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Circle - New Jersey
Rotary - New England
Roundabout - everywhere else
Expressway - NYC region
Freeway - most other places, I think
Jughandle - New Jersey
WTF is this? - Everywhere else
Chicago also uses the term "expressway," and I think Detroit and Rochester do as well. "Freeway" strikes me as a primarily Californian (or more broadly, West Coast) term.
Circle - New Jersey
Rotary - New England
Roundabout - everywhere else
Traffic Circle - New Mexico
Quote:
Originally Posted by agun77
Chicago also uses the term "expressway," and I think Detroit and Rochester do as well. "Freeway" strikes me as a primarily Californian (or more broadly, West Coast) term.
A "Freeway" is a controlled-access highway with over/underpasses. An "Expressway" can be part freeway, but It can also a limited-access highway with at-grade intersections and stoplights. In short, "expressway" and" freeway" are not synonymous; they are two terms for two different types of highway.
A "Freeway" is a controlled-access highway with over/underpasses. An "Expressway" can be part freeway, but It can also a limited-access highway with at-grade intersections and stoplights. In short, "expressway" and" freeway" are not synonymous; they are two terms for two different types of highway.
Too funny! The reverse is true in Chicago. Only designated interstates are called "expressways". "Highways" are any limited-access, grade-separated, divided roads; they're found in suburbs only. The word "freeway" is never used and rarely understood. (There's also "tollway", which refers to tolled expressways; there were no tolled highways until IL Rte 390 was completed.)
To complicate the matters, roads that are only part highway sometimes retain the term when they turn into "normal" city streets. To confuse people even further, roads that look like highways aren't always called that. And a few roads have names that go against the "proper" terminology, for historical reasons.
In a nutshell, all expressways are highways, not all highways are expressways, and freeways don't exist.
Last edited by MillennialUrbanist; 05-19-2017 at 01:28 PM..
"Freeway"- California
"Hella"- Northern California (particularly the San Francisco Bay Area)
"The [insert expressway number here]"- Southern California (particularly Los Angeles)
"Wicked"- New England (particularly Boston)
"Hero"- sub sandwich, New York City metropolitan area
"Hoagie"- sub sandwich, Philadelphia
"Po'boy"- sub sandwich, Louisiana
"Mischief night"- New York City metropolitan area/northern New Jersey
"Devil's night"- Detroit
"Tree lawn"- Cleveland
"Gym shoes"- Chicagoland (although according to the New York Times Dialect Quiz, Cincinnatians also use this term.)
Ya, they do "The 101, The I-10" in Phoenix, too, to refer to highways.
There's so many of these depending on where you live. Fascinating.
"How ya doing" is an Upstate NY favorite, but I hear it said from people where I live from Brooklyn, too. Must be a NY thing. I know I say it, but seldom hear many people around me saying that.
How about "supper" vs "dinner." Have no clue if there's a region known for either or is it a blue collar vs white collar thingy?
Same thing with pork roll/Taylor ham. Jersey people will argue among themselves about which name is right, but most people outside the state have never heard of it.
Now that I'm in Albuquerque I wish I could find a restaurant that puts Taylor pork roll (what I grew up calling it) in breakfast burritos! Would be good. I could try to make my own but I'm pretty sure it won't be as good as what I'd get from expert burrito makers.
If I wanted to make myself a really annoying transplant I could trying asking for Taylor pork roll in my breakfast burrito the next time I order one. (I think I'm probably annoying enough already. I am never going to get the hang of being laid back.)
I used to have an annual outing with my father to a Taylor pork roll place on the boardwalk in Ocean City, when we were down the shore for vacation. I think that place probably closed a long time ago.
People in New Mexico sometimes say a drawn out "Ja" like the German for yes. Presumably something picked up from German settlers here. Not necessarily what you would expect.
I learned putz from the Jews, and it meant that you were a doof.
The Yiddish "putz" and the Pennsylvania German "putz" are pronounced differently, but apparently have the same root. The PA German one is pronounced like the word "put."
"obnoxious man, fool," 1964, from Yiddish, from German putz, literally "finery, adornment," obviously used here in an ironic sense. Attested in writing earlier in slang sense of "penis" (1934, in "Tropic of Cancer"). A non-ironic sense is in putz "Nativity display around a Christmas tree" (1873), from Pennsylvania Dutch (German), which retains the old German sense.
The Yiddish "putz" and the Pennsylvania German "putz" are pronounced differently, but apparently have the same root. The PA German one is pronounced like the word "put."
I'm familiar with this word, but I only use it as a part of a verb phrase "to putz around" --- to wander around aimlessly, especially if walking back and forth. For example: "My train wasn't due to another two hours, so I just putzed around Main Street to kill time." Anybody with even a remote familiarity with Yiddish always understood me without having to ask for clarification.
I always pronounce it rhyming with "butts".
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