Wednesday, December 03, 2008

How to Pass for a Native

I found this very amusing on a website that promotes a monthly party for people who went to high school in New York. I particularly like the one about identifying the subway line by color, which is a recent pet peeve of mine after I heard a bunch of youngsters that I work with identify the lines they take to get home (mostlhy red).

My mother, on the other hand, refuses to switch to the number/letter identification system and will only call the 4/5/6 "the Lex," which is a habit from one generation earlier than mine. (And yes, this mention will generate a series of emails to me from my mother, but that is the risk I take. And since I mentioned that, it will probably morph into a phone call instead of email. And now that I mention that still, she will probably remain silent. Mission accomplished. Now she's mad. Sorry.)

1 comment:

esquared™ said...

Yeah, what is it with the transplants, the youngsters, and combination of both, identifying the subway lines by the color. I know that's how they do it in DC, Montreal, Paris and other European cities that has a Metro. It irks the hell out of me when someone stops me asking where they can get the red line.

And yes most of these youngsters live in "Upper West Side" where the "red" line goes. I'm sorry, but I have to admit i was going out with a twentysomething youngster from upstate a couple of years ago. And the reason why she ended up in "UPW" was that because CraigsList indicated that the apt. was in the UPW, even though technically it's Hamilton Heights (and others end up living in Riverdale, or wherever the streets are in the upper 100's and on the West side --anything to have that New York, NY address). So, maybe that should shed some light on why these youngsters take the "red" line.

AND, one can really tell a native NYer by referring to the subway lines as the IRT, IND, BMT. I sometimes refer to these just to throw people off and indicate [brag] to them that I'm a native.

Sorry for the long-winded comment. Am having an off-day: neither productive at work nor can I put something insightful in my tumblr.