Where's Washington?

I heard a story recently that reminded me something about how the Pacific Northwest differs from the rest of the US.

A friend of mine was moving from suburban New Jersey out to rural Washington state, out in the unincorporated part of Bremerton on the Olympic Peninsula. He bought a new cell phone in NJ a few weeks before moving, but was sure to ask the salesperson if the phone would get the same quality signal in Washington. The salesperson assured him that he would, in fact, get the same quality signal.

After the move, low and behold, he gets no signal at all out in Washington state. He takes the phone to his local branch for that cell provider, and they get the same salesperson on the phone from the first store, who corroborates my friend's story about assuring him it would work "in Washington."

Very quickly, they discover the source of the miscommunication. When people say "Washington" in the eastern part of the country (and most other parts as well), almost everyone assumes they are referring to Washington D.C. (i.e. the District of Columbia) whereas out in the Pacific Northwest, "Washington" refers to the state of that name. As someone who lived in Washington state for years, I can tell you that when the folks out there refer to the country's capital, they call it "D.C."