Big Apple Speak: A Primer

New York City like many places has its share of unique terminology, expressions, sayings, colloquialisms and pronunciations; many have been portrayed in the movies over the years. If you hear a guy from Brooklyn saying, "dirdy-tree", he is not talking about an elm or oak but the number thirty-three. Sometimes these localisms can create confusion; I can recall one from long ago.

I grew up in Queens and many years ago when I was in the eighth grade all students were required to take high school entrance examinations. The test was administered in a high school which was a short train ride from our neighborhood. The NYC Subway System includes elevated trains as well as underground trains.

We had a fellow in our class that moved into Queens from Long Island and was new to area; we gave him directions on how to get to the test site. On the Saturday of the test he was a no show; on Monday morning he was screaming at several of us that gave him the travel directions. He told us that he had difficulty finding the subway station, had to walk much further than we told him and then when he did get to the train station it was the wrong line.

We could not understand how he got lost because the subway station was only a four block walk from his house. He explained the route he walked and we told him he could not have possibly missed the subway line because it is elevated and he had to walk underneath it.

New York City is made up of five Boroughs or counties, they are; Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, Staten Island and the Bronx. Brooklyn, Queens, Staten Island and the Bronx are referred to as the outer Boroughs. People who live in the outer Boroughs refer to Manhattan as the" City". Although they live in NYC, folks will say things like, "I had to go into the City" A New Yorker referring to the "City" means Manhattan.

The NYC Boroughs of Brooklyn and Queens share Long Island with Nassau and Suffolk counties. Although folks from Brooklyn and Queens live on Long Island they will refer to a trip to Nassau or Suffolk as "going to Long Island". The State of New Jersey is simply "Jersey" to New Yorkers, for example; "My sister moved to Jersey".

A buddy of mine from Queens recently spent a leisurely Saturday in Manhattan with his girlfriend. He did tell me about his trip, below is an excerpt, please forgive the grammar.

"Last Saturday me and Lucy went into the City for the day. I told her before we went not to bring a lot of stuff because I didn't want to schlep junk around. We found a nice little joint to have breakfast; they have a great special, but you know Lucy, all she had was coffee and a bagel with a smear. Then this putz from Podunk is really eyeballing Lucy's tush, I felt like smacking this schmuck hard enough to land him in Jersey. Well, I couldn't do that, so in a NewYork minute, I gave him a Bronx cheer, and then I gave him a dirty look and told him to fuhgeddaboudit."

Definitions

Putz - a jerk, idiot or moron.

Schmuck - a fool, jerk, putz.

Schlep - lug around, carry (usually things you don't want to).

Smear - A light spreading of cream cheese.

Podunk - someplace out in the sticks, nothing goes on in Podunk.

Tush - derriere, rear end, fanny.

Jersey - New Jersey.

New York minute - an instant, a flash.

Bronx cheer - giving someone a raspberry.

Fugeddaboudit - various meanings, in the above paragraph, it translates to; "Don't even think about my girlfriend and get lost".

Welcome to the Big Apple!