I am well aware that there are people in New York who often think they are the center of the universe. I joke that New Yorkers much of the time are trying to live up to their own hype every time they step out the door.
So I’m going to sound like one of those self-absorbed New Yorkers when I ask this question, but when has sounding like a doofus ever stopped me!? Never!
I’m working on an ARC of a book, and the author keeps referring to teams and locations in New York by their full names: La Guardia Airport. The New York Mets. The New York Islanders. The characters are all New Yorkers, so the full names thing yanks me out of the story.
No one talks like that in this area. Folks would say, “La Guardia,” “the Islanders,” or, if they were Yankee fans, “that other team.” But it’s assumed common knowledge that the team location is New York. Heck, even if the team is in Jersey, the implication is New York.
But even then, growing up in Pittsburgh, we had “dem Stillers,” (the Pittsburgh Steelers), “de Pahrrits” (the Pittsburgh Pirates), and “the Penguins.” When you’re IN the place, you don’t need the location when referring to the sports teams – and Pittsburgh only had one airport so it was “the airport.” In New York, there are at least 4 airports you could possibly fly into, and let’s not even get started on the fool who decided to name two cities across the river from one another “New York” and “Newark,” especially considering the regional accent of the folks who LIVE here. And to have TWO Penn Stations? One in New York and one in Newark? It’s like an enunciation nightmare, I tell you.
Anyway, back to my question. If you’re writing a story, do you err on the side of “Maybe the reader won’t know what I mean” and explain place names and team names fully, even if it yanks a more local reader out of the story a bit and makes the characters sound overly formal? It’s not like it’s a big deal, but it definitely occurs enough that I notice, and I wonder about it. What do you do, and if you’re a reader, how do you react?
I’m in the UK – I know what La Guardia, the Mets and the Steelers are; I’d much rather have a book which gives the names people who actually live there would use; makes me feel less ignorant if I ever go there as a tourist, too…
And as long as the locations hang together… My favourite example from this side of the pond was the US miniseries which had two characters emerging from the library of the Senate House in central London and walking into the gateway of King’s College (65 miles away in Cambridge)… Sadly, no teleportation devices were involved…
>>Nope, not in NorCal. We say “Take 80 to 580.†No one says “Take the 880.†<<
Sorry, didn’t mean to over-generalize!
Regardless, it’s *way* not something you hear in New England, and finding it in a supposedly Boston-set scene jars the bejeebers out of me, whether in books or TV.
Oh, and when discussing baseball, the name of the Enemy should (imho) be most properly written the ‘Yank-mes.’
As yet another DC resident, I agree that as a reader I will allow for more formalized terms from an omniscient narrator than I will from an internal monologue or any dialogue.
One thing I always wonder about how nitpicky to get over is references to our police force. They are called the Metropolitan Police Department which I recognize is non-specific and also, to outsiders potentially confusing since there is also a metro with it’s own police force here. But they are never, ever called the DCPD.
In a recent La Nora novel (gasp! I know), Newbury St. in Boston is repeatedly spelled as “Newberry,” which is a) wrong and b) not even how it is pronounced.
It bugged me, because the other details about Boston were right on. I was irritated that no copy editor/editor/publisher caught this before it went to print (it was ANGELS FALL, by the way, an otherwise fabulous read).
And I think I’ve mentioned that error like fifty times already. Anyone got another dead horse I can beat?
Regardless, it’s *way* not something you hear in New England, and finding it in a supposedly Boston-set scene jars the bejeebers out of me, whether in books or TV.
You know, I was recently up in Boston for a job interview and no one used “wicked” or talked about their cahs. I was so disappointed. Teach me to believe regional stereotypes. However the traffic definitely lived up to expectations.
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Well, what do I know? I was only born and raised here. My friends from elsewhere and traffic reporters, who are often from elsewhere, use weird terms.
I was reading one of Jane Greene’s books and thought her copyeditor should have caught all sorts of gaffs with her American character’s Americanisms. I think she used the term “going on holiday,” instead of “going on a holiday,” or more commonly, “taking a vacation.” There were lots more.
taking ‘the three’ or ‘the ninety-three’ to get places—using ‘the’ preceeding a road number is a California thing!
Not just Cali. I hear it in Virginia and Pennsylvania.
It’s just like all the other “regional accent” arguments (pop/soda). We all think we “know” what’s said in our region, but reality is a lot more variable.
Imagine living in New Mexico and reading a mystery series set in New Mexico, written by two archaeologist who have only the slightest clue about the current southwestern culture. Talk about being bumped out of the story – Sheesh! These poor people showed their ignorance of new mexican food, exaggerated the weather (although I can kind of see that), changed the names of the native americans here, and reduced the number of hispanics down to one with no gender – I’m having the most trouble with that last one.
The worse part is that I was probably one of the few who noticed those things. They should have talked to Tony Hillerman.
I’ve lived in Las Vegas going on 12 yrs now and when I was a child 4 yrs before that. So I really hate when an author writes about Vegas and they think we are only the casinos. (Can’t tell you how many times I get ask if I live in one.)Or get our streets messed up, which are already screwy enough to drive you mad. We have a road in less than three miles changes it’s name three times, Ft. Apache-Rampart-Durango. That doesn’t count the street that runs parallel named Durango. (So bad directions drive me batty considering I’m giving them to people all night at my job in the hotel industry)
I was reading a novel once, set in Vegas and they left the airport going on Paradise Rd to Tropicana. Paradise is oneway street near the airport, it only goes into the airport, through the airport, then out through a tunnel going away from Tropicana. The way to get on to Tropicana is by a oneway street called Swenson from the airport.
Completely threw me out of the novel and really read it half-heartedly after that. Problem was the the author’s explanation was that the character who was driving ‘really’ knew Vegas and knew how to get out the airport area fast. The way the author took the them they would have been hit from oncoming cars. 😉
verification code—respect 19
Sorry about the rant, we just get no respect out here.
It’s just like all the other “regional accent†arguments (pop/soda). We all think we “know†what’s said in our region, but reality is a lot more variable.
You’re telling me. The first couple days at Rutgers we all discovered that people from north and south Jersey apparently spoke two separate languages. That jimmy vs. sprinkle argument went on for days.
I’m waaay over here in Scotland but I have a pretty good sense of Americanism’s and common colloquial terms. Still, that didn’t help when I read the J R Ward Brotherhood books. There were just so many terms and expressions that I couldn’t keep up and it felt to me that these books were not meant for an international readership.
Sometimes having a narrative that is strictly in keeping with the setting of the story can work (see Ellroy’s Black Dahlia) but Ward and others like her are not adding to the atmosphere or realism of their stories by alienating everyone outside of her corner of America.
The narrative should *always* as a rule have the explanation or full term ie La Guardia airport, but after one or two of these ‘explanations’ I think it is fine to use slang terms, nicknames or shortened versions as this would be authentic to the character or setting.
Please, won’t someone think of the foreign people?! 😉
Ward and others like her are not adding to the atmosphere or realism of their stories by alienating everyone outside of her corner of America.
It’s not just you furriners. We Amurricans can’t figure out Ward’s writing either.
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Oh, in California we use neither of those terms. We just say “pee-pee.”
(My pass: feel87)
Miri said: Oh! Quiz for Oregon Bitches… this means you Candy!
The “O†for the Oregon Ducks is a very very specific design tell me what it represents.
Hint: it’s all very Eugene specific. Sorry Eastcoasters : )â€
R said:Erm? I’m feeling a bit ignorant, here. I’m slightly eastside of Stumptown, but I don’t know about that particular “Oâ€. Tell?
The University of Oregon “O” emblem is designed with very Eugene and University specific land marks in mind…
The outside diameter of the “O” is the exact shape of Autzen Staduim… The inside diameter of the “O” is the exact shape of the track at Hayward field. That was a very obscure fact about my region granted…
As for authors getting street adresses wrong I would’nt know,I don’t live in a city nor a state that gets written about except by Chuck Palahniuk….don’t tell me you don’t know who that is? (no fair Googleing!)
Well, what do I know? I was only born and raised here. My friends from elsewhere and traffic reporters, who are often from elsewhere, use weird terms.
Well, it’s true that I’ve only been a Californian for 25 years (and in No. California for, like, 20), but friends of mine who are lifelong residents use it both ways. I didn’t know there were rules, lol.
LOL! Yep, sometimes inside jokes are just a little too inside.
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New Yorker here….I’d have stopped to think when reading this, too. But what about there at Grand Army Plaza, just at the corner there—aren’t there, like, two or three steps? Maybe? Sort of between 59th and 60th Streets? Maybe not.
I’m totally with you on the ‘spelling it out’ thing, especially within a character’s POV who wouldn’t need it spelled out. Drives me nuts. That’s what ‘context’ is for.
I live to the east of NYC- way out on Long Island. Authors constantly have couples driving out to dinner in the Hamptons or some other casual thing as if it wasn’t hours away and enough traffic to double that time. LI’ers don’t talk in terms of miles- it’s about the time to get there. It’s like the cool book date- get out of the city for a flirty date on the Island.
It’s not named Long Island for nothing, it’s loooong. No one would be able to take a casual drive out east, it would involve swearing and high blood pressure, especially in the summer, during rush hour. Very unromantic. (Unless they were leaving Manhatten and going to Brooklyn for dinner….)
I’ve got friends who live in other countries who always need help after a new JR Ward book comes out. The questions raised vary from what is BMOC, to do American’s always end sentences with the word “true”? And to answer the questions that would be, “big man on campus” and nope! But occasionally I don’t even know what she means.
“New Yorker here….I’d have stopped to think when reading this, too. But what about there at Grand Army Plaza, just at the corner there—aren’t there, like, two or three steps? Maybe? Sort of between 59th and 60th Streets? Maybe not.”
I actually work on 58th and 5th, and can tell you that 59th St by Central Park is officially “Central Park South”, and that the entrance to Central Park is at the corner of 59th and 5th, right diagonal from the Apple Store. I spend an awful lot of my lunch breaks there. 😉
Please, please leave some explanations in for us furriners. Even though NY is a well known city I still wouldn’t know the name of any sports teams, rail stations, geography or steps in the park. Think the idea of spelling it out once for the aliens then having more colloquial speech is a great idea. I get more thrown out of a book where they use lots of slang and I don’t have a clue what they’re on about.
Personally, I think context is key. I hate over-explanations. While I’m a kiwi and I *do* know what La Guardia and the Mets (and the Met) are, there are a few things that make me do mental whiplash. Unfortunately, though, the solution of mentioning the full name in text for the first occasion sticks out a mile to me. Although it’s better than chucking it into dialogue.
“Jane was in a desperate hurry to get to the airport before Rex departed on his flight to the Congo. She jumped in front of a cab that was trying to sneak past her, and flung herself into the back seat when he screeched to a halt. ‘Take me to JFK now!’ she barked at the cabbie.”
*cough* There’s a reason I’m not an author, but the infodump was painless, was it not? No-one would think that the president was under discussion.
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Oh, in California we use neither of those terms. We just say “pee-pee.â€
I just choked on my coffee, thank you. “I’d like a small twist cone with chocolate pee-pees?” *g*
They’re jimmies, of course. Chocolate jimmies and rainbow jimmies. 🙂
Here’s a regional one that’s kind of common. I was eating in a restaurant in Minnesota and said to the waitress, “Ice tea, unsweetened.”
She grinned at me and said, “Where you from in the Southland, honey?”
She was from North Carolina. I’m from North Florida. We know that the default for ice tea is sweet tea. My Minnesota relatives would only have said “ice tea”, never expecting it might come with sugar in it. Though if you’re going to make a proper sweet tea, simple syrup is best. And for those who don’t cook, simple syrup has nothing to do with pancakes. It’s a sugar water blend.
Exactly! Probably one of THE most regional things is food. And I literally mean from one county or town to the next. I’ve ran into menus written by folks who ‘thought’ they were writing Southern Menus, but were so clueless, it wasn’t funny.
In the South, you always have cornbread dressing, never stuffing….however, in some regions things like rice etc is added.
Fish & shrimp in many coastal regions can be served with grits (cheese grits even!) cole slaw and hushpuppies. However, catfish can be ‘stewed’ and peanuts are boiled.
Greens, like turnip, mustard and collard always have cornbread. Roast pork or pork is usually served with sweet potatoes, or the above dressing. Sometimes rice.
NEVER do you serve mashed potatoes at Thanksgiving! or with pork! Maybe fried chicken. And if you have biscuits, you’d better offer syrup (cane, not maple).
A party can center around a pig that has been cooked whole so you can have a pickin’. Or it can be around frying fresh caught fish…..or boiling a batch of seafood with sausage & corn.
Cleanup is a garden hose and paper towels.
And yes, the only tea is steeped, iced and sweet! With lemon if you’re a good hostess 🙂 Mint if you’re really showing off.
OK, these are things that will jar me out of a book in a heartbeat, because I will tell you now—- folks will be thinking “Bless her heart! Her Mama didn’t raise her right.” Either about the character or the author.
Najida, you might enjoy the collection “Sweet Tea and Jesus Shoes” by Deborah Smith, et al.
Every time I see that book it makes me snicker, ‘cause when my New Age son would show up for weight training the coach would yell at him for wearing his “Jesus Shoes”, or “Air Jesus”,i.e. strapped sandals.
And do not forget the #1 Rule of Southern Food – if something calling itself “Southern food” is not actually in the South, be very, very cautious.
I went to college in South Carolina, and my oh my did I ever get an education.
And can I say, no matter how many times I try, I cannot make good sweet tea in Jersey.
Darlene! Sounds like a great book. My favorite is “White Trash Cooking” and “Sinking Spells, Fits & Cravings”. Plus, in addition to “Jesus Shoes” I found out that the clip that holds the tire on my riding mower is called a ‘Jesus Clip’ because you yell “JEEE_ZZUUUS!” When it goes winging off over your head when you finally work it off.
SBSarah—- Heat the water but don’t boil the tea, use a good brand of teabag and enough of them, and don’t be skimpy with the sugar 🙂
It’s the syrup part that always gets me. Never comes out right.
Don’t do the dang syrup. I don’t….just dump 1 cup of sugar in your warm tea, stir well, let it sit a minute or two for what is left to disolve, then add water to make it 2 quarts (adjust the sugar accordingly).
If you’re going to set something in the South and you’re not from here (and I mean from here), you probably need to read the Sweet Potato Queens for research. Most especially for dialect and an understanding of the importance of pork products in the diet. Is there a Southern vegetable recipe that doesn’t start with bacon or bacon drippings?
Seriously. When people say things like, “How are you guys?” in a book set in the South? So wrong. The correct greeting is one giant, lilting word: “Heeeeeyyyyyhowsyoumamathem?”
I’m with Marta on the lack of the “the” before the freeway number in the Bay Area. I think it’s SoCal creep, kind of the way that SoCal seems to start around Sunnyvale now (with a gap for Cambria/SLO). When I was growing up, many years ago, you could tell what part of California someone was from by whether they used “the” in front of 880 (then 17), 5, etc. Now there’s much more infiltration. But “the 101” just sounds weird to me if you’re talking about any part of the highway north of Gilroy.
I’ve lived in the Mid-West, the East Coast and now NorCal(all within my scant 23 yrs)—as well as having relatives in the Northeast and in the deep South, so things tend to fly over my head because so many regional differences are jumbled in my head I don’t even want to deal with it.
The only thing I catch are British and French historical errors. *GGG*
“The 495” for a show based in Boston is weird, but another one is calling those long paved roads “freeways.” They’re *Highways* in New England. Oh, but the worst for Boston natives was watching “Spenser for Hire”.
They filmed IN BOSTON, using street IN BOSTON, and maybe had one or two people from Boston working for them? Maybe? One would hope? But Spenser and his crew went around mispronouncing everything.
TREE-mont Street, Dor-CHEST-er, and (my favorite) meeting someone at the “Charles River Half Shell” which everyone in Boston calls by it’s proper name, The Hatch Shell.
Ugh, that show made me crazy. (Don’t get me going on such other topics as George Clooney’s “Boston” accent in Perfect Storm, or people thinking that anyone other than a member of the Kennedy family talks like the Kennedy’s. Loved Sheen as President Bartlett, but he still channels JFK every time he plays a character from New England.)
I lurve me some Tony Shaloub, but I can’t stand “Monk.” I don’t know where they shoot that show, but it looks nothing like SF and none of the cast act as if they’ve ever been in San Francisco, California. San Francisco, Canada maybe. Possibly San Francisco, Iowa.
During my ramblings I’ve lived in NorCal, SoCal, Texas and the Upper Midwest. It tends to give regional overviews to a lot of different cultures. For example, you learn for really good sourdough bread you have to get it from San Francisco (I’ve heard theories it’s the water and climate that make the difference), not everyone who lives in SoCal loves the beach, if visiting a Texas honkytonk beer must be consumed from a longneck bottle and some people in the Upper Midwest do sound a bit like the actors in “Fargo.” I never believed the Midwest had any regionalism to it until I moved here, but Chicklit is correct the University of Minnesota is “The U”, when the state fair is in session it is almost imperative that you attend and eat cheese curds (deep fried cheese), and we tend to love winter (which boggles the mind of my parents in Texas.) You almost have to live or have lived in an area to correctly portray it, or at the minimum do a lot of research. Maybe that’s why so many authors place their stories in fictional locations.
Another Long Islander here and I have to agree that saying the full name in the narrative once or twice and then the slang makes sense. I live on the South Shore and worked on the North Shore for awhile. The people there didn’t even know where my town was and it was only 40 minutes away! (And yes, we do explain how to get somewhere in travel time vs miles. I never realized that until it was mentioned)
Though, if the author is going to get specific in streets or locations, they should get them right because there is bound to be a reader who notices. In the town where I grew up, the lake nearest to my house has an official name and a name we all call it. If something like that existed in a novel, I’d want the character to refer to it by the name the locals knew, especially if the character is a local.
I hope that slight ramble makes sense to someone.