the obvious way, "Willa-MET." Not us - our word is unrelated to theirs; it's from our local Kalapuya Indians, and it's pronounced "wil-LAM-it." Or to use her dad's mnemonic, "Damn it, it's Willamette!"

(Apparently this phrase came up so frequently that he and his mom were saying it pre-emptively.)

I thought I'd share it here, anyway, so y'all my readers can know these things too. The damn-it wil-LAM-it river in Orygun.

(Don't get me started on the name for the location of the lighthouse in my icon...)