The proper pronunciation of Athol is " ˈsfiŋ(k)-tər"
I meant to say “non-locals can’t figure out”. 
Sequim.
Haha, yeah, pretend the “e” isn’t there and that’s basically how to pronounce it. 
I visit Sequim regularly, one of the offices I support in my job (I work for state government doing IT) is in Sequim. I have also gone to the Lavender Festival there once and had a good time.
A good friend of mine is from Sequim, another lived in Des Moines, and I went to the Puyallup Fair many times.
Anybody have trouble pronouncing Steilacoom?
I’ve always heard it pronounced “Still-A-Coom”, the “oo” like “roof”.
I always heard stella-c’m
I have a friend who struggles with “Maupin”, “Deschutes” and “Malheur”, thinking they should be pronounced like French words.
It’s not “pileup”?
Not even close.
I used to have a GPS that pronounced it “Pew-wee-lup” which cracked me up.
Here is an ancient appearance by McLean Stevenson in which, right off the bat, he waves hello to a crew of sailors on a Canadian submarine and absolutely destroys the name. Perhaps the Canadians pronounce it differently, but if you know that name, you might struggle to recognize it.
Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania has a name that gets mangled on TV from time to time. You can pronounce the Barre part in a variety of ways (from my observation of locals) but giving Wilkes two syllables is right out.
During the coverage of Hurricane Ida, some of the news reports talked about the flooding of the Schuylkill River in Pennsylvania and I was a bit surprised at how it’s pronounced (something like SKOO-kəl).
Yup. Although sometimes you hear SKOO-kill.
Lebanon, PA is “LEB-nun”.
Prague, NE is “Prayg” (not “prahg” like the Czech one).
When I lived in Philadelphia we called the expressway the SURE-kill.
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Not a big fan of doxxing, tbh. But damn, people, stop randomly attacking others for imagined slights.
Especially not, as in this case, when you’re wrong.
Part of the “stolen valor” brigade, which in turn is part of the required worship of all members (current and former) of the US armed services. I’m glad people do it, it’s important, I just think the constant “thank you for your service” is over the top (and I know current and former members who agree).
And if there was less of it (and the various discounts for service members (which if a company wants to do it, fine, but it smacks of virtue signalling which the right tends to get upset with)), there would be fewer people “stealing” valor since there would be less value to it.
This veteran completely agrees. Veterans are no better or worse than anybody else. I get embarrassed when somebody says it to me, I never served in combat, don’t lump me in with those who did.