Thursday, June 28, 2007

Regionalisms

As with, well, everywhere, New York has it's own regionalisms in language. And it's not the stereotypes (which are painfully true) that you see on TV. It's small things that are so striking.

1) People here wait "on line," not "in line" as we do in the South.

2) Employees "call out sick" to work, not "call in sick".

Those are the ones that come immediately to mind. More to come...

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Yeah, the on line thing always really struck me ...I never noticed the call out sick though.

Outlander said...

The "on-line" thing is really strange. I always get in arguments with people for pronouncing pecans incorrectly (con not can). And, NY has nothing on Mass. for idiosyncratic rhetorical weirdness. The DMV is the "registry;" the water fountain is the "bubbler" and car blinkers are "directionals."