Annamaria on Monday
During a recent phone call, my California friend Molly giggled when I said, “waste time standing on line.” She teased me for being “such a New Yorker.“ The rest of the English speaking world, according to Molly, uses the phrase “standing in line,“ not “standing on line.” As it happens, having traveled over great swaths of the United States on business trips of my past, I know quite a few expressions that change when one moves about the country. Here are a number of examples of different words used to describe the same thing, depending on where you are.
Pop? Soda? Tonic? Coke?
Sub? Hoagie? Hero? Grinder?
Turnpike? Highway? Freeway?
Boonies? The sticks?
Salad tomatoes? Cherry tomatoes?
Circle? Roundabout? Rotary?
Chifforobe? Armoire?
Jimmies? Sprinkles?
And my own particular favorite: In the relation to the corner, is this desk…
Catty-corner? Cater-cornered? Caddycorner? Catawampus?
Suppose a fictional detective says, "I found the body in an armoire, in a house out in the sticks. The obvious suspect stood in a corner behind a catawampus desk. On it lay a half-eaten hoagie, ice cream covered with sprinkles melting in a dish, and a half empty bottle of pop."
Any knowledgeable reader will throw the book across the room and shout, "Boston? Wisconsin? New Jersey? California? Make up your mind!"
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Great stuff! I've lived in the east for more than 20 years, and I still refer to I-95 as "the freeway." But I don't call the couch a davenport...
ReplyDeleteThank you, Jamie. I bet you still say “waiting in line.” That may change somewhere halfway between NYC and Philly. I should have included Sofa? Davenport? Divan? Couch? 😉
ReplyDeleteClearly, members of the interstate are 'freeways', and everything else outside of towns, cities, villages, and spots on the map are 'highways'. That is, unless they're roads, streets, avenues, boulevards, circles, trails, byways, places, downs, arterials, carriageways, drives, expressways, motorways, pikes, alleys, mews, closes, cul-de-sacs, tracks, or dead-ends. To name a few. Otherwise, they're just the ass end of nowhere.
ReplyDeleteOh, EvKa. “The ass end of nowhere” was something that my older brother used to say. He lives in many places around the United States, including several below the Mason Dixon Line. He had the most colorful vocabulary of any of us. One of my favorites was “Bulldookie.”
DeleteI'd throw the book across the room because I wouldn't understand a word of it!
ReplyDeleteCrazy, right, Michael? There were times, particularly in West Virginia, when a participant said something and I needed an interpreter to understand what he meant.
DeleteAh yes, and then there's Pittsburgh with its own very unique slang. Having grown up there, gone to school down by the West Virginia border, then up in BOSTON, and lived in New York for eons, I have to say I'M TOTALLY CONFUSED AS TO WHAT IS SAID WHERE. Can yinz help me?
ReplyDelete