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Sep 22, 2025
This week’s themeWords with Seattle connections This week’s words skid row spacearium ecotopia space needle grunge 
A Mural in Downtown Los Angeles’s Skid Row
Photo: Stephen Zeigler / Wikimedia Previous week’s theme Words that aren’t what they appear to be 
A.Word.A.Day
with Anu GargBack in the early 2000s I was working for AT&T Labs on the other side of the country. I had always liked Seattle whenever I visited. One day I asked my boss if he’d let me move to Seattle and telecommute from there. To my surprise he agreed. I moved here and worked from home. Got two landlines, one for home, one for work, and never looked back. Eventually, I quit software to write full time and spread the joy of words. Seattle gets its name from Chief Seattle (1780-1866), an anglicization of Si’ahl, who was the chief of the Duwamish and Suquamish peoples. Chief Seattle who once said, “Man did not weave the web of life, he is merely a strand in it. Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself.” What is Seattle today? It’s the home of Microsoft, Amazon, and Boeing, so a lot of engineers, but it’s also the home of artists, writers, musicians, and baristas. It’s one of precious few places where you can sip a latte in flannel while coding on a laptop, then hike up a mountain the same afternoon. For me, Seattle is nerdy. It’s kind. And it’s beautiful, inside and out. It’s coffee, rain, orcas, evergreens, bridges, bookstores, bikes, and bands. Also mountains, public staircases, and public transit. In short: a place that makes a splash, whether from raindrops or guitar feedback. I moved around a lot growing up in India. Never more than a year or two in one place. Dad’s government job took him from place to place. We went wherever he was posted. Seattle is the longest I’ve lived anywhere. After all that wandering, it feels like home. We don’t know Chief Seattle’s birthday, but with Native American Day on Sep 26, this feels like the right time to explore words rooted in this region. Have you lived in Seattle? Visited? What stood out, what did you love, or maybe didn’t? Share your thoughts below or email us at words@wordsmith.org Include your location (city, state). skid row
PRONUNCIATION:
(skid roh)
MEANING:
noun: An area where people down on their luck congregate, often struggling with poverty, addiction, or homelessness.
ETYMOLOGY:
From skid road, a path where logs were skidded downhill to the lumber
mill. Earliest documented use: 1920.
NOTES:
In Seattle, Yesler Way was where loggers slid timber downhill to
Henry Yesler’s mill. The street soon gathered saloons, flophouses, and
folks sliding downhill in other ways. From there, the term skid row began
to be applied to rough areas in other cities.
USAGE:
“Between high street and skid row there is work to be done.” Filling the Gap; The Economist (London, UK); Dec 6, 2008. See more usage examples of skid row in Vocabulary.com’s dictionary. A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
Wrongs are often forgiven, but contempt never is. Our pride remembers it
forever. -Lord Chesterfield, statesman and writer (22 Sep 1694-1773)
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