Fleeing the Strip's parking issues, company heads to the North Hills (Pittsburgh: find a job, transfer)

[Katarina Witt]

The author of this is a life-long friend of my brother. He wrote it in 1982, and used "yunz". The book, actually a little paperback, was written for charity.
https://www.newspapers.com/newspage/91069505/
From Google: "Oct 12, 1982 - It's "The Pittsburgh Tickler: a Tongue-In-Cheek Glossary of Names, Places, ... James Luce is donating all proceeds from the sale of the book to ..." (Huntingdon's Disease)

[Doowlle34]

Apropos of (one of) the topics discussed above, I can attest to the fact that it can be difficult to kill a "yinzer". Here are some thoughts on the subject that I penned last year.

"The death of a yinzer"
　
I'm guilty. Over the past several months, my wife and I have aided and abetted in the death of a yinzer. Ok, to be clear, I am writing in the realm of metaphor -- no blows were delivered, no blood was shed, and there is no corpus to bury. The "yinzer" in question continues to be a happy-go-lucky, somewhat precocious, just-turned-three-year-old, a.k.a., my daughter. By all rights, she should have been another generation who made use of this much misunderstood and much maligned term. In fact, while I've been able to eliminate most uses of the term from my own speech (but for exhausted or inebriated utterances), my dear daughter is exposed to copious "yinz-bombs" from my mother (who, I have noticed in my later, mostly "yinz-free" years, has an undiagnosed case of yinz-Tourettes), as well as from our wonderful, amazing, indispensable Brookline-based nanny/babysitter (I currently work from home, and our daughter has spent about 30 hours a week with our babysitter for the past two years).　
　
Against this frequent and seemingly inevitable exposure to the regional vernacular stood my out-of-state born wife -- who frequently commented to our daughter that the use of the term was not proper. As with many things that you tell a toddler, it is never clear whether it has made an impact. I'm sure other parents can identify with the experience of providing some detail, instruction, story, or lesson to a child -- only to have it go dormant for several hours, weeks, or even months, before it reappears in some question or observation from the little processor. So it was with my wife's comments about the use of yinz.
　
In particular, a few weeks ago, Grandma was in town for one of her near weekly visits from the hinterlands (the "Greater Southern Lawrence County Metropolitan Area" also known as Ellwood City to some or simply "the E.C." to others). Shortly after arriving, Grandma began providing a rundown of the events of her past week; the "Grandma Report" was more peppered with "yinz's" than a typical episode of Pittsburgh Dad. In the middle, my daughter interjected, "Grandma, don't say 'yinz,’" say 'you people'". Perhaps still not 100% grammatically correct. Fair enough. Nevertheless, perhaps this just reflects a young mind grappling with the (arguably) non-intuitive fact (especially to those of us who grew up in Yinzer-stan) that "you" (sans "inz" or "unz" or "ouns" or "all" or "’ll" or "ones" or "lot") can be used as either a singular or a plural. In any event, it seemed that my wife's guidance had indeed resonated with the sprout, and we had delivered the death knell to, at least, one "quirk" of the regional dialect.
　
A moment of silence, then, won't you please, for the passing of a "yinzer".

[BrassTacksGal]

Originally Posted by SteelCityRising

Pioneer also had his parents pay for his college education and didn't have to graduate with tens of thousands of dollars in high-interest student loan debt. If I had an extra $300/month in my budget over the past eight years I could have saved in just a few years to buy a house like that, too, out-of-pocket. Just saying you're not comparing apples to apples with that one. The student loan bubble is really stunting the "American Dream" for many Millennials who won't be able to achieve the same quality-of-life our parents had for an extra decade. Good thing we'll live a decade longer to make up for it. Oh, wait...

I've always wondered why students who are paying for their own college education don't go to a cheaper school, or a couple of years at a community college, or an all out push for scholarships? I would never allow my kids to go to school we/they couldn't afford. I would not allow them to go into massive debt for college. I'm sorry your parents and guidance counselors didn't give you better advice. I hope others here can learn from your experience.

[Paul2421]

Originally Posted by Merge

This post seems rather passive-aggressive.

yeah it is a weird form of area snobbery.

[Paul2421]

Originally Posted by BrassTacksGal

I've always wondered why students who are paying for their own college education don't go to a cheaper school, or a couple of years at a community college, or an all out push for scholarships? I would never allow my kids to go to school we/they couldn't afford. I would not allow them to go into massive debt for college. I'm sorry your parents and guidance counselors didn't give you better advice. I hope others here can learn from your experience.

because state and "state" schools in pa are the most expensive in the country and some credits don't transfer from cc/employers often don't value the degrees. 2 years at pitt/psu would be 40k+ net

[prnlvsxy]

Originally Posted by xdv8

Where do you commute from, is the bus not an option? And what does your last sentence mean?

From the East. I don't like to be on someone else's schedule, so I drive. The last sentence means if I want to to go the bookstore and hang out, or do some shopping, or go to the park I can do that in Cranberry with a car...I don't really have those options downtown.

[prnlvsxy]

Originally Posted by tyovan4

Park in the Hill, and walk. It's free - no meters, and no permit zones. It's what I do.

That doesn't solve the traffic problem, but I'll look into that. Where in the Hill do you park?

[bluecarebear]

College is a waste in Pittsburgh unless a student is going to enter the healthcare field. Almost everyone I have met in Pittsburgh, outside of healthcare, is working in a position that they did not use their degree to obtain. To tie this back to the topic of the thread, Erie is going downhill because the city only has eds, meds, and tourism as the economic base. So yes, it matters when high paying jobs leave the city limits.

[Copanut]

Originally Posted by bluecarebear

College is a waste in Pittsburgh unless a student is going to enter the healthcare field. .

You get out what you put in, if it's a waste, it's on you.

[slamont61]

Traffic in the strip was always a mess in daytime but parking existed for drive-up businesses. Long gone is what the strip was born to, a warehouse district where the rails met the rubber. The redevelopment of the space into the mixed use sort of thing we see today was going to congest the parking availability sooner or later.


Can't blame any business that has no real reason to be located there from moving to a suburb for it's customer's convenience.