Image: Sodobia
There's little debate in how to pronounce the Seattle neighborhood bounded on the north by South King Street, on the south by South Spokane Street, on the west by the Duwamish Waterway, and on the east by Metro Transit's Downtown Seattle Transit Tunnel. Where we do seem to run into some matters of opinion is how to actually write it.
SODO, SoDo, or Sodo?
Originally, the industrial district was called SoDo as short-hand for "South of the Dome" (Kingdome). But when the Kingdome went bye-bye in 2000, that no longer made any sense. So, the interpretation shifted to "South of Downtown." Given that and the way the name echoes the SoHo (South of Houston Street) district in New York City, it only seems logical that we would write it as SoDo and call it a day.
However...there's also a strong contingent for people who consider the neighborhood to be written as SODO in all caps. Perhaps it has something to do with this sign, which used to stand in as a welcome sign for the area.
@CurbedSeattle SODO, because I can remember this pic.twitter.com/RUgFDvMVe4
— Elliott (@llttday) January 28, 2016
It's no longer up but it still exists just in case anyone wants to break it back out.
Meanwhile, having covered the event surrounding Chris Hansen's arena idea for as long as we have, we're also aware of a Sodo contingent. This seems to be a preferred way to write the neighborhood by many in the local media. The Seattle Times does it, The Stranger does it, and Seattle PI does it. Not all media outlets do it (the rest seem to go with SoDo) but clearly there's been some kind of editorial decision made that lowercase-d is the preferred way to go.
So, there's really only one way to decide this. Return the power to the people and let you guys vote it out. So, it's time to decide once and for all...is it SODO, SoDo or Sodo?
· SODO/SoDo/Sodo [Wikipedia]
· All SoDo coverage [CS]
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