In the San Francisco Bay Area, San Francisco is also called "The City." Until recently, to refer to it as 'Frisco was to mark one's self as an outsider. People who lived in San Francisco never called it that, and hated the name. I remember one news report in which police became suspicious of an alleged criminal's story -- saying he was from the area -- because he called The City 'Frisco. This rule does not seem to hold with a young, upcoming generation of local hip hop kids, who do call San francisco 'Frisco.
I was about to make this same point. I live in the styx (near Half Moon Bay) and everyone - and I do mean everyone - refers to it as "the city". Heck, everyone I know on the peninsula where I work refers to it as "the city".
That's an amazing coincidence. But if I recall correctly, we suburbans also called Chicago "the city." And don't people call South San Francisco (which is a separate town) "south city?"
..but only the hip-hop kids do. Even deep into the suburbs, even unto this day, to call the West Coast's version of "the City" (always capitalized; there may be a bit of an inferiority complex at work) by anything but its full, polysyllabic name marks you as non-native.
While I grew up east of San Francisco and hence am intimately familiar with that usage of the 'city' construction, I have heard it used other places as well. London has its 'the City' within city limits, referring to the financial district, not the whole kaboodle. Heck, around this neck of the woods (Minneapolis-St. Paul), people outside the urban area talk about "the cities" in the plural, just to be special.
Los Angeles, though, never seems to be referred to in passing as anything but 'LA' and Chicago doesn't seem to be city-philic in its language either.
Two years ago I was interning in NYC, just for half the summer. I spent a weekend at the house of some friends in upstate New Jersey. I had originally only planned to stay Friday night, but we hadn't seen each other in a long while and were having a very good time so I stayed Saturday as well.
On Sunday morning I caught the train in to Penn Station, from whence I was going to walk back to where I was staying, in Alphabet City (yes I could have taken the subway to get closer, but I like to walk). But I was groggy and kind of disoriented and turned the wrong way as I came out of the station.
I realized my mistake as soon as I reached the corner, and just as I was turning around to head the proper direction, I bumped into a good friend from undergrad who now lives in Seattle and was just in NYC for the day, having trained in from somewhere on Long Island where he was attending a weeklong conference.
He had no idea I was in NYC during that time, and had just come into to the city to wander about and see the sights. And as it happened I was meeting mutual friends of ours a little later for brunch, so it was both insane coincidence, and perfect timing.
It's also entirely unremarkable to refer to a city as "the city", after you've already introduced it by name. We know from FL's update (in which he explicitly identifies "NY" as a city) that he uses "New York" to mean the city, and not just the state.
Anyway, I once ran into someone I hadn't seen in three or four years (and only knew for about 10 weeks in toto) in Paris quite randomly.
The funny thing is that even the good folks of San Jose, which is a city bigger in both population and area than San Francisco, refer to the latter as "the City", as in "I'm going up to The City on Saturday".
However, residents of NYC have got to be the only people who still refer to "the City" even when they are a thousand miles away from it. I get mad just thinking about the arrogance of those hipsters at my small Ohio college who, when asked where they were from, would only respond, "the City."
Made this (big-city) southern boy want to smash a bottle of Shiner over their cute little haircuts and learn 'em some respect.
Referring to Manhattan as "The City" while on another planet (say, Iowa or California) may be obnoxious, but it's probably not intentional. I'm a New Yorker living in the Bay Area and have quite a few friends who are also New Yorkers, and a statement about "The City" is often followed by the query, "Which one?"
may be obnoxious, but it's probably not intentional
And we're supposed to believe unintentional condescension is better than deliberate? Hey ogged, you're off the hook for worrying about the grad student and her mad, unrequited love for you.
I think I've been insulted. Which reminds me of a great line: On the set of the Wizard of Oz, one of the dwarves said to Judy Garland, "I want to make love to you." And she replied, "If you do, and I find out about it..."
it wasn't meant as an insult. a tweak, maybe, or a mild diss. but i don't think it rises to the level of an insult. in those immortal words, you'll know it when...
tvz, there's Shiner in Ohio??? Perhaps there is a bright side to Bush in the White House and the growing national hegemony of Texas, the Superpower State. Are you from "the state"?
I haven't found any Shiner here in NYC, but then I live not quite two blocks from the Brooklyn Brewery, and so that's my new local go-to beer.
The neighborhood is unfortunately chock full of hipsters, and they probably say "the city", but right on my block it's almost entirely Polish, right down to the signs and the conversations overheard on sidewalks. Maybe some Ukranians (probably Ukranian Poles) too, there are quite a few Yuschenko poster in windows.
And ogged, Judy Garland didn't say that, it was Oscar Wilde.
I'm surprised there's no Shiner in NYC, Mitch. We could get six-packs of bottles at a decent liquor store in Ohio and back in Nashville where I'm from. Haven't seen it on tap anywhere but "the State", though.
As for the hipsters, they're nice enough as long as you don't dis Death Cab to their faces or anything. I'm sure it's not intentional, but it's hard not to resent that pose of assumed cultural superiority over everything between Manhattan and the Bay Area. Who knows, maybe I'm just tapping into that much-ballyhooed red state angst. How anyone can be driven by hipster hatred into a vote for Bush is beyond me, though.
To be honest I really haven't looked for it. For one thing I tend to just shop in the neighborhood, and there doesn't seem to be much of a market in catering to Texans, although I run into transplanted Texans all the time in "the city". For another I guess I just assumed I wouldn't be able to find it.
And yeah, I gererally like all the hipsters around, but the smugness does sometimes wear thin. As a proud Austin resident, it's easy to recognize (we're a smug lot in Austin). Also, I get hipster points up here for my origin. Generally not as much as if I were from San Francisco, say, but still.
It's funny, NYC is one of the most cosmopolitan cities in the world, but you meet some of the most incredibly provincial people here.
In the San Francisco Bay Area, San Francisco is also called "The City." Until recently, to refer to it as 'Frisco was to mark one's self as an outsider. People who lived in San Francisco never called it that, and hated the name. I remember one news report in which police became suspicious of an alleged criminal's story -- saying he was from the area -- because he called The City 'Frisco. This rule does not seem to hold with a young, upcoming generation of local hip hop kids, who do call San francisco 'Frisco.
Posted by jbbuhs | Link to this comment | 12-12-04 9:34 PM
I was about to make this same point. I live in the styx (near Half Moon Bay) and everyone - and I do mean everyone - refers to it as "the city". Heck, everyone I know on the peninsula where I work refers to it as "the city".
Posted by Hal | Link to this comment | 12-12-04 9:40 PM
That's an amazing coincidence. But if I recall correctly, we suburbans also called Chicago "the city." And don't people call South San Francisco (which is a separate town) "south city?"
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 12-12-04 9:44 PM
..but only the hip-hop kids do. Even deep into the suburbs, even unto this day, to call the West Coast's version of "the City" (always capitalized; there may be a bit of an inferiority complex at work) by anything but its full, polysyllabic name marks you as non-native.
While I grew up east of San Francisco and hence am intimately familiar with that usage of the 'city' construction, I have heard it used other places as well. London has its 'the City' within city limits, referring to the financial district, not the whole kaboodle. Heck, around this neck of the woods (Minneapolis-St. Paul), people outside the urban area talk about "the cities" in the plural, just to be special.
Los Angeles, though, never seems to be referred to in passing as anything but 'LA' and Chicago doesn't seem to be city-philic in its language either.
Posted by wcw | Link to this comment | 12-12-04 9:49 PM
Two years ago I was interning in NYC, just for half the summer. I spent a weekend at the house of some friends in upstate New Jersey. I had originally only planned to stay Friday night, but we hadn't seen each other in a long while and were having a very good time so I stayed Saturday as well.
On Sunday morning I caught the train in to Penn Station, from whence I was going to walk back to where I was staying, in Alphabet City (yes I could have taken the subway to get closer, but I like to walk). But I was groggy and kind of disoriented and turned the wrong way as I came out of the station.
I realized my mistake as soon as I reached the corner, and just as I was turning around to head the proper direction, I bumped into a good friend from undergrad who now lives in Seattle and was just in NYC for the day, having trained in from somewhere on Long Island where he was attending a weeklong conference.
He had no idea I was in NYC during that time, and had just come into to the city to wander about and see the sights. And as it happened I was meeting mutual friends of ours a little later for brunch, so it was both insane coincidence, and perfect timing.
Posted by Mitch Mills | Link to this comment | 12-12-04 10:33 PM
Oh and I'm pretty sure Londoners refer to London as "the city".
Posted by Mitch Mills | Link to this comment | 12-12-04 10:34 PM
Shorter comment thread: could Fontana be more wrong?
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 12-12-04 10:53 PM
I have it on good authority that the residents of the suburbs of Stockholm, Uppsala and Luleå all refer to their respective cities as "the city."
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 12-12-04 11:35 PM
Shorter Fontana update: "Yes, I could have been more wrong, asshole."
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 12-12-04 11:37 PM
Could Fontana have been more wrong? Well he could have said:
I'm from Long Island, where people refer to NY as "the eternal city", or sometimes "Frisco".
Posted by Mitch Mills | Link to this comment | 12-13-04 6:17 AM
It's also entirely unremarkable to refer to a city as "the city", after you've already introduced it by name. We know from FL's update (in which he explicitly identifies "NY" as a city) that he uses "New York" to mean the city, and not just the state.
Anyway, I once ran into someone I hadn't seen in three or four years (and only knew for about 10 weeks in toto) in Paris quite randomly.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 12-13-04 8:16 AM
With apologies to Cross and Cory, he's been terribly alone and forgotten in Manhattan, he's going home to his city by the expressway...
Posted by wcw | Link to this comment | 12-13-04 8:17 AM
The funny thing is that even the good folks of San Jose, which is a city bigger in both population and area than San Francisco, refer to the latter as "the City", as in "I'm going up to The City on Saturday".
Posted by hunsch | Link to this comment | 12-13-04 10:15 AM
However, residents of NYC have got to be the only people who still refer to "the City" even when they are a thousand miles away from it. I get mad just thinking about the arrogance of those hipsters at my small Ohio college who, when asked where they were from, would only respond, "the City."
Made this (big-city) southern boy want to smash a bottle of Shiner over their cute little haircuts and learn 'em some respect.
Posted by tvz | Link to this comment | 12-13-04 12:09 PM
People really said that? That *is* obnoxious.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 12-13-04 12:11 PM
You should have responded with, "Yeah, you look like the Cleveland type."
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 12-13-04 12:34 PM
Referring to Manhattan as "The City" while on another planet (say, Iowa or California) may be obnoxious, but it's probably not intentional. I'm a New Yorker living in the Bay Area and have quite a few friends who are also New Yorkers, and a statement about "The City" is often followed by the query, "Which one?"
Posted by LarryB | Link to this comment | 12-13-04 12:36 PM
may be obnoxious, but it's probably not intentional
And we're supposed to believe unintentional condescension is better than deliberate? Hey ogged, you're off the hook for worrying about the grad student and her mad, unrequited love for you.
Posted by cw | Link to this comment | 12-13-04 2:14 PM
I think I've been insulted. Which reminds me of a great line: On the set of the Wizard of Oz, one of the dwarves said to Judy Garland, "I want to make love to you." And she replied, "If you do, and I find out about it..."
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 12-13-04 2:17 PM
I think I've been insulted.
it wasn't meant as an insult. a tweak, maybe, or a mild diss. but i don't think it rises to the level of an insult. in those immortal words, you'll know it when...
Posted by cw | Link to this comment | 12-13-04 7:40 PM
tvz, there's Shiner in Ohio??? Perhaps there is a bright side to Bush in the White House and the growing national hegemony of Texas, the Superpower State. Are you from "the state"?
I haven't found any Shiner here in NYC, but then I live not quite two blocks from the Brooklyn Brewery, and so that's my new local go-to beer.
The neighborhood is unfortunately chock full of hipsters, and they probably say "the city", but right on my block it's almost entirely Polish, right down to the signs and the conversations overheard on sidewalks. Maybe some Ukranians (probably Ukranian Poles) too, there are quite a few Yuschenko poster in windows.
And ogged, Judy Garland didn't say that, it was Oscar Wilde.
Posted by Mitch Mills | Link to this comment | 12-13-04 9:07 PM
I'm surprised there's no Shiner in NYC, Mitch. We could get six-packs of bottles at a decent liquor store in Ohio and back in Nashville where I'm from. Haven't seen it on tap anywhere but "the State", though.
As for the hipsters, they're nice enough as long as you don't dis Death Cab to their faces or anything. I'm sure it's not intentional, but it's hard not to resent that pose of assumed cultural superiority over everything between Manhattan and the Bay Area. Who knows, maybe I'm just tapping into that much-ballyhooed red state angst. How anyone can be driven by hipster hatred into a vote for Bush is beyond me, though.
Posted by tvz | Link to this comment | 12-14-04 3:00 AM
To be honest I really haven't looked for it. For one thing I tend to just shop in the neighborhood, and there doesn't seem to be much of a market in catering to Texans, although I run into transplanted Texans all the time in "the city". For another I guess I just assumed I wouldn't be able to find it.
And yeah, I gererally like all the hipsters around, but the smugness does sometimes wear thin. As a proud Austin resident, it's easy to recognize (we're a smug lot in Austin). Also, I get hipster points up here for my origin. Generally not as much as if I were from San Francisco, say, but still.
It's funny, NYC is one of the most cosmopolitan cities in the world, but you meet some of the most incredibly provincial people here.
Posted by Mitch Mills | Link to this comment | 12-14-04 5:47 AM