Why People From the Pacific Northwest Can’t Say “No”

Have you ever visited the Pacific Northwest? Lived there awhile? Maybe your whole life? If you answered yes to any of these questions, you might have noticed something about the way people here interact with one another. Specifically, you may have noticed the way that locals are, for the most part, unable to straight up decline an invitation or request.

In fact, “If you ask a person if they want to go see a show with you and they respond, ‘That sounds interesting, I’ll have to check my calendar,’ in Seattle, this means ‘no.’ If the response is, ‘maybe,’ that too means no. If they say, ‘send me an email about it!’, that means no. If you ask via a text or e-mail or leave the invitation in voice-mail and you don’t hear back, that means no as well.” (Sandoval) Linguists have begun to call this particular phenomenon the “Seattle no,” but it actually maps onto a larger-scale way of thinking that is specific to the Pacific Northwest way of speaking English. So, then, what makes the PNW special? How is it that these rules are universally accepted? And why is it really that people from this area can’t say no?

One thing to note about the PNW way of speaking English is that many people wrongly perceive it to be the “accent-free,” “standard” way of speaking English. Yet, when you look at the different regions within the Pacific Northwest, native speakers could easily tell you about how people speak with different accents.

For example, people who live in Oregon tend to be distinguishable from people who live in Washington, and people from the west side of the Cascades have a different way of speaking than the people who live on the east side of them. Therefore, the PNW accent is not just one, but many accents, proving that there really is no “standard.”

However, this region is not just special in the way that we pronounce sounds, but also in the way that speakers “use language to communicate.” (Sandoval) In the same way that speakers in New York could be considered “rude,” or the speakers from the South are abounding with hospitality, people form their own perceptions of people from the PNW based on how they communicate.

In order to understand why this is, it is important to first understand what makes something someone says “polite” versus “impolite.” Linguists Levinson and Brown developed the term “face” in order to explain how it is that people go about constructing what they are going to say. When speaking, people typically have two “faces” — positive face, and negative face.

The positive face refers to the fact that when two people are having a conversation, whoever is speaking naturally wants to be thought of in a positive way by the other person. The negative face refers to the fact that both the speaker and the hearer want to be “free from imposition.” This means that neither participant wants to feel like they are being forced into something. Most people organize their “polite” way of speaking by making sure that neither one of these faces are “threatened.” This is done by using indirect rather than direct speech.

For example, if you and your roommate are sitting in your apartment, and you see that the recycling bin is full, and that you have taken it out the last four times, you want to think of a way to tell your roommate to take out the trash without making them not like you, and without making them feel like you are ordering them to do it. So, in an attempt to be polite, you could say “Hey would you mind taking out the trash?” This however, could potentially threaten your roommate’s negative face — they would not be completely free from imposition because you both know that you asked them to take out the recycling, and to decline, your roommate would have to acknowledge the rudeness that comes with saying no. However, if you said “Hey wow it looks like the recycling is getting pretty full!” your roommate could potentially say “Haha yeah wow it is!” and decline what you both know is a request without actually acknowledging that it was a request. Conversely, they could also say “ Oh yeah it is, let me take that out — I know you did it the last few times.”

It is interesting to note, however, that “it has recently been argued that grounding a discussion of linguistic politeness in Brown and Levinson’s Face Theory might show a markedly western bias, this framework lends to some good insight about some of the unique features of the language of Northwest Washington.” (Sandoval)

This leads into the fact that many people that move to the PNW/Seattle area have noticed that locals tend to be very polite to perfect strangers. This phenomenon has come to be known as “Seattle nice” even though it occurs all up and down the I5 corridor. The problem lies in that people from the PNW tend to use a lot of indirect speech, and face-saving acts. While this often can be interpreted as nice to outsiders, to the speaker it is simply their way of being polite. This, in turn, leads to the new person thinking that the local is being more friendly than they actually are.

The term “Seattle Freeze” is used to describe the trouble newbies to the area have with making friends with people from this region. As is seen with the example at the beginning, the “Seattle No” plays a big role in this issue. The biggest problem with the “Seattle No” is that the person asking to see the show actually believes the Pacific Northwesterner actually wants to go, and so many times persist in asking. This then leads to the Pacific Northwesterner to believe the newbie is clingy — after all, they did decline more than once… can’t they take a hint?!

Though it is not exactly known what the reason for this is, a number of explanations have been suggested. The first is that our way of speaking has been influenced by the immigrant populations that have moved here. For example, the Scandinavian population, which has been known for its self- reliance, or the Japanese population, which tends to put an emphasis on politeness and reservedness. (Sandoval) Another explanation is that the PNW is the home of Microsoft, and therefore the home of many “tech nerds” that are given the stereotype of being introverted. In addition, it has been implied that a possible explanation might be that the Pacific Northwest is filled with laidback hippies and that planning things out doesn’t fit with our go-with-the-flow attitude. Finally, it has been suggested that an explanation is that our constantly stormy weather deters people from going out and making friends, and instead entices them to stay inside by their fireplaces reading books. (Sandoval)

If however, more people were made aware of this phenomenon, maybe the Seattle No would not be an issue. If people moving into the area were aware of how the locals speak, they might find it easier to fit in. Also, if native PNW speakers realized what they were doing, and were aware that they were talking to someone with different linguistic rules, there might be less miscommunication in the future.

Works Cited

accozzaglia dot ca, “Attention Seekers,” 25 July 2010, https://www.flickr.com/photos/aged_accozzaglia/4959221240

Brown, P. & Levinson, S. (1987) Politeness: Some Universals in Language Use. Cambridge:Cambridge University Press.

Hollingsworth, Josie. “Newcomers talk about the ‘Seattle Freeze’ and how to overcome it”The Seattle Times, 26 Jan. 2017http://www.seattletimes.com /life/lifestyle/newcomers-talk-about-the-seattle-freeze/

Kerns, Loren, “Day 105: Oregon Coast Range,” 14 April 2013, https://www.flickr.com/photos/lorenkerns/8651732785

Sandoval, Jordan. “Chapter for Northwest Voices.”