Travels With Towhee

June, 2023

Oops, this may have been posted before I finished writing it. But that’s ok, here’s the real thing!

Oh, I didn’t do my due diligence … didn’t fulfill expectations. I didn’t do my job! And reader Fritzi caught me. I liked that. 🙂

In her comment on the most recent blog post, Fritzi asked about the pronunciation of “Padilla”. Fritzi is a local here, grew up here, lived here most of her life, so I bet she knows how to pronounce it. But she mentioned it in her comment in such a gentle way.

I always try to remember to share how to pronounce the names of places that I visit since so many names of so many places in Washington State are native names, or derived from native names, or Spanish names/words, or who knows what history they have, but so many place names hereabouts are not from the English language that some of us are familiar with.

There is a website I found that says the MOST number of mispronounced place names in the USA are in Washington State. Now, I can imagine there might be a “location” app on that website that can tell where I live, and so maybe that’s the answer it gives. But still, there are a LOT of place names in Washington that get massacred by tourists and new folks here.

Here are a just a very few place names in Washington State that are often mispronounced: Puyallup, Yakima, Pe Ell, Sequim, Chelan, Spokane, Entiat, Methow, Pend Orielle, Okanogan, Tieton, Montesano, Cheney, Poulsbo, Shi Shi, Guemes, Lake Keechelus, Copalis, Skamokawa, Tekoa, Swinomish, Tulalip, Bangor, Conconully, and the list goes on and on and on from there.

And then there is … Padilla Bay.

I’m not going to describe the pronunciation of those other names of places listed above, a few of which I’ve described in this blog because I’ve been to those places. But let me now share how to correctly pronounce “Padilla”.

“Padilla” is Spanish. It is not pronounced “puh-DILL-ah”. It is correctly pronounced “pah-DEE-yah” … there is no “L” sound. And the first syllable is “pah”, not “puh”.

The word “padilla” was originally a word used to describe a place/location that was a shallow valley, or a gentle depression. There are a number of small Spanish villages named Padilla. And a number of other small communities in other Spanish speaking countries around the world. Here’s a link. Note the reference on that website to Padilla Bay in Washington.

The three photos here are all from the small village of Padilla de Abajo in Spain. The word “abajo” in Spanish means “below” in English. Sort of fits in with everything else here doesn’t it?

 

 

The word is also used to describe a shallow baking dish. And so, not surprisingly, and very appropriately, Padilla Bay here in the Pacific Northwest is one the largest and yet shallowest bays around. At high HIGH tide, the bay is only about 8-10 feet deep way out in the middle. That’s one of the reasons that it’s so incredibly rich in saltwater plant growth and other marine life. It doesn’t change temperature much from the shallow parts to the deep parts. The other reason it’s so rich in life is because the bay is so sheltered by dozens of islands from the ocean, from ocean waves and storms.

And then, not surprisingly, lots of Spanish folk picked up the surname of Padilla. So there are a great many Mexicans, and then of course people in the USA and around the world of that ancestry, with the surname Padilla. I happen to know one … TL Padilla in California. Here’s a wikipedia article about the surname Padilla.

So that’s what I know about the word “padilla” and the name “Padilla”. If anyone can add to this, please do.