Blue Mass Group

Reality-based commentary on politics.

“So don’t I!”

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I thoroughly enjoyed the trip down memory lane that this piece at the Globe inspired.  “Boston English” — the dialect, not the high school — remains a source of pride ’round these parts, even as some aspects of it are vanishing.  The Globe story identifies several of the most popular elements of our vernacular — bubbler, tonic, jimmies, frappe, and dungarees, to name just a few.  But I know you’ve got more.  Drop ’em in the comments.

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    • as a native, and you may be too, but I would refine your phonetic to read WISS-tah-mass.  If you listen closely, it’s actually WISS-tah.  

  3. (Though they did mention it in the article.)
    A few years back, a friend of mine went over to London as an exchange student. When he told the family he was staying with that he need to go to the packie, they were absolutely horrified! To their ears, he was using a racial slur.
    Another good Boston-ism is “down cellar”. No one seems to go “down to the basement” around here. We go “down cellah”.  

  4. This one is not a Bostonism at all, but a Springfield term:
    ding-dong cart. (That’s an ice-cream truck to us.)
    (Technically off-topic, but I couldn’t help myself.)  

  5. I had to figure out what a “bulkie” was when I moved here.

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    p>”Breakdown lane” seems to be a northeast thing. They are called “shoulders” in the midwest.

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    p>The article indicates that “frappe” is the most likely to endure, and I mostly agree, but my kids do use “milkshake” sometimes because that’s what the chain restaurants call them.

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    p>Around here, the road numbers are “Route 2” or just the number (“95”). Elsewhere I’ve lived, people say the interstate routes with “I” (“I-94”) and the US highway numbers with “U.S.” (“U.S. 23”).  In Michigan, the state highway numbers are preceded by “M” (“M-15”). Radio traffic reports in Boston are useless for out-of-towners who have no idea what the Southeast Expressway is, where the “jug handle” or “Drum Hill rotary” are, or that 128 means I-95 (mostly).

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    p>Also in my native Michigan (and surrounding states), I’d vote for “pop” as the one local word that will never change. People look at you weird there if you say “soda”. And if you mix Vernors pop with vanilla ice cream, you get a Boston Cooler, which has nothing to do with Boston, MA.

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    p>Something I didn’t see mentioned: What’s the deal with how some people drop the “t” in “Newton” (New-in)? Or am I the only one who hears that?

    • That would be a glottal stop. The same phenomenon you’re hearing in the pronunciation of Newton would also occur in words like Latin, button, etc.  

      • Now can you solve why one is “WaltHam” while the other is “Needum”? đŸ™‚

          • Dude, where are you from?  đŸ˜‰

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            p>It’s definitely “WAL-tham.”  Stress on the first syllable, but the second syllable is distinctly “tham,” not “thum.”

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            p>I also enjoy “Wooburn” and “Billrica” — also called “Billricker” when the conductor is announcing the stops on the Lowell line commuter rail (as in, “Nahth Billricker and Lowell”).

            • I just realized I did the pronunciation of “Billerica” wrong.  As everyone knows, it’s actually “Brricka” (or “Brricker” when followed by a vowel).  đŸ˜€

            • rhymes with Peter-SHAM, a dinky town out my way.

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              p>Little known fact, just sayin’.  

        • I’ve heard some long-time residents of that town pronounce it like it rhymes with Hingham and I’ve heard others pronounce it like it rhymes with Wareham. (Though I think the Hingham-esque version is more prevalent….)

    • That song might be the death of “frappe.” “My frappe brings all the boys to the yard”? Not a hit.

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      p>I find the 128-not-95 conflation to be most annoying. 128 goes to Gloucester … after 95. That’s how it should be, anyway.

    • That was my initial thought, but then my wife (a Fitchburg lass) corrected me, saying it’s a soda (“soder” in proper pronunciation).

    • Never understood that.

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      p>I understand that Polar Orange Dry has similar mythic status among former Mass residents.

      • Way more information than you probably care about here. If you ever try the stuff, take a small sip to start. It’s extremely carbonated and the usual first reaction is a coughing fit. If anyone knows of a MA source, please share (I’m told that Hi Rise in Cambridge used to carry it).

        • I did have a coughing fit the first time I tried it, because I was dumb enough to inhale just as I was about to have a sip.  It was kind of like inhaling powdered sugar from a doughnut.

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          p>You can buy the stuff for $40/case from amazon.com.  Nice for novelty or a treat, but a bit pricey for a steady supply.

  7. The listener is automatically supposed to clairvoyantly realize which.

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    p>Going to Scusset or Horseneck (beaches)or P-Town (for whatever reason)

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    p>Anything west of Framingham is actually another state.

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    p>”The Pike” is actually rte 90 from Weston to Pittsfield. “The Extension” is rte 90 from Newton to Boston

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    p>FYI There is aslo the Middlesex Turnpike Rte 2 and the Boston Turnpike Rte 9 and the Boston Taunton Turnpike which is Bay Road in Easton and unknown street in other towns but essentially a straight road from Boston to Taunton (pronounced “Tannton” by locals?

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    p>The South Shore and the North Shore (as different as apples and oranges as well as politically and economicaly)
    Someone once told me, very seriously, that the south shore is uncivilized.

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    p>The Tunnel for many, many years simply meant the two lane Sumner Tunnel—until the Callahan was built.

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    p>”The Market” was The Hay Market on Blackstone St way before “Quincy Market” was the tourist attraction. Everyone took the T down Saturday morning to shop. All of the Touristy clothiers now were meat purveyors and butcher shops.

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    p>

  9. …from Philadelphia but moved to New England as a boy.  I still refuse to give up saying “cheesesteak” but as often as not, if I order one in Boston I get “you mean a  steak & cheese?” as a response.  Of course you can always have one for supper (suppah, as those who still use it tend to pronounce it) or if you feel like cooking instead you could make some American Chop Suey.  

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    p>In high school I worked at Canobie Lake Park in the food stands.  Suffice it to say the non locals who ordered Milkshakes (and they were all non-locals since it was basically just chocoloate milk – who wants that when they can have a frappe) were none too happy.

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    p>One final one that has taken the country – and the world – by storm is the “frappucino”.  Some of you may remember the Coffee Connection – the Hubs pre-Starbucks chain of haughty cafes – they coined the term in the early nineties and trademarked it.  Starbucks bought it – along with the Coffee Connection – in the mid nineties.  The Coffee Connection may be no more, but frappucinos live on from Seattle to Spain to Singapore and everywhere in between.    

  10. In Gloucester, we say “up the line” for out-of-town. As in “Where’d you get your new clothes? I bought ’em up the line.” (Which could be a shop in Beverly or Manchester, or the malls in Peabody or Danvers, or even at an outlet.)

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    p>I’m sure there are a lot of very local expressions that people grew up with that are fading away.

  11. The article mentions “wicked,” but neglects the other half. What I find most insteresting is that “pissa” (“pisser,” actually) is an adjective in Boston but a noun in New York. New Yorkers say “That’s a pisser,” but here “It’s pissa.  

  13. I’m late to the party, having spent the weekend off the grid – and a fine job has been done by all.  Only one to add –

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    p>Black Coffee.

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    p>In the rest of the NATION, plain coffee is Regular.  Plain coffee with milk/cream/glop added is Coffee with Cream.

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    p>I learned this in the late 60’s/early 70’s during a cross country bus trip.  At 3 am, in Biloxi, MS, I ordered Black Coffee and damn near started a race riot, between a black counterman and a beefy Cracker cop at the counter.

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    p>Ah, yout.

    • We called it black coffee in Michigan. There’s no such thing as “regular” there – you need to explicitly specify the additional ingredients (e.g., “cream and one sugar”).

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      p>Also, FWIW, the first person I ever heard use the term “bubbler” was from Wisconsin. Although he said “bubbler” instead of “bub-la”.

      • I think “regular” coffee is the real Bostonism.  I’ve lived here most of my life and I’m still not entirely sure what it means — I’ve always shied away from ordering one because I didn’t want to discover that it wasn’t what I wanted!  I’ve heard “black coffee” lots of other places.

        • Same thing here on the “regular” coffee.  Sometimes I think I’ll order one as an experiment, but I always want my coffee how I want it, and chicken out just as I order.

  14. and e-mail it to Dan Shaughnessy.  I’m sure he’d love to use it fr his college-kids-are-arriving column in August.

  15. This one has to be my favorite, and it seems peculiar to Somervillians for some reason.  They substitute “Youz” for the word you, regardless of whether or not they are referring to one or multiple people.

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    p>i.e.: Did youz catch that Sox game last night?

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    p>Sometimes, instead of youz, it’s “yuz”.

  16. Sure would like some comments here.  I’ve always referred to Jimmies for ice cream, as I’m sure everyone else from this area does; however, I was in an ice cream store the other day and the owner about took my head off accusing me as being a “racist”.  Evidently there was some urban myth circulating on the Internet about 10 years ago that Jimmies was some racial slur (discredited as far as I can tell).  Anyone else run into this misinformation?

    • But I couldn’t find anything definitive. Wikipedia says:

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      p>

      In the northeastern United States, sprinkles are often referred to as jimmies. Most New Englanders consider jimmies to be chocolate and sprinkles to be the multi-colored variety, while the term “jimmies” is used more generically elsewhere. A 1997 rumor falsely claimed that the name “jimmies” was a racist reference.

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      p>The reference supplied for that last sentence is: David Wilton, Word Myths: Debunking Linguistic Urban Legends, Oxford University Press, 2004, p. 160. I don’t happen to have that on my shelf.

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      p>I never knew about the differentiation between colors – I thought they were all referred to as Jimmies.

      • A posting on a snopes message board that “jimmies” was once the brand name of a particular brand of sprinkles, and suffered the fate of Q-tips, Kleenex, Xerox, and perhaps one day Google.

        <

        p>See here

        • I’m told that about fifty years or so ago, there used to be a licorice-type candy called N***r Babies. I don’t know if that was a brand name, or just slang. Maybe in spite of the trademark, the original name “jimmies” had a similar origin and connotation.
          (Though clearly, after all these years and through usage no reasonable person would consider the ice cream topping name racist.)  

  17. These are two that stood out to me when I moved here. We certainly said “bullshit” in upstate NY, but I’d never heard anyone say, “he was bullshit that his new car shit the bed on 128 at 4 am.”

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