HAHA...this is a good site!! I have lived in and around Chicago my whole life and some of those things are new to me. Especially the nickname for Michigan Ave.

Something like this that my husband and I were talking about not to long ago is how Chicagoians measure distance. Around here we measure distance in time, while most others measure in miles. For example, when asked how far it took to get from one place to another the usual response here is 10 minutes instead of 10 miles.

Back in Boston, the really regional (think blue-collar Good Will Hunting) types use "wicked" as a term meaning very or extremely ie "That is wicked awesome!" I also remember hearing the word "tonic" which actually meant soda.

I then moved to Pittsburgh and learned to eat hoagies instead of subs.:) One thing I never heard before Pittsburgh was the word yins (sp?) which is somewhat used like y'all in the South.

Haven't come across anything regional in the DC area. Probably because everybody is a transplant!

I called a friend of mine the other day, and I caught her at a bad time. She had just come home from the grocery store and was unloading the bags from her car. She said, "Can I call you back? I was fixin' to unload my groceries, but one of the poke's broke and I've got cans all over the back of the car." Never knew a bag was also known as a "poke". ??

it's funny to me how people say "y'all" is a southern thing, because i hear it all the time in NY. or is it a black thing?

p.s. i always heard the "where you stay" vs. "where you live" was a race/class thing... that if you're poor and tend to get evicted a lot (or moved a lot b/c of a job), you always tell someone where "you stay" for you to get your mail and what not.

One of my favorite southern colloquialisms! Along with the carry versus drive, and how everything carbonated is a coke, not a soda or pop thing, unless it's a specialty beverage (like Cheerwine! or a cherry lemon Sundrop).

My dad's family (from po-dunkville, NC) called a garden hose a hosepipe. :)

Old post, but every big city does the time rather than distance thing. I did it before I spent any time in STL but it got worse there. I think it may also be a girl vs. guy thing. (Guys being more inclined to use measurement in directions in the first place, girls preferring landmarks and more general instructions, like minutes)

I've always heard that there is a difference between "y'all" and "ya'll." That southerners say "y'all" and everyone else says "ya'll"

I dont know which one i say, lol. I'm not sure if i quite understand the difference.

Here's the thing...

The rule about apostrophes, is that they EITHER replace letters OR show possession. That's it...no other function. (Technially, when we write "The ASA's did this that and the other.", it is incorrect. I'll be the first to admit that I break that rule a lot.) Since "y'all" is not possessive, then it has to be the omitting letters rule. "Y'all" is a contraction of "you all". The letters being left out are "ou", and therefore the apostrophe goes between the y and the a, and the difference between y'all and ya'll is those who know the proper usage of the apostrophe, and those who do not.

OMG...I need to go back to bed...I just wrote a dissertation on the proper gramatics of "y'all".:o:rolleyes::p

And I'm so glad you did. :p I don't know where the lady was from who complained, but I got chewed out for writing "y'all" in an email to my Family Readiness Group. She told the FRSA (the assistant in charge of the FRGs) that it wasn't "professional." Well, maybe not, but it's southern dammit, and it's the way I've talked all my life, so get. over. it.

My S's troop went to BSA camp in the Carolinas and had Cheerwine. I thought it was the the local phrase for the camp staple, bug juice!:)

God, I LOVE Cheerwine. They used to sell it here in VA, but they stopped. When my sister went to college in NC, she'd bring back cases for me. Food Lion now makes Cheerwine ice cream, which is pretty good, too.

My family is from Kansas, Nebraska, Ohio (Cincinnati), and Missouri. I was raised in NY but I spent my summers out with family. A few things they did that drove me crazyyyyy
my great aunt says I-talian (as in I-talian dressin or I never saw an I-talian before)
I def heard buggy, pocketbook, y'all, gym shoes, go by (somewhere), calling out....
I def came across the distance thing but I agree with Drolefille that it may be a distance thing because I def say 10 minutes away vs. 10 miles (which most likely wouldn't equal in time anyway)
My grandma and a few other people in my family would also refer to themselves in the 3rd person more often then I'd like to admit... I doubt that this is a "Midwestern" thing, but it sure does drive me crazy!

I pick up the accent pretty quickly and I can imitate my grandma like no other, but I don't think I speak like a "true" new yorker... except when I'm mad... you can definitely hear it then, especially when I say things like "cawwwl" or "tawwwlk"

That drives me crazy! They are not from I-taly. And, actually if you want to be even more correct, it's actually not It-alian, it's EE-talian. I can't think of a better way to explain it, and IPA probably wouldn't make sense to any of you.

It's actually just the opposite.

Yes, I actually took an American dialects class way back in college -- one of the most fun and interesting classes I ever took -- and since then I've read and listened to a lot of Walt Wolfram, who's an expert on Southern dialect.

"Stay," historically at least, is primarily an African-American usage, although it is found in other groups as well. It simply means "live" and indicates permanence.

Because one is "cutting" the flow of electricity. :rolleyes:

Maybe it's a regional accent thing -- I've always heard it getting "shed" of someone (like shedding fur or skin).

A purse is nicer (and often smaller) than a pocket book. A women carries a pocket book when running errands; she carries a purse to church or a party.

There is, as Alpha Frog has pointed out. One has the approstrophe in the correct place, denoting a contraction of "you all," and the other has the apostrophe in a place that makes no sense.

That's all, y'all. :D

My hubby is from the south. It took a long time to get him to stop saying "I'm fixing to...". He also says "waiting on line" to mean waiting in a line. When he says "insurance", he stresses the "IN" (so do his parents).

We still fight over "shots" vs. "jimmies". For a long time he didn't know what a "grinder" was (hoagie or sub). He got used to "bubbler" (water fountain or water cooler), and now says "open" or "close" the light, like I do (turn on or turn off).

For the record, we say "pockabook" and "purse" here. Flipflop shoes are "thongs".

Dialects are funny things.