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Message |
    
Elizabeth
Citizen
Username: Elizabeth
Post Number: 128
Registered: 7-2002
| | Posted on Saturday, April 19, 2003 - 9:13 am: |     |
A post in the arts/entertainment section inspires me to ask this:
"Down the shore" is part of what dialect/s?
When I first moved to Philadelphia many years ago I was surprised to hear everyone--not just non-native English speakers--saying: "We're going down the shore" when they were planning a trip to a New Jersey beach community.
When I moved here it seemed to me I ceased to hear people use that expression--until today on MOL.
So please contribute to my informal linguistic study.
Do you "go down the shore" like Philly folks and where did you grow up?
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jab
Citizen
Username: Jab
Post Number: 22
Registered: 3-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, April 19, 2003 - 9:23 am: | |
I grew up in southern NJ, very close to Philly, where everybody went down the shore. I think it makes sense. When you go to the beach in NJ (at least to Ocean City or Long Beach Island) you generally head south and people talk about going down to Virginia or Florida. Of course, the latter example includes the word "to".
As an aside, people in southern NJ wait in line. People in NYC amd many in northern NJ (I think) wait on line. Waiting on line has never made sense to me. When waiting for a salesperson to help you, you form a line with other customers, you wait in a line. Whenever I hear a salesperson yell out that people must wait on line I always think that I should be able to find some bold line drawn on the floor that everybody must stand on if they want any assistance. |
Elizabeth
Citizen
Username: Elizabeth
Post Number: 129
Registered: 7-2002
| | Posted on Saturday, April 19, 2003 - 10:04 am: | |
"Of course, the latter example includes the word "to". . ."
Exactly. I understand the "down" part. It's the missing "to" that sounds strange to the foreign ear. Bostonians don't "go the Cape" this weekend.
(Another aside: Detroiters and Ann Arborites who vacation in northern Michigan say: "I'm going 'up north' for a week this summer." And the northernmost part of Michigan, the upper peninsula, is definitely not "up north," it's "the UP" as in, "Your accent tells me you're from Canada or the UP.")
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jab
Citizen
Username: Jab
Post Number: 23
Registered: 3-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, April 19, 2003 - 11:58 am: | |
People drive up and down the coast, particularly in California to visit wineries. The difference between driving down the coast and down the shore is that when going down the shore you might not be driving along the shore the entire time. The point is that I see your point.
As another aside, everybody I knew growing up went down the shore while we went to a cottage on Lake Erie, which was in a small summer community that our family had been a part of since it was started in 1884. Nobody understood. On the last day of school twenty kids would say that they were going down the shore, asked if I was, and I had to explain that we vacationed in Ohio. |
alia
Citizen
Username: Alia
Post Number: 106
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Saturday, April 19, 2003 - 12:28 pm: | |
I think down the shore is a NJ thing. I grew up in Ohio, where we said we were going "to the beach" if we were going, well, to the beach, whether that was Florida or a lake beach in Central Ohio. I discovered "down the shore" with my husband's NJ family.
Elizabeth, I'm surprised you hadn't heard it till today, I hear it all the time. Another NJ saying (which I don't like): go with, as in "You're going down the shore? I'd love to go with." Dropping the "you" drives me nuts. |
annettedepalma
Citizen
Username: Annettedepalma
Post Number: 259
Registered: 11-2001
| | Posted on Saturday, April 19, 2003 - 12:31 pm: | |
I grew up in Hoboken. If you were going to a beach in NJ, for any lenghth of time, and you described the trip in any way other than, "going down the shore," people would think (among other things) that you were leaving the state. |
Elizabeth
Citizen
Username: Elizabeth
Post Number: 130
Registered: 7-2002
| | Posted on Saturday, April 19, 2003 - 1:02 pm: | |
Oh, I love "You wanna come with?" First heard by me in college a hundred years ago. Everyone from New York and New Jersey said it and I immediately adopted it into my lexicon. |
eliz
Citizen
Username: Eliz
Post Number: 501
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Saturday, April 19, 2003 - 2:31 pm: | |
It still sounds strange to my ears. When I moved to the city years ago I was told that "the beach" means Long Island and "the shore" means NJ. |
sac
Citizen
Username: Sac
Post Number: 766
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Saturday, April 19, 2003 - 7:33 pm: | |
Elizabeth,
I've been hearing "down the shore" in Maplewood conversations ever since I moved here from Texas 17 years ago. I've gotten used to it and even say it myself now. For me, the hardest part was substituting the word "shore" for "beach". The missing article just sort of went along with the phrase. |
galileo
Citizen
Username: Galileo
Post Number: 99
Registered: 7-2001
| | Posted on Saturday, April 19, 2003 - 11:31 pm: | |
I'm from New Jersey and it's always been "down the shore". |
Redsox
Citizen
Username: Redsox
Post Number: 248
Registered: 6-2002
| | Posted on Sunday, April 20, 2003 - 11:44 am: | |
elizabeth,
down the cape
down the south shore
up the north shore
till you get to maine, then it becomes down east.
therefore,
when going on holiday in maine,
you've got to get up to get down.
in long island, when going to the hamptons(or points past nassau county),
goin out east. |
Elizabeth
Citizen
Username: Elizabeth
Post Number: 132
Registered: 7-2002
| | Posted on Sunday, April 20, 2003 - 12:15 pm: | |
Redsox--do I read you correctly? Are you saying that you Boston folks use the expression: "I'm going down the cape this weekend." As in, "I am leaving Boston/Cambridge/Somerville/wherever, getting in the car and risking life and limb to drive in a somewhat southerly direction to Falmouth."
???
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Elizabeth
Citizen
Username: Elizabeth
Post Number: 133
Registered: 7-2002
| | Posted on Sunday, April 20, 2003 - 12:29 pm: | |
Redsox--I googled and answered my own question.
At the "word origins" bulletin board (http://pub122.ezboard.com/fwordoriginsorgfrm2.showMessage?topicID=249.topic
a poster had this to say about losing the "to"
"More specifically, us Baahstaners say we're going "down Maine". First off, you have to get past the use of "down" as the preposition -- it is common in Boston to say "go down the store", "go up the square", etc., without a "to".
As for why we say "down Maine", I was told growing up that it was simply bcoz the expression was coined by Nova Scottish (Nova Scotsmen?). To them Maine really is "down". Why Bostoners adopted it verbatim is anyone's guess . . .
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eliz
Citizen
Username: Eliz
Post Number: 502
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Sunday, April 20, 2003 - 1:01 pm: | |
Nova Scotians |
papayagirl
Citizen
Username: Papayagirl
Post Number: 58
Registered: 6-2002
| | Posted on Sunday, April 20, 2003 - 9:29 pm: | |
I'm from northern/central NJ, and it's always been "down the shore" for me.
BTW - there's a fascinating dialect survey online. That particular term isn't included, but many others are.
http://hcs.harvard.edu/~golder/dialect/maps.php
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bella
Citizen
Username: Bella
Post Number: 289
Registered: 7-2001
| | Posted on Monday, April 21, 2003 - 11:07 am: | |
I grew up in Maplewood and I have always said 'down the shore.' My father grew up in Maplewood (back when there were still some farms left) and he says 'down the shore' as well. My mother is from Philly and south Jersey and she says it too. |
kathy
Citizen
Username: Kathy
Post Number: 542
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Tuesday, April 22, 2003 - 6:22 pm: | |
In Baltimore, when they're going over to the Eastern Shore beaches, they say "down the ocean". Which they pronounce "downy ayshin".
As for dropping the pronoun in "to go with": I grew up in New Jersey and New York State and the first place I heard this was from my (future) in-laws in Illinois. I think that it may be a Yiddishism of some sort.
Another truncated phrase that I first heard in Illinois, but may be Jewish in origin, is "coffee and". As in, "Come over on Sunday for coffee and." |
woodstock
Citizen
Username: Woodstock
Post Number: 86
Registered: 9-2002
| | Posted on Wednesday, April 23, 2003 - 1:30 pm: | |
OK, now that we know where "down the shore" may come from, can someone explain the Pennsylvanian need to say things like "The car needs fixed" or "The clothes need washed" (usually pronounced "worshed")? |
algebra2
Citizen
Username: Algebra2
Post Number: 889
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Wednesday, April 23, 2003 - 1:57 pm: | |
things i've never heard:
"Come over on Sunday for coffee and."
"The car needs fixed" or "The clothes need washed"
are you just playing with me Woodstock?
Never heard "Down the Shore" until college. Being from Mass, we just said "going to the beach". |
njjoseph
Supporter
Username: Njjoseph
Post Number: 1935
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Wednesday, April 23, 2003 - 2:09 pm: | |
Woodstock -- probably not Pennsylvania (the whole state), but Pittsburgh. There are even jokes about this famous language Pittsburghese. |
viva
Citizen
Username: Viva
Post Number: 230
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Wednesday, April 23, 2003 - 2:27 pm: | |
And what is "sleeping in" all about? Never heard it growing up in NYC, and I find the term perplexing.
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ffof
Citizen
Username: Ffof
Post Number: 1161
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Wednesday, April 23, 2003 - 3:10 pm: | |
I hate the phrase "standing on line". It's IN line!
Now, my hair needs washed and I must red up the hawse. And then, njj, I expect I'll need an arn rond 6! Hey, where's my Terrible Towel at? |
njjoseph
Supporter
Username: Njjoseph
Post Number: 1936
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Wednesday, April 23, 2003 - 3:21 pm: | |
Sahside, next to your babushka and bumbershoot. nah ware's my chipped ham sammich an'at? |
wnb
Citizen
Username: Wnb
Post Number: 32
Registered: 8-2001
| | Posted on Thursday, April 24, 2003 - 3:45 pm: | |
Yins jagoffs...
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smithford
Citizen
Username: Smithford
Post Number: 98
Registered: 2-2002
| | Posted on Monday, April 28, 2003 - 10:48 am: | |
An upcoming episode of "American Dreams" has the episode title "Down the Shore" |
ml1
Citizen
Username: Ml1
Post Number: 874
Registered: 5-2002
| | Posted on Monday, April 28, 2003 - 7:48 pm: | |
Fox had a series many years ago called "Down The Shore," about a group of singles renting a beach house at the Jersey Shore. The theme song was Steve Van Zandt's "I Don't Want To Go Home," made famous of course by Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes. The show was pretty putrid, but it had the best opening theme in the history of TV (at least to this Jersey boy's ears). |
crazyguggenheim
Citizen
Username: Crazyguggenheim
Post Number: 376
Registered: 2-2002
| | Posted on Friday, May 16, 2003 - 10:23 pm: | |
Call me crazy, but lately I've been thinking back fondly on all those years I was the best (looking) lifeguard (okay, I mean beach tag checker) down the shore (Avalon, 58th street!)
Call me crazy |
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