Wednesday, June 19, 2013

Ya know how I know?

Sometimes it's oh! so easy to tell when someone is Not From Around Here. A couple I heard on the radio while driving today:
  • You refer to a local major highway or expressway using the definite particle and it's numerical identifier, but not it's alphabetical designation, i.e., "THE 5", "THE 167." To a Washingtonian, this screams "I'M A CALIFORNIAN!!!" Whatever you're trying to sell, forget it. 
  • The name of the town in which the Western Washington Fair is held is NOT pronounced "Poo-Wallop." Sheesh. 
  • The local mollusk with a long "siphon" that causes prudish little old ladies who see it to giggle nervously is pronounced "gooey-duck", with a hard "gee", NOT like it is spelled. Say "Geo-duck", with a soft "gee", and we'll all laugh in your face. 
A few years ago one of the local stations had an ad in which they lampooned other stations, bringing in outsiders, going through local acclimatization training, trying to wrap their heads around the fact that "Sequim" is pronounced "skwim."

Then again, I also recall an ad from a station in Detroit that used the same theme, in which a taling head pronounced "Gratiot Avenue" ("Grash-ut") as "Grat-ee-oh", and "Escanaba" as "Escabana."  (The latter only really jars Yoopers and we trolls who wished we had been born Yoopers...)

2 comments:

NotClauswitz said...

Original Bay-Aryans (few remaining) don't use the "The" article. The use of "The" is a SoCal thing people from the LA basin and further south use. We just take "101" or Bayshore Freeway or "280" up to "The City" (not often SF and not EVER "Frisco") or over "The Bridge" to Marin (not Marin County) - "The Bridge" which is NOT "the Bay Bridge" to that nasty place called Oakland...

Drang said...

When I first got to Monterey, I dated a gal who was from Marin. She said "Frisco" all the time, I asked her about it, and she denied there was an issue... until she said it in front of a native San Franciscan...