Strange questions about your town

[Miss Dottie]

We don't use it much here, actually, at least not in conversation with each other -- perhaps due to the unfortunate baseball connotations. You find it most often in the names of cutesy shops that cater to the tourist trade: Ye Olde Yankee Gifte Shoppe, The Old Yankee Trader, Salty Yankee Seadog's B&B. Basically, we think of the whole Yankee thing as a way of exploiting the New England stereotype for fun and profit.

We call ourselves "Mainahs." And if you can't pronounce it right, you ain't one.

Ye Olde Gifte Shoppe. Hilarious!

I used to work at a living historical museum and I think that was the name of the gift shop to boot!

 

[Paisley]

Ye Olde CD Shoppe? Old Yankee Smoothie Tavern?

 

[Adelaidey]

There's the ever popular "Is it really windy there?"... the answer being yes-- my skirts are always fighting a constant battle against the winds downtown.

Idiot Person: "Chicago? What state is that in?"
Me: ".......... Illinois....."
Sadly enough, they're never joking. :eusa_doh:

And then there's:
"So, is everything all about Al Capone?"
And then when they pry and ask about him and mobsters and all, I hate/love admitting that my great-grandmother knew him! lol The looks on their faces are priceless!

Also:
"Have you seen Oprah?" No.

Or they try to seem like they know the town and shout "Go Cubbies!!"
:rage: Doesn't really impress this Sox fan...

 

[goldwyn girl]

I'll give it to my pet polar bear, he can take it over to your kangaroo to bring to you.

I accept your polar bear and raise you one koala

 

[Barry]

Sometimes people assume that I am politically connected because I live in the District. One person asked me for advice about some summer youth program that his son was involved with. He wanted to know if I thought that program would be a good start for his son. The kid wanted to run for office and hopefully become a US Congressman. The boy was only 14 or 15 at the time!

[huh]

Barry

 

[Amelie]

Oh yeah and I got a "how many times have you been rubbed? It should be horrible to live where you are, it's so dangerous, I couldn't do it" (you could also replace rubbed by agressed or anything related to "dangerous")

Just because I leave in a presumably bad area of the city I should have been victim of all crimes on earth! And those come from Montreal people, not people from other big cities, because Montreal stays one on the safest big cities in America

(and actually I find my area quite safe, I am not afraid to be outside alone at 3 AM, and I am the kind of people that gets frighten easily lol)

 

[Tourbillion]

Living in Los Angeles, I do get asked about movie stars and rock stars.

Yes, I do see big name stars with some regularity. But, no I really don't care, unless they are really cool to talk to (they usually aren't). I used to work in high end men's wear, so I actually had to interact with them a lot-- they are usually cheap and try to return stuff they've already worn. Or maybe that is just because the ones I met were too cheap to hire stylists like everyone else in town.

Also, they are usually shorter, uglier and skinnier than they look on film. Except for Micheal Anthony Hall who is way taller, heavier and better looking than he did in film.

[huh]

 

[lindylady]

When I tell people I'm originally from Youngstown, Ohio, they ask me if I grew up on a farm.:eusa_doh: I realize that to Northeasterners, everything west of Philadelphia is the midwest, but come on, we don't all ride horses to work

 

[dhermann1]

Ye Olde Gifte Shoppe. Hilarious!

I used to work at a living historical museum and I think that was the name of the gift shop to boot!

Interesting bit of trivia: The letter Y used to be shorthand for the TH sound, so when you see "Ye Olde Shoppe" it reall is meant to be pronounced "The".
Yeah, off topic, but I couldn't resist.

 

[Tourbillion]

Interesting bit of trivia: The letter Y used to be shorthand for the TH sound, so when you see "Ye Olde Shoppe" it reall is meant to be pronounced "The".
Yeah, off topic, but I couldn't resist.

Yeah, technically the Y is a substitute for the letter ?û (thorn) (similar to ?? -eth). It is an old English letter that is still used in languages such as Icelandic.

But, yeah, it is pronounced "th." In the first King James Bible, The was abbreviated as Y with a superscript E. Like "The" is a long word that needs abbreviation.

Weirdness.

 

[carebear]

Yeah, technically the Y is a substitute for the letter ?û (thorn) (similar to ?? -eth). It is an old English letter that is still used in languages such as Icelandic.

But, yeah, it is pronounced "th." In the first King James Bible, The was abbreviated as Y with a superscript E. Like "The" is a long word that needs abbreviation.

Weirdness.

You fail to understand the lengths to which the truly lazy are willing to go. No word is "too short" to shorten a bit more...