The D (Detroit, Grosse Ile: living in, stats, airplane)

[Peregrine]

Hey all. Clevelander here.

Just wanted to pop in and ask a question.
Have you seen the ads for Detroit turism? They call it "The D".
Really?
That's pretty lame.
Please tell me people in Detroit don't call it "The D".

I like Detroit. Always felt we were kind of sister cities. But this new ad campaign. Yuck.

GO LIONS AND TIGERS!

[J'aimeDesVilles]

Haven't seen the ad you are talking about but I moved here from Cleveland over twenty years ago and it has been called "The D" about as long as I can remember. I kind of like it. Dallas is "The Big D" so it is kind of the same thing.

I agree with you on the sister cities thing. I have always felt like Cleveland and Buffalo and maybe Milwaukee were Dteroit's little sisters/brothers.

[Coldjensens]

I have always despised cutesy names developed for people who want to sound trendy. Can't you say the name of the City? Do they think it sounds "cool" to use some other name? What is the reasons for sticking"the" in front of everything? It makes our conversations sound like a Hammer schlmacher catalogue (or whatever that company is in the airplane magazines that has every product name start with "The"). None of it is cute or cool in my estimation, just annoying.

"Cali"
"The OC"
"The D"
"The Big Apple"
"D.C."

Even our own little community Grosse Ile, is sometimes called "The Island" which is really stupid since Grosse Ile is made up of 14 islands.

The only one that does not really bug me is L.A., but I still do not use it most of the time hen I refer to Los Angeles.

[animatedmartian]

Some local commercials use "The D". "Doing it in the D." Stuff like that. It never really bothered me.

[detwahDJ]

I don't think it was always "the D". I heard it as "big D" until Dallas, having a national media spotlight at a point (mainly football), usurped it. The natl media obliged. Then 'somebody' wanted to retain a semblance of the nickname for Detroit and came up with a simple and direct replacement.
In case nobody has noticed - we're living in an era of acronyms.

[Coldjensens]

Originally Posted by detwahDJ

In case nobody has noticed - we're living in an era of acronyms.

It doesn't mean that we can't hate them.

However I can live with acronyms. My kids actually say (vocally) things like LOL and my BFF. It is the cutesy trendy garbage that people think makes them sound cool that I find annoying.

[Retroit]

I've got to wonder who is paying for those commercials and why they aren't spending money on more urgent needs.

Does "The D" stand for "The Dumb"?

[animatedmartian]

Originally Posted by Retroit

I've got to wonder who is paying for those commercials and why they aren't spending money on more urgent needs.

Does "The D" stand for "The Dumb"?

Heh, it's usually car commercials. I want to say a specific Chevy commercial is on my mind but I'm not entirely sure. I haven't seen it for a while. It wasn't high production value or anything; no speaking actors, just people driving the car around with the narrator giving out stats.

It might have been some dealerships. I dunno, but I've heard it tossed around. More often than not.

[313 TUxedo]

I did not hear it called "The D" until about 10-15 years ago. "The Motor City", "Motown" and "Murder city" prevailed until rappers popularized "The D", wearing clothing with oversized (and possibly not licensed) copies of the Old English "D" logo from the Tigers uniforms and caps.

Yes, it lacks the optimism of "The North Coast" or "The Greatest Location in the Nation", but it is a lot shorter.

[J'aimeDesVilles]

Perhaps it is just a Michigan thing.
We refer to "A-square", "Kzoo", and "GR" also.