OB one

From my inbox

BOSTONIANS WILL LOVE THIS!!!!!
(and some others)

The geographical center of Boston is in Roxbury. Due north of the center we find the South End. This is not to be confused with South Boston which lies directly east from the South End. North of the South End is East Boston and southwest of East Boston is the North End.

Harvard Bridge
The bridge connecting Boston and Cambridge via Massachusetts Avenue is commonly know as the Harvard Bridge. When it was built, the state offered to name the bridge for the Cambridge school that could present the best claim for the honor. Harvard submitted an essay detailing its contributions to education in America, concluding that it deserved the honor of having a bridge leading into Cambridge named for the institution. MIT did a structural analysis of the bridge and found it so full of defects that they agreed that it should be named for Harvard. This is all true (so says the email).

Information on Boston and the Surrounding Areas:

There is no school on School Street, no court on Court Street, no dock on Dock Square, and no water on Water Street. Back Bay Boston streets are in alphabetical oddah: Arlington , Berkeley, Clarendon, Dartmouth, etc. So are South Boston streets: A, B, C, D, etc. If the streets are named after trees (e.g. Walnut, Chestnut, Cedar), you are on Beacon Hill. If they are named after poets, you are in Wellesley.

Massachusetts Avenue is Mass Ave. Commonwealth Avenue is Comm Ave. South Boston is Southie. The South End is the South End. East Boston is Eastie. The North End is east of the former West End. The West End and Scully Square are no more; a guy named Rappaport got rid of them one night. Roxbury is The Berree, Jamaica Plain is J.P.

How to say these Massachusetts city names correctly (Say it wrong and be shunned).
Worcester : Wuhsta (or Wistah)
Gloucester : Glawsta
Leicester: Lesta
Woburn: Woobun
Dedham : Dead-um
Revere: Re -vee-ah
Quincy: Quinzee
Tewksbury : Tooks berry
Leominster : Le-min-sta
Peabody: Pee-ba-dee
Waltham : Walth-ham
Chatham: Chaddum
Samoset: Sam-oh-set or Sum-aw-set, but nevah Summerset!

Definitions:
FRAPPES are made with ice cream; MILKSHAKES are not.
If it is carbonated and flavored, it is TONIC
Soda means CLUB SODA.
Pop refers to DAD.
When we want Tonic Water, we will ask for TONIC WATER.
The smallest beer is a pint.
Scrod is whatever they tell you it is, usually fish. If you paid more than $7/pound, you got screwd.
It is not a water fountain; it is a bubblah.
It is not a trashcan; it is a barrel.
It is a spucky, not a hero, or a grinder; or a sub.
It is not a shopping caht; it is a carriage.
It is not a purse; it is a pockabook.
They are not franks; they are haht dahgs; franks are money used Switzahland.

Police do not drive patrol units or black and whites; they drive a crewza. If you take the bus, you’re on the looza crooza. It is not a rubber band; it is an elastic. It is not a traffic circle, it is a rotary. "Going to the islands" means going to Martha's Vineyard or Nantucket.

The Sox = The Red Sox
The Cs = The Celtics
The Bs = The Bruins
The Pats =The Patriots

Things not to do:
Do not pahk your cah in Hahvid Yahd. They will tow it to Meffa (Medford ) or Summahville (Somerville) .
Do not sleep on the Common. ( Boston Common)
Do not wear orange in Southie on St. Patrick's Day.

Things you should know:
There are two State Houses, two City Halls, two courthouses, and two Hancock buildings (one is very old; one is relatively new).

The colored lights on top the old Hancock tell the weatha:
"Solid blue, clear view."
"Flashing blue, clouds due."
"Solid red, rain ahead."
"Flashing red, snow instead." (except in summer, flashing red means the Red Sox game was rained out!

Most people live here all their life and still do not know what the hell is going on with this one. Route 128 South is I-95 south. It is also I-93 north.
The underground train is not a subway. It is the T, and it does not run all night (fah chrysakes, this ain't Noo Yawk).
Order the cold tea in China Town after 2:00 am; you will get a kettle full of beer.

Bostonians: think that it is their God-given right to cut off someone in traffic.
Bostonians: think that there are only 25 letters in the alphabet (no Rs, except in idear.
Bostonians: think that three straight days of 90+ temperatures is a heat wave.
Bostonians: refer to six inches of snow as a dusting.
Bostonians: always bang a left as soon as the light turns green, and oncoming traffic always expects it.
Bostonians: believe that using your turn signal is a sign of weakness.
Bostonians: think that 63 degree ocean water is warm.
Bostonians: think Rhode Island accents are annoying.

wideman

When Boston began as a city, it had a central portion and three protuberances: the West End (more or less where the Mass General is), the North End, and the South End. At the center were three hills. The two smaller hills were Pemberton Hill and Mount Vernon, and the tallest one was where a beacon fire was lit when the people needed to be alerted to some or another event -- thus, Beacon Hill. The street that led up to this area got its name from the Latin for "3 hills" -- Tremont Street.

The South End was originally wetlands, and the one street that connected Boston to its suburbs was Washington Street. In the 1st half of the 1800s, railroads were built from the suburbs into Boston through the South End, and the landfill for the area was hauled in (via railroad) from the cities and towns that the railroads served. The streets in the South End are named for those cities and towns: Newton, Springfield, Rutland, Worcester, Dedham, Waltham, etc.

Much later on, the politically separate suburbs of Dorchester (which included South Boston), Roxbury, West Roxbury, Charlestown, etc were incorporated into the original city of Boston. That's how E Boston came to be north of So Boston, etc. Also, each of these suburbs had some streets with the same names as Boston streets. That's why there are 5 or 6 different Washington Streets in the city of Boston.

As for Dock Square, the town dock used to be there. Boston very possible has reclaimed more sea than any other U.S. city, so it's hard to imagine that the shoreline from the harbor actually went up to what's now Congress St @ State.

Analise

Enjoyed that!


Each said correctly.

This should be UNIVERSAL.

That's pretty cool.

It's I-93 too?

That's for sure. 24/7 is how we do things....sometimes even the MTA remembers that.

Wow.

All of the above applies to New Yorkers (though not all of us drop our r's like the letter doesn't exist) As for weather, you've got it right. 3 days in a row of 90+ degree weather IS a heatwave. It's friggen hell and even the TV weatherguys tell us that we're in a heatwave when we've entered that 3rd day in a row.

Who doesn't turn left as soon as the light turns green?

My kind of thinking!

I wouldn't know but their clear chowder takes time getting used to.

tkey75

Didn't know that one.

My favorite city to pronounce, Newburyport - New-bree-pawht.

ssanto8403

I grew up in Revere (Re -vee-ah) and when I was 18 I spent a week in Kentucky, they thought I spoke a foreign language!!!

transpac

Re: The light atop the Berkely Building (Old John Hancock building)...

In October 2004, the beacon flashed red and blue to commemorate the World Series victory of the Boston Red Sox. This was the first time the color scheme changed since the beacon was lit in 1950. A new line was added to the poem accordingly:

Flashing Blue and Red, when The Curse of the Bambino is dead!

The beacon again flashed red and blue when the Red Sox won the 2007 World Series.



And Harvard Bridge measures 364.4 Smoots (+/- one ear) in length.

Dieuwer

I changed my pronunciation of "Worcester" to "Wooster" after too many of my colleagues frowned at me when I said "Wor-chest-ur"

lo2e

Yes and no... Technically it ends in Canton at the I-95/I-93 interchange, but until 1997 it actually continued east beyond that until the "Braintree Split", where I-93 continues North and MA Route 3 goes South. Local radio stations still call that stretch of highway "128", even though it no longer is, technically.

OB one

Wooster is closer but I am in the Wistah camp. Btw, even the airport has an H in it, ORH, when there is no H anywhere in the name. ORC might have made sense, but . . . and almost every month, on my Amex bill, there is at least one business with the address listed as Worchester. Incredible.

wideman

Wistah is the correct pronunciation. There is a Wistah Turnpike, but certainly no Worster or Wooster Turnpike.

lo2e

Maybe it should be spelled Wöster... that would bring about even more variations of pronunciation!

BearX220

Scollay Square, actually. Pretty much where the Government Center T station is now.

Dieuwer

I also say "Mon-peh-lee-a" instead of "Mon-pel-yer" (Montpelier).

davedeboston

haha I remember seeing this on facebook a few years ago.

Here's a few extra points:
-Streets in the back bay are in alphabetical order (Arlington, Berkley, Clarendon, Dartmouth, Exeter, Fairfield, Gloucester, Hereford) BUT they also continue after Mass Ave. and the Charles Gate into Fenway with Ipswich, Jersey, and Kilmarnock.

-The entirety of the the first belt around Boston is called 128 by pretty much everyone here and what the post is getting at is a wrong way concurrency where south of Canton you can be going south on 128 and north on i93 at the same time.

-Some of Boston english has faded out of use: dungarees (jeans), spuckie (sub), tonic (soda), cleansers (dry cleaners), spa (corner store), scooped (hooked up with) etc... I know what these mean obviously, but they're things my grandparents would say so I don't hear them as much, the latter of which might just be people in their 30s, not 20s like me.

-Other words like barrel (trash can), bubbler (water fountain), elastic (rubber band), carriage (shopping cart), pockabook (ladies purse/ handbag), cellar (basement), packie (liquor store) are still used predominantly.

-Also, it's pretty annoying to hear some of the faked Boston accents in the movies, so don't try it yourself either.

OneDay77

My ex wife moved to Boston recently (she's from upstate New York, went to school in Mass). She married me (a southerner) and lived here for 10 years. Now I travel about once per month to visit my son (who is seven). I love listening to new dialects and figuring them out. Last time he and I practiced saying 'five' instead of 'fiiive' and 'mine' instead of 'miiine' and 'I' instead of 'Ah.' We worked a little bit on 'elevatah' instead of elevator. I never really realized how heavy southerners hit their R's until regular visits to Boston. He and I both have become huge Bruins fans and go to a game every time I'm there. Here is my question: he lives in Norton. Is it 'naught-un'? I asked my EX to help and she told me not to even try.