My friend and coworker Sean Adkins is from Long Island. At least that's his excuse.
He didn't know what dippy eggs were. And it took him some time to understand getting his drink served "awhile."
Clearly, all of my faithful readers need to go leave Sean some York County comment-love. (I saw that Jo already did!)
And in case you, too, are clueless... read more about dippy eggs here and read more about "awhile" here.
This one came up at a friendly gathering I was at last week. My best friend and his wonderful new bride have found a Yorkism that separates them, and I thought I'd help settle their disagreement with a lovely poll.
My answer to come in a future post!
One of my friends and coworkers, Kara, recently gave me a copy of Pennsylvania Magazine, whose publisher, Al Holliday, has a regular column called "Did 'ja know?"
In the issue she gave me (May/June of this year), Holliday's column explores some of the ways we "tawk" funny across Pennsylvania.
Tawk - talk - is one of them. Some - like "Youze and yizz" - are more common in other areas of the state than in this area.
But here are some of the ones that I've heard around York. As a return of my popular "pop quizzes," can you decipher the "real words" behind these?
1. Farce far
2. Lie berry
3. Shar (and par)
Leave me comments with your guesses!
This one is easy and fun, brought to you by my friend and former coworker Megan. Bonus points: Comment and tell me either (a) why you voted the way you did or (b) if you think the are both valid but describe two different things - and if so, why?
Well, as of this writing, my vote for your veggie name poll is tied with 15 votes for "green beans" and 15 votes for "string beans."
Now, here's the funny part. If I voted, I would NOT have a tie-breaking vote! Want to know why?
Well, my friend Phil has the same reasoning, so I'll let him tell you:
"I really should vote twice and pick both. It depends on the dish. If served alone, 'green beans.' But in certain dishes, it changes. For example, 'string beans and ham.' "
That's exactly how I say it. I call them green beans, but a family favorite dish is "ham and string beans."
There you have it. 30 votes and two weeks later, still no definitive York County voice on the great bean debate of aught-nine. Ha!
(That said, thanks to all of you who weighed in on this one. I love hearing everyone's stories, including Jo, who had to tell me TWICE because she couldn't get her comment to post, and Joe, who makes a good case for "green" beans - all beans start in a "string," so you gotta tell them apart somehow!)
First, if you're visiting for the first time today to vote in the "what do you call that veggie" poll that appeared on the front page of the York Daily Record's Living section, you can do that by clicking here. Heck, even if you are a longtime reader, if you haven't voted yet - please do!
So far, "string beans" are beating out "green beans" as the name for the veggie in question. But I've had some interesting conversations about this that I'd like to share.
First, I asked my brother-in-law Mike, who reads faithfully but never comments, what he voted for. He said string beans, which is fine. But we started talking about, IF you were to pick green beans, what do you do when confronted with the yellow version of said beans? He says those are called wax beans, which I admit I have heard of but didn't realize what they were. (There are some pictured here. I think all the pictures make them look like very yellow french fries, but that's beside the point.)
Cubby, my virtual friend and a columnist for the Hanover Evening Sun, said she was raised calling them string beans and had kind of gotten away from that.
Melanie also votes for string beans; "snap them in two and you immediately see why," she wrote.
Jim Fahringer, a new commenter, said he also calls them string beans, but adds, "perhaps the real name is green beans or pole beans depending on whether they were grown on vines that grew up poles or grew on bushes."
He's also got a point that I think Jo (who hasn't weighed in yet - where are you, Jo?) would appreciate. He says: "By the way, if they are the kind that grow on bushes and hang down close to the ground, picking them is one of the most difficult back breaking jobs I ever had and are tied with picking strawberries as a back breaking job!" Jo, if you'll remember, said the strawberries she picked at Dover's Barefoot Farm really did her back in!
Anyway, there's still time to vote. For all the commenting seems to suggest "string beans" is far and away the name winner, it seems close. Those of you who picked green beans - leave some comments! :)
Many thanks to my friend and fellow YDR staffer Sue, who commented on my recent question about why we call it "The Brogue."
Sue says: My guess is that people in York just love certain articles (unlike their hatred of "to be" constructions). It's the only explanation for why a certain route stretching from Manchester Township all the way to Fairview Township is called "The Bull Road".
(Editor's note: This is not "the Bull Road," which I really like driving, but another road I've traveled on fairly recently.)
Well, how fortunate that Sue brings this up, because I blogged on these exact topics. Here, in case you missed them, are posts from last July about hitting "the" road and from last October about the "to be" or not "to be" debate.
You might remember that last fall, I mentioned an unexplainable Yorkism just briefly.
I was reminded of it again today, when I received a photo and story about a family that produced several generations of Eagle Scouts. The release states they are from Troop 152, The Brogue.
I hear a lot of people say this. In fact, I would say that more people call it "the Brogue" than call it Brogue.
But I still have no idea why this is. Can anyone shed any light?
And, to thank them for being the source of a good blog question, here are the aforementioned three generations of Davis family Eagle Scouts, from left, Rob Davis ('78); Rob's son Bobby Davis, who earned the Eagle award on May 23; Dr. Bob Davis ('49); Bobby's grandfather; and Dr. Tom Davis ('52), Bobby's uncle. For his Eagle project, Bobby widened and re-located a section of walking path in Spring Valley Park.
Well, I promised Monday that I had a great Yorkism to share, and I haven't forgotten.
This one was shared by deskmate Cathy during a recent editorial meeting. She was talking about WellSpan's role as York County's biggest employer, and she came out with this gem:
"Yeah, you can't swing a dead rat in York County without hitting a WellSpan employee!"
Wow! That was new to me totally, then someone mentioned that they thought the phrase was supposed to be "dead cat," which is NOT any better.
Am I the only one who'd never heard of swinging dead things?
Here's one that Hubby pointed out to me while we were away for our anniversary last Wednesday and Thursday. (Photos from our trip to come; we saw some really gorgeous parts of the state!)
Anyway, he said, "You know, when we get home, there are going to be cats in our room."
This was because I had left the bedroom door open, since the little cat, Huggles, had run in when we were packing.
To which I replied, "Oh, no there won't be. My mom'll fetch them out and shut the door."
I had no idea I'd said anything "funny," but he did! "Oh, there's one for the blog," or something like that, he said.
Anyone else a "fetcher"?
Or, if you prefer, an "extry" winner, because extry - pronounced ex-tree - is the answer to my pop quiz from Thursday about how "extra" might be pronounced in York County and other rural areas.
Joe put up a valiant effort; his guess was "eggstra," and he thought my picture clue was an "eggstravganza?" A cool guess, but not quite.
The Other Jo saved face for Jo(e)s everywhere with the right answer - she says, "I'll go with "extry" as in Grand Ol' Opry!" and she's right.
Melanie, with her first entry in an Only in York County Pop Quiz, said, "I'm betting she said 'extry.' And I'd have guessed that without the visual aid of the Grand Old Opry, it's how my grandmother pronounces it."
Way to go! For those of you who looked at the photo clue, here's the undoctored version of the Grand Ole Opry stage:
Now. Here's a super-bonus-question, and all I'll say is that it's related to this pop quiz in some way: What was my favorite way to spend Saturdays when I was 9 years old, the age my daughter is now? (If you're counting, it was 1991.)
I'll embarass myself with THAT answer next week.
While shopping at Macy's this past weekend, I sat in the shoe department near some lovely older ladies for a while, and had the privilege of hearing them talking. First of all, they were great. Very friendly, which I appreciated.
Second of all, they were full of Yorkisms, which I loved!
In one case, they were talking about shirt sizes, and one woman told the other, "You don't want that! It's an extra-large!"
Now, here's your two-part pop quiz. First, how did this awesome York County woman pronounce "extra," and second, what is the most famous example of that same type of pronunciation with another word?
I'll give you a hint: I doctored the image below, but if I hadn't, you'd see it!
Sorry, the post title is a bad pun courtesy of my husband, who makes bad puns out of anything.
No, today's Yorkism is about these things:
You know, you cut with them, right? But say one of that item was sitting on your counter. What would you call it?
Scissors?
The scissors?
A pair of scissors?
A scissors?
I am open to argument here. I say "a pair of scissors," which is just as silly as "a pair of jeans." You can't have just one blade of the cutting device; you can't have just one leg worth of denim. So it seems awful dumb to call them "a pair." I mean, you need the whole thing, right?
But I was reading a story written for the Weekly Record the other day, about taffy, and the writer said to cut it with "a scissors."
I've heard that a lot, but I don't know if I could justify it grammatically.
Any thoughts??
Got this in an e-mail from my mom. I had posted a version of this before, but with several new readers, and new posts from me on some of these topics, I thought I'd share this version too.
Talking Pennsylvanian (Joan's notes in parentheses)
You refer to Pennsylvania as "P-A" (pronounced Pee-Ay). How many other states do that? (Also, my mom calls it "Pennsy," pronounced Penn-See. Anyone else hear that one?)
"You guys" (or even "youse guys," in some places) is a perfectly acceptable reference to a group of men and women.
You know how to respond to the question "Djeetyet?"
You learned to pronounce Bryn Mawr, Wilkes-Barre, Schuylkill, the Poconos, Tamaqua, Kutztown,Tunkahannock, Bala Cynwyd, Duquesne and Monongahela. Also Conshohocken.
And we know Lancaster is pronounced Lank-ister, not Lan-kaster.
You know what "Punxsutawney Phil" is, and what it means if he sees his shadow. (Bonus points if you either love or hate "Gus, the second-most-famous groundhog in Pennsylvania.")
The first day of buck season and the first day of doe season are school holidays.
At least five people on your block have electric "candles" in all or most of their windows all year long. (Window candles! I love window candles!)
You know what a "State Store" is.
Words like "hoagie," "crick," "chipped ham," "dippy eggs," "sticky buns," "shoo-fly pie," "lemon sponge pie," "pierogies" and "pocketbook" actually mean something to you.
You live for summer, when street and county fairs signal the beginning of funnel cake season.
You know what a township, borough, and commonwealth are. (OK, I will differ on this one. Most people I talk to say they live in York, even though they live in any one of 71 other county townships/boroughs.)
You know several people who have hit deer more than once.
Driving is always better in winter because the potholes are filled with snow.
As a kid you built snow forts and leaf piles that were taller than you were.
OK, so that was their list. What should we add?
Here's a possible Yorkism for your consideration:
What do you call the three meals you eat each day?
Breakfast, I think we can all agree on. But what do you eat at midday? What do you eat in the evening? You get bonus points if for you, like in my family, it differs based on day of the week.
Post your comments... in a couple of days, I'll tell you what our family's meal names are.
Just for fun, here's a Lego version of the Last Supper from The Brick Testament.
Remember that right after Christmas, I asked about the use of a go of something - a go of chili, a go of iced tea - instead of saying a full container of it?
Well, my contention was that it's short for a go-around. I haven't been able to prove or disprove that, but Mark helpfully checked in from Austria to let me know that it's something he hears a lot from his English and Irish coworkers, and he added that he's heard it all around the U.S. So, it might not be a true "Yorkism," though again, I'd say it qualifies because even if it's not ONLY done here, it's done a lot here.
Hubby, meanwhile, took that post and went crazy on his critique of "Go, Dog, Go." Jo tried to help me look up "a go," but crashed her computer instead. (Sorry, Jo!)
So it looks like the origin of this phrase might go down as one of the great mysteries of this blog. Sorry I can't provide any more info!
(And since Hubby was so opposed to my last image depicting the concept of "Go," I present in this post a "Go" game board. Is that better?)
It really is going to be a chintzy post.
Here's the question: Do you know what chintzy means? And is it a Yorkism? (Again, take Yorkism to mean something that is said a lot here and not necessarily said commonly elsewhere, but which isn't JUST from around here.)
I thought we were due for a couple of "light" posts... since I'm sure we all "ate heavy" over the holidays, right?
This one comes from faithful reader Jo. She'd mentioned in before, but in her response to my discout meat post, she used it again, and it reminded me.
It's "a go of" something. In her comment, she mentions that her quality but inexpensive ground beef went in part to make "a nice go of chili." We had talked before about making "a go of" iced tea instead of a pitcher.
Now, my question is, what's that come from? I couldn't find anything online. One idea I had is it might be short for a "go-around" or "go-round." (You know, a complete ... something is a go-round? So a complete "thing" of iced tea might be a "go" instead of a pitcher. A complete "thing" of chili might be a "go" instead of a pot.)
I don't know. Just an idea. Discuss!!
Jo went to Muddy Creek Forks in Brogue, Chanceford Township, recently, as part of a surprise trip with the local historical society.
She took this nice photo of Muddy Creek that I wanted to share:
One thing you'll notice... people around here don't call it "Brogue," though that's the village's name. They call it the Brogue. Why, I don't know! Maybe it works like saying "the Susquehanna Trail" or something.
Here's one I've heard a few times in recent weeks. I don't think it's York-specific; in fact, I think it's just old-fashioned, but I'm open to discussion.
It's that someone has "been doctoring" for an ailment, instead of "been seeing the doctor."
It does fit the Yorkism tradition of economy of words, though!
Anyone else familiar with this one?
