Get Tongue-Tied With Us: The Most Difficult Town Name to Pronounce in Washington State

I've only lived in Washington state for twenty-some-odd years, and I can tell you that there are still some city names that I will butcher up unintentionally!

Take for instance, the city I was plucked to move to: Yakima. I was calling it "yuh-KY-muh" for about two weeks until someone finally corrected me. I bet to them it was like hearing nails scraping on a chalkboard!

Other city names I botched included Sammamish, Des Moines, Tukwila, Mulkiteo, and I could go on for a long time.

We residents of Washington take it for granted that we know the correct way to say the city of Anacortes (anna-KOR-tez) or Enumclaw (ee-num-CLAW).

Fife, anyone? When I first moved here, I thought it was pronounced, "FIFF."

I saw a story about the hardest town to pronounce in North Dakota (Palermo), and I quickly wanted to see what the Reader's Digest list would have to say about Oregon, California, and Washington state.

Zzyzx is the most difficult California city to say. I have no idea how to pronounce it. Is it, "ZZT-ZZT"?

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Yachats topped the Oregon cities the hardest to say right. Um, I'll take a wild guess and say it's pronounced, "YAKKITS?"

Okay, let's take the bite and see which Washington state city made the list as the most difficult to say: PUYALLUP.

I'm from The South, so my first inclination was to say "Pull Y'all Up", but that is SO WRONG.

Puyallup is where they have the biggest county fair in Washington; that's the extent of my Puyallup facts. So if they ever ask you that on Jeopardy, remember you heard it from me!

Now, I want you to un-tongue tie your mouth, say "pull-YALLOP" and call it a day!

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