Tell the truth; do you pronounce your city as Picksburgh?

[Katarina Witt]

Originally Posted by Flamingo13

I agree w/the posters who have said they've never heard anyone say Pixburg, Sliberty, etc. - as pointed out in other probably old posts, there are words/sayings that are regional: gumband, nebby, chipped ham..... (all I can think of at the moment) - some of the other things I've heard in other areas, yinz, youns, yall, - there is some variation of the though to let your dog go out into the yard - "left the dog out" comes to mind

Tell me where else you've heard yinz/yunz. Y'all is not a Pittsburgh colloquialism.

[Tallysmom]

Originally Posted by greg42

Knowing that you grew up here that just seems impossible to me! Sweeper is one of the most widely used of the Pittsburghese terms. Even some people that don't otherwise speak with a Pittsburgh accent/dialect at all still end up saying sweeper instead of vacuum.

BUT -- both my parents were from the middle of the state (Bedford County) and my mother's heritage was PA Dutch. I say all sorts of weird stuff you've probably never heard, although I am losing it as time goes by. ( guess I need to make some creamed lettuce....)

I never had the Pittsburgh accent... although the "to be" thing had me pegged as being from Pittsburgh. In fact, some people hear a very slight drawl because my father spoke with one. And when I lived in PA, I had a few people think I was from England when I worked front desk at a hotel... I think it was the lack of the Pittsburgh accent.

But there's always those little oddities. I grew up calling those elongated sprinkles on top of ice cream Jimmies. My husband (born and raised in Beaver County) was SURE I got that because the place we used to get soft serve in Cranberry was called Jimmies. Nope -- the round ones are sprinkles and the long ones are jimmies.

Just checked with hubs -- they called it a sweeper too....

[Trackwatch]

Originally Posted by fleetiebelle

My mother calls a vacuum a "sweeper" and she's never left Cincinnati. A broom is a broom.

The full name is Vacuum-sweeper.

That is left over from years ago, Refrigerators are Iceboxes, Margarine is Oleo.

For some a bit younger, photocopies are Xeroxes.

Remember clicker for remote?

[gmagoo]

Originally Posted by Copanut

Picksburg, yinz, he don't, I aint got, I seen.

Will never utter those words. Only people that do are either lazy, dumb, or both.

So true and the same goes for the people who call our city The Burgh.

[ML North]

Originally Posted by Copanut

Picksburg, yinz, he don't, I aint got, I seen.

Will never utter those words. Only people that do are either lazy, dumb, or both.

How about cousint? Or stold?

[ElijahAstin]

Nope, but then again, I'm grew up outside that other big Pennsylvania city.

When I came to Pittsburgh for college, a lot of my PGH-area native friends chided me for "talking funny." Their accents were actually very neutral for the most part, almost like newsspeak, although they would sometimes use PGH-specific phrases like "redd up" and "needs washed."

[AnneWest]

Originally Posted by Trackwatch

The full name is Vacuum-sweeper.

That is left over from years ago, Refrigerators are Iceboxes, Margarine is Oleo.

For some a bit younger, photocopies are Xeroxes.

Remember clicker for remote?

Yes! to all of these.
I was puzzled by the posts from people who called them a vacuum OR a sweeper lol. As I've gotten older, I admit I've pretty much dropped the vacuum part tho.
Does everyone use them as verbs tho? I haven't ever said "I vacuumed the living room" It's always "I ran the vacuum in the living room"
Xeroxes are both nouns and verbs, and occasionally redundant. "Xerox this, please" and "This is a xerox copy"
My aunts and mother called our refrigerators "the fridge" tho. My grandmother called it the icebox, because it truly had ice blocks in there.

[Pghuser]

Picksburgh is terrible. It makes me cringe every time I hear it. Most intelligent people I know NEVER say this. I don't even know why people say it like that. It's NOT yinzer speak. It's idiot speak.

[TechieTransplant]

Originally Posted by Pghuser

It's NOT yinzer speak. It's idiot speak.

Same thing, isn't it?

[Herodotus]

Originally Posted by Trackwatch

The full name is Vacuum-sweeper.

Actually, it's vacuum-cleaner. A sweeper has brushes, but no vacuum, and is an older invention. Since the vacuum evolved from the sweeper, many people attached the old name to the new device.