BBTF's Newsblog Discussion :: Giants are selling gear with San Francisco’s most hated nickname

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Wednesday, August 24, 2022

Giants are selling gear with San Francisco’s most hated nickname

This past weekend, observant journalists quickly reported on a borderline offensive product available for purchase in the San Francisco Giants’ team store. If you’re a Bay Area local, brace yourself:

The Giants are selling t-shirts that say “SAN FRAN” on them. I saw the accursed nickname shirt for myself in a trip to Oracle Park on Monday.

At the team’s dugout store on 3rd St., the shirt isn’t exactly prominently displayed — perhaps a sign that the team has some shame over it — but a shopper that isn’t making an immediate beeline towards a particular hat or something could still find it pretty easily. It sits on the bottom row of its section alongside other Nike shirts, below the immediate sightline, right in front of the “Clubhouse” section of the store which sells autographed memorabilia and custom jerseys.

RoyalsRetro (AG#1F) Posted: August 24, 2022 at 12:12 PM | 78 comment(s) Login to Bookmark
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1. Astroenteritis Posted: August 24, 2022 at 05:05 PM (#6093064)

I've only visited the Bay area a few times, but even I know that "SAN FRAN" is not right. It's comparable to visiting San Antonio and saying "SAN ANTONE". Don't do it.

2. Hank Gillette Posted: August 24, 2022 at 05:27 PM (#6093072)

Someone dig up Bob Wills and let him know how he dissed San Antonio in the most popular song ever written about the city.

Deep within my heart lies a melody
A song of old San Antone
Where in dreams I live with a memory
Beneath the stars, all alone

Frankly, I think people get way too provincial about the city they live in, thinking that it somehow makes them superior to people who live elsewhere. New York City and San Francisco are probably the worst about this. I used to live in the SF Bay area and I don’t give a rat’s ass if people want to call it “San Fran”.

3. The Yankee Clapper Posted: August 24, 2022 at 05:39 PM (#6093074)

I thought ‘FRISCO’ was the one that irked the locals.

4. .

Posted: August 24, 2022 at 05:44 PM (#6093075)

When the sun comes up on a sleepy little town
Down around San Antone
And the folks are risin' for another day
'Round about their homes
The people of the town are strange
And they're proud of where they came

Well, you're talkin' 'bout China Grove
Oh, China Grove

5. Steve Parris, Je t'aime Posted: August 24, 2022 at 05:45 PM (#6093076)

I thought ‘FRISCO’ was the one that irked the locals.

This is what I thought too. So is there a nickname the local use, other than "City" (ugh)?

6. Astroenteritis Posted: August 24, 2022 at 05:51 PM (#6093077)

My relations from San Antonio have always stressed to me that "SAN ANTONE" is horrible, and shouldn't be used. Maybe it's a thing with some locals, but not others.

7. . . . . . . Posted: August 24, 2022 at 06:01 PM (#6093079)

Bob Wills >>>> San Antonio locals

8. snapper (history's 42nd greatest monster) Posted: August 24, 2022 at 06:02 PM (#6093080)

I've only visited the Bay area a few times, but even I know that "SAN FRAN" is not right.

I thought ‘FRISCO’ was the one that irked the locals.

These Frisco-ites and San Fran-ians need to get over themselves. I can't think of any other city nicknames the locals object too.

9. Itchy Row Posted: August 24, 2022 at 06:14 PM (#6093084)

They hate it when you call it "Oakland."

10. Hank Gillette Posted: August 24, 2022 at 06:14 PM (#6093085)

So is there a nickname the local use, other than "City" (ugh)?

11. snapper (history's 42nd greatest monster) Posted: August 24, 2022 at 06:16 PM (#6093086)

I don’t think they are even the only ones who refer to their city as “The City”. It made sense when I lived in the Bay area to say, “I am going to the City on Saturday,” even though San Jose is larger than San Francisco.

In NY "the City" is Manhattan. No one says they're going to "the City" if they're going to any other borough.

12. ReggieThomasLives Posted: August 24, 2022 at 06:31 PM (#6093089)

I love Frisco, never knew I could get similar joy saying San Fran.

13. AuntBea odeurs de parfum de distance sociale Posted: August 24, 2022 at 06:41 PM (#6093090)

I grew up there in the 70s/80s. Locals used San Fran occasionally, and not ironically. At least at that time nobody I knew ever thought it was inappropriate.

Frisco was not used by the locals I knew, and was frowned upon, but yeah agree people that got worked up about it seemed really petty to me too.

14. AuntBea odeurs de parfum de distance sociale Posted: August 24, 2022 at 06:53 PM (#6093092)

No reference to San Fran specifically, but here's (blech) the definitive source. "Don't Call it Frisco." I'm so glad Herb Caen was mostly before my time.

edit: And in case you think I'm exaggerating...

The late Chronicle columnist Herb Caen was the point man for the anti- Frisco brigade, devoting dozens of items over the years to the debate and publishing a book called "Don't Call It Frisco" in 1953.

15. Mefisto Posted: August 24, 2022 at 06:59 PM (#6093094)

It was long-time SF Chronicle columnist Herb Caen who really put an end to the use of "Frisco". The locals were adamant against it by the early '60s.

As for "going to the City", that's a phrase applied to many cities for a very long period of time. In fact, the name "Istanbul" is a Turkish mis-pronunciation of the Greek phrase "εἰς τὴν πόλιν" (roughly "ees tane polin") which means "to the City" (the response when the Turks asked Greeks where they were going).

ETA: AuntBea beat me to the Herb Caen point while I was trying to get the Greek letters. Serves me right.

16. Hombre Brotani

Posted: August 24, 2022 at 07:12 PM (#6093096)

In fact, the name "Istanbul" is a Turkish mis-pronunciation of the Greek phrase "εἰς τὴν πόλιν" (roughly "ees tane polin") which means "to the City" (the response when the Turks asked Greeks where they were going).

I'm gonna use this factoid to look smart. Thank you.

17. Mefisto Posted: August 24, 2022 at 07:16 PM (#6093097)

Heh. It's a good one.

18. the Hugh Jorgan returns Posted: August 24, 2022 at 07:19 PM (#6093098)

These Frisco-ites and San Fran-ians need to get over themselves.

Agree. I grew up in SoCal and then spent 4 years living on Jones St. in SF whilst attending Berkeley and it amazes me how precious people are about calling it "the city". Every major city is referred to as the "the city" if you are heading there from the outer suburbs, the whole thing about SF is inane.

19. Infinite Yost (Voxter)

Posted: August 24, 2022 at 07:21 PM (#6093099)

Portland is definitely "the City," and it's not even a very big city. It's "the City" for hundreds of miles to the south and east, too.

In Minnesota, people talk about "The Cities" all the time when sort of referring to the whole Minneapolis-St Paul bizzaro two-cities-in-one thing.

20. Barry`s_Lazy_Boy Posted: August 24, 2022 at 08:41 PM (#6093107)

I thought the favored short name was ESS EFF.

21. Cooper Nielson Posted: August 25, 2022 at 03:52 AM (#6093148)

I lived in San Francisco for about six years (1995-2000) and never noticed any serious opposition to "San Fran." I probably used it myself, but not regularly. "Frisco" was definitely avoided, except ironically/humorously.

Most often, we simply called it "San Francisco," or more like "Saffrencisco" or "Sarrencisco," which isn't much longer or harder to say than "San Fran."

I always found "The City" to be pretentious, and also it doesn't make sense to use "The City" when you're already in it. As many have mentioned above, "The City" is mostly used when referring to it as a destination, or when comparing it to the rest of the Bay Area.

22. Alex meets the threshold for granular review Posted: August 25, 2022 at 07:00 AM (#6093151)

These Frisco-ites and San Fran-ians need to get over themselves. I can't think of any other city nicknames the locals object too.

Seriously, get over yourselves. If I ever visit I'm going to deliberately hayseed it up and drop those as much as possible to annoy these pretentious dipshits. You live in the most expensive city on the planet.

23. Traderdave

Posted: August 25, 2022 at 09:12 AM (#6093166)

Most often, we simply called it "San Francisco," or more like "Saffrencisco" or "Sarrencisco," which isn't much longer or harder to say than "San Fran."

Sanfercisco is also pretty common.

24. Howie Menckel Posted: August 25, 2022 at 09:27 AM (#6093169)

If I ever visit I'm going to deliberately hayseed it up and drop those as much as possible to annoy these pretentious dipshits.

in the 1990s, the hayseeds in Indiana absolutely reveled in calling a certain annual playoff series "HICKS VS KNICKS."

a few game-night fans even dressed up to accentuate the point.

"The City" as SF uses it has always been unintentionally hilarious, and long may it reign.

not quite as good as "THE" Ohio State University and its insecure supporters, but up there (and like the absurdity of regal, pampered Notre Dame supposedly representing the downtrodden "Fighting Irish," 100-year-old justifications no longer fly in this day and age).

25. My name is Votto, and I love to get Moppo Posted: August 25, 2022 at 10:52 AM (#6093188)

I can't think of any other city nicknames the locals object too.

Nobody in Atlanta calls it "Hot-Lanta" unless they just moved here.

26. Traderdave

Posted: August 25, 2022 at 11:05 AM (#6093190)

Living adjacent to San Francisco for 20+ years, in my observation "The City" is just a simple, unpretentious geographic direction.

"Where do you work?"
"In the city."

etc etc

27. Nasty Nate Posted: August 25, 2022 at 11:09 AM (#6093192)

"San Fran" is not nearly bad enough to merit a pretentious exaggerated aversion. It's not stylized or anything. It's like if people from LA objected to "LA."

28. . . . . . . Posted: August 25, 2022 at 11:14 AM (#6093194)

“ When I was a child growing up in Salinas we called San Francisco “the City”. Of course it was the only city we knew, but I still think of it as the City, and so does everyone else who has ever associated with it. A strange and exclusive work is “city”. Besides San Francisco, only small sections of London and Rome stay in the mind as the City. New Yorkers say they are going to town. Paris has no title but Paris. Mexico City is the Capital.”
- John Steinbeck

(Fwiw, since he wrote that in the 60s, NYC switched to “the city”, but my grandparents said “town” too when they drove from LI into Manhattan.)

29. Mr. Hotfoot Jackson (gef, talking mongoose) Posted: August 25, 2022 at 11:35 AM (#6093196)

Haven't paid attention in a long time, but when I was a kid the (SF, pre-Golden State) Warriors' jerseys were emblazoned "The City." That's far from "a simple, unpretentious geographic direction.

Edit: Wikipedia tells me the team wore "City" jerseys two seasons back.

30. Obo Posted: August 25, 2022 at 11:40 AM (#6093199)

I'm pretty sure that english-speaking people living in the environs of every city on the planet use "the city."

31. base ball chick Posted: August 25, 2022 at 11:55 AM (#6093203)

i never heard anyone of any sort call yewstin "The City". media tryin to get "space city" goin on. except for astros, not really gettin anywhere. speaking of yewstin, anyone seen mayor blomberg around?

32. Mellow Mouse, Benevolent Space Tyrant Posted: August 25, 2022 at 12:07 PM (#6093206)

Grew up in the Bay Area back in the 70s and 80s (and my brother still lives there). San Fran was common (and is used by said brother to this day). The City was used as a destination (going to The City). Frisco was an annoyance to some but not all.

Much ado about nothing if you ask me.

33. Dag Nabbit: Sockless Psychopath Posted: August 25, 2022 at 12:16 PM (#6093208)

Not a city, but I've been told you should be careful with how you pronounce Appalachia in West Virginia.

34. GregD Posted: August 25, 2022 at 12:20 PM (#6093209)

I know lots of Nashville people--lifers--who somewhat ironically and somewhat bitterly use "Nash-Vegas" to refer to what the city has become. I know some of the tourists/bachelorette hordes of invaders use it un-ironically, but it is one that people have embraced since it so effectively captures their distaste. (I'm not nostalgic for the Nashville that had only recently permitted liquor by the drink and was in the midst of endless crises over school busing plans and had bombings of the temple--people forget that Nashville wasn't a destination for outsiders because it was an angry and small-minded place. That said, I wish it hadn't grown into bachelorette party USA and that someone had a plan for Lower Broad other than it'll work out somehow. Just close it the way they closed Beale Street.)

Philly is one of the rare names that has 100% acceptance among both insiders and outsiders. I'm not sure any other city name works as well in both directions.

35. Howie Menckel Posted: August 25, 2022 at 12:33 PM (#6093210)

Living adjacent to San Francisco for 20+ years, in my observation "The City" is just a simple, unpretentious geographic direction.

considering that, as noted, this is an incredibly common phrase (I grew up just north of NYC, and we said "the city" when referring to Manhattan), having the local basketball team use it on uniforms is hilarious.

the locals either are clueless, or narcissistic (wait, can they be both?).

36. SoSH U at work Posted: August 25, 2022 at 12:48 PM (#6093214)

Not a city, but I've been told you should be careful with how you pronounce Appalachia in West Virginia.

I don't think it's just West Virginia. It's Appalaysha in the North and Appalatchia to the south.

And it's Lou-uh-vul in Louisville.

37. .

Posted: August 25, 2022 at 01:01 PM (#6093216)

Journey, re SF:

"When the lights go down in the city // And the sun shines on the bay"

....

"I want to get back // To my city by the bay"

38. BDC

Posted: August 25, 2022 at 01:05 PM (#6093217)

Late to the "San Antone" discussion, and with the caveat that I am only a non-native and North Texan: in my experience, it might be a generational thing. I used to hear older (Anglo) Texans say "San Antone" unironically and very naturally; at this point I don't hear people younger than about 80 say that anymore.

Naturally too with the full "San Antonio" there is an Anglo way of saying it and a Tejano way of saying it, as with many other place names. Describing where you are is apparently never simple :)

39. ERROR---Jolly Old St. Nick

Posted: August 25, 2022 at 01:08 PM (#6093219)

"I left my heart / in dear old Frisco"

"I left my heart / in San Fran Disco"

Tony Bennett could've made either of those work.

40. ERROR---Jolly Old St. Nick

Posted: August 25, 2022 at 01:12 PM (#6093220)

In the DC of the 60's and early 70's, city residents would always roll their eyes at suburbanites who told outsiders that they were from "Washington", especially when in the next breath they'd trash everything about the city.

41. .

Posted: August 25, 2022 at 01:22 PM (#6093224)

The primary native (and to a degree, federal import) usage to distinguish the actual city of Washington is easy: It's "the District." If there was a dictionary of such, "DC" would be noted as a secondary usage. No one calls it "Washington," (*) though of course "Washington" has a long-standing nationwide synedochal usage to describe the seat of the federal government and all that goes on there.

(*) With one exception on the usage matrix square for "Inquiry when outside the metropole by rube" to the question, "Where do you live?" or "Where are you from?" "Washington" could be the answer there, though "DC" would be more likely.(**) "Washington" would never be the answer on the square denoting "Inquiry by fellow native when within the metropole." Typically there, the answer would be the neighborhood -- "I live in Cleveland Park," etc. "I live in the City" would be unthinkable.

(**) Primarily, although not entirely, to avoid the follow-up question, "Washington State???"

42. Der-K's no Kliph Nesteroff. Posted: August 25, 2022 at 03:31 PM (#6093247)

Not a city, but I've been told you should be careful with how you pronounce Appalachia in West Virginia.

My partner is from there; can confirm.

Nobody in Atlanta calls it "Hot-Lanta" unless they just moved here.

Can also confirm.

43. Brian C Posted: August 25, 2022 at 03:31 PM (#6093248)

In the DC of the 60's and early 70's, city residents would always roll their eyes at suburbanites who told outsiders that they were from "Washington", especially when in the next breath they'd trash everything about the city.

This is pretty common in different places too - very typical in Chicago suburbs, for example, to hear people say they're from Chicago and for actual Chicago residents to scoff at those claims.

Also in Chicagoland, it's very common to hear suburbanites refer to the vast majority of the actual Chicago city limits as "downtown", as a basic equivalent to "the city" that you hear in lots of other metro areas. Actual Chicagoans, of course, reserve that term for the actual downtown part (when they use it at all, that is, since "The Loop" and "River North" are different places to Chicagoans, even though they'd both be considered "downtown").

44. snapper (history's 42nd greatest monster) Posted: August 25, 2022 at 03:39 PM (#6093251)

This is pretty common in different places too - very typical in Chicago suburbs, for example, to hear people say they're from Chicago and for actual Chicago residents to scoff at those claims.

In New York we've had so much gentrification and migration (both internal to the US and immigration) that I'd bet a higher percentage of people in the near suburbs were born in NYC, than is true of city residents. Excepting maybe Staten Island.

45. SoSH U at work Posted: August 25, 2022 at 03:46 PM (#6093253)

This is pretty common in different places too - very typical in Chicago suburbs, for example, to hear people say they're from Chicago and for actual Chicago residents to scoff at those claims.

I do that, primarily because people from elsewhere know where Chicago is and they don't know where Tinley Park is. I don't do it to claim Chicagoness, but because it's easier.

46. Tom Goes to the Ballpark Posted: August 25, 2022 at 03:58 PM (#6093254)

Philly is one of the rare names that has 100% acceptance among both insiders and outsiders. I'm not sure any other city name works as well in both directions.

This also works for Los Angeles/LA.

47. ERROR---Jolly Old St. Nick

Posted: August 25, 2022 at 04:22 PM (#6093261)

For Detroit the distinction used to be between "De-TROIT" and "DEE-troit". As a young Yankees fan, I was thrilled to hear the Mick pronounce it in the latter manner, which I'd always done myself.

BTW true DC oldtimers still refer to Adams-Morgan as "18th and Columbia", and the stretch of 14th St. between about W St. and Spring Rd. as "uptown". Adams-Morgan was originally just a bureaucratic name that somehow stuck in the late 60's when the newcomers started moving in.

48. Commissioner Bud Black Beltre Hillman Fred Posted: August 25, 2022 at 04:25 PM (#6093263)

[47] Day-twah is preferred.

49. An Athletic in Powderhorn, Silly Posted: August 25, 2022 at 04:28 PM (#6093264)

Living adjacent to San Francisco for 20+ years, in my observation "The City" is just a simple, unpretentious geographic direction.

"Where do you work?"
"In the city."

etc etc

This matches my experience. I grew up in the East Bay. I never liked San Francisco and still don't. I've always called it The City, though. It's not a value judgment; that's what everyone I knew called it, so I do too.

50. Itchy Row Posted: August 25, 2022 at 05:55 PM (#6093277)

I still call it "Fresno by the Bay."

51. Howie Menckel Posted: August 25, 2022 at 08:14 PM (#6093296)

I grew up about 25 miles north of midtown Manhattan, even closer of course to northern Manhattan.

also 360 miles southeast of Buffalo.
also almost 300 miles south of Plattsburgh and the Canadian and northern Vermont border.

no matter. to NYC folks, all of us were/are lumped into the same category - "Upstate."

it was bizarre then, and it is bizarre now.

if someone wants to lump those from Albany, Rochester, Syracuse, Buffalo, and Lake Placid together - have at it. none of them are anywhere close to NYC.

but don't lump in someone who resides not even 20 miles away from the NY City Limits with those actual "Upstaters."

of course, we don't live in a logical world.

52. Tulo's Fishy Mullet (mrams) Posted: August 25, 2022 at 10:53 PM (#6093305)

I've observed the defensiveness by some. Chicagoans around where someone is from (Naperville or Aurora as two good examples of ). Hell, I've even participated in this, calling out a chick in college when she claimed Chicago. I (Milwaukee native) asked where.... Sandwich, she says. Nah, nuh-uh. If I can get to Wrigley faster than you, you don't live in Chicago.

53. Baldrick Posted: August 26, 2022 at 01:58 AM (#6093313)

I lived in the Bay for about ten years from the late 2000s to the late 2010s--everywhere from Santa Cruz to San Jose to San Francisco to Berkeley to Oakland. We always called it 'SF' and so did everyone else we knew. If people said 'the city' it was obvious what they were talking about, but I wouldn't say that phrasing was common. And 'the city' really meant 'downtown SF.' If someone said they worked in the city and it turned out they worked at a coffee shop in Noe Valley, it would be confusing.

My friend group, for pretty obvious reasons, included a lot of people who didn't grow up in the area, but there were still plenty who did and I never noticed any difference in how people would talk about places.

54. GregD Posted: August 26, 2022 at 12:55 PM (#6093347)

d 'the city' really meant 'downtown SF.' If someone said they worked in the city and it turned out they worked at a coffee shop in Noe Valley, it would be confusing.

I think this remains sort of correct at least around our East Bay circle of both natives and non-natives. It would surprise me if someone said they were going to the "city" and then explained they were visiting the DeYoung or something.

But not if someone said they live in "the city." Which is a common formulation and which almost never refers to the downtown area.

The oddity about the SF thing is that SF isn't the biggest city in the region and the region has long had an identity as a region, not a place centered around one gravitational orbit. While even among native Brooklynites like my wife's family, "the city" is a reference to the centrality of Manhattan, here it reads to me as something else. The region has lots of regional shorthand names. Where do you live? The Peninsula. East Bay. Marin. In that context "the city" is a way of referring to the subregion, not a way of referring to its centrality.

The Bay Area is genuinely multi-polar in an odd way. Atherton isn't wealthy because it's a suburb of SF; it's wealthy because it's on the Peninsula and so is tied to Silicon Valley. berkeley emerged and still thinks of itself as a suburb of Oakland, not SF.

Before the bridges the bay was truly multi-polar. And even before BART in 70s.

The people living outside of SF commuting to places other than SF is really a reversion to what it used to be.

55. A triple short of the cycle

Posted: August 26, 2022 at 01:24 PM (#6093352)

I hear the train a comin', it's rolling 'round the bend
And I ain't seen the sunshine since I don't know when
I'm stuck in Folsom prison, and time keeps draggin' on
But that train keeps a rollin' on down to San Antone

I live in >> SF << and when I play this song on my geetar, I sing "Folsom Street Fair prison" instead.

56. snapper (history's 42nd greatest monster) Posted: August 26, 2022 at 01:27 PM (#6093353)

I hear the train a comin', it's rolling 'round the bend
And I ain't seen the sunshine since I don't know when
I'm stuck in Folsom prison, and time keeps draggin' on
But that train keeps a rollin' on down to San Antone

I always wondered how he ended up in Folsom prison when he shot a man in Reno. Wrong state.

57. A triple short of the cycle

Posted: August 26, 2022 at 01:28 PM (#6093354)

I was sitting next to lady on a plane once flying to SFO. She said she was from San Francisco. I said oh! whereabouts? She said, Walnut Creek.

58. A triple short of the cycle

Posted: August 26, 2022 at 01:29 PM (#6093355)

Johnny Cash was arrested (in his songs) in quite a few places.

59. Captain Joe Bivens, Pointless and Wonderful Posted: August 26, 2022 at 03:11 PM (#6093363)

I always wondered how he ended up in Folsom prison when he shot a man in Reno. Wrong state.

The lyric should have used "Fresno".

Anyone who calls Boston "Beantown" is a dip ####.

60. My name is Votto, and I love to get Moppo Posted: August 26, 2022 at 04:17 PM (#6093371)

Johnny Cash was arrested (in his songs) in quite a few places.

He's been everywhere, man.

61. ERROR---Jolly Old St. Nick

Posted: August 26, 2022 at 06:34 PM (#6093390)

Anyone who calls Boston "Beantown" is a dip ####.

"You don't know BEANS until you've 'bean' to Boston"

62. snapper (history's 42nd greatest monster) Posted: August 26, 2022 at 07:04 PM (#6093391)

The lyric should have used "Fresno".

Nah, Chino.

63. Hank Gillette Posted: August 27, 2022 at 03:15 AM (#6093423)

And it's Lou-uh-vul in Louisville.

Another Kentuckyism: they have a small city named Versailles. They pronounce it vər-SAYLZ. None of that fancy French pronunciation for them.

64. Dag Nabbit: Sockless Psychopath Posted: August 27, 2022 at 06:22 AM (#6093425)

no matter. to NYC folks, all of us were/are lumped into the same category - "Upstate."

In Illinois, it's city, suburbs, and downstate. Even the parts like Rockford that are actually further north than Chicago are downstate.

65. I am going to be Frank Posted: August 27, 2022 at 08:25 AM (#6093428)

Having lived in the Dallas-area, 'Frisco' is one of those fast-growing suburbs north of the city. It has a AA team, a MLS team and the NHL and Cowboys practice facilities. I rarely hear San Francisco referred to as 'Frisco' any more

My brother went to Berkeley and I've heard it called 'San Fran' a fair amount of times. Being from NJ, 'the City' will always be Manhattan only. Now living in DC, I just say I live in 'DC'.

66. Howie Menckel Posted: August 27, 2022 at 09:33 AM (#6093432)

In Illinois, it's city, suburbs, and downstate. Even the parts like Rockford that are actually further north than Chicago are downstate.

did not know this.

not sure if it's a consolation that stupidity reigns beyond just one region.
:)

67. SoSH U at work Posted: August 27, 2022 at 10:16 AM (#6093434)

63. Indiana does too. It’s right near Milan (My-Lun).

68. Mr. Hotfoot Jackson (gef, talking mongoose) Posted: August 27, 2022 at 10:25 AM (#6093435)

Pierre, S.D. = PEER.

69. GregD Posted: August 27, 2022 at 06:58 PM (#6093470)

There are two acceptable pronunciations for Lebanon, Tennessee

Leb-a-nun

Or

Leb-nun

Second more common in my memory but you wouldn’t get snickered at for the first

Never heard anyone pronounce it like the country

70. Tulo's Fishy Mullet (mrams) Posted: August 27, 2022 at 07:31 PM (#6093476)

In Milwaukee burbs it is New Buhr-lun not New Burr-lynn. Lore suggests it sounded less German during its development post WWII. Nevermind there's still a freaking German immersion school in Milwaukee.

71. Brian C Posted: August 27, 2022 at 07:50 PM (#6093480)

In Illinois, it's city, suburbs, and downstate. Even the parts like Rockford that are actually further north than Chicago are downstate.

I'm not sure this is really true - rather, I think that everywhere out west is simply referred to as "Rockford", because that's actually the only place west of Dekalb that anyone would ever talk about for any reason.

72. ERROR---Jolly Old St. Nick

Posted: August 28, 2022 at 07:29 AM (#6093494)

Albany, Georgia = ALL-bany (as in Albany, New York), or All-BENNY. Used to be a big Black / White racial distinction with the pronunciation, not sure if that still exists.

73. GregD Posted: August 29, 2022 at 01:58 AM (#6093559)

For old timers Albany CA is

AL-bany
Like the name Al, not like the Ny All

But enough people like us are moving from outside area and from east that’s it’s fading

74. willcarrolldoesnotsuk Posted: August 29, 2022 at 02:55 AM (#6093561)

Pierre, S.D. = PEER.

And I'm sure all twelve residents care.

75. ERROR---Jolly Old St. Nick

Posted: August 29, 2022 at 07:26 AM (#6093567)

Speaking of South Dakota, don't they pronounced the town of Lead "LEED"?

76. Tin Angel Posted: August 29, 2022 at 09:33 AM (#6093575)

Pierre, S.D. = PEER.

I always just called Pierre "the city" and South Dakota "the SD."

77. . . . . . . Posted: August 29, 2022 at 10:13 AM (#6093581)

Never heard anyone pronounce it like the country

Same for Lebanon, NH. Always "LEB-a-nun".

78. Lassus Posted: August 29, 2022 at 02:23 PM (#6093612)

Cooper Nielson Posted: August 25, 2022 at 03:52 AM (#6093148)
I lived in San Francisco for about six years (1995-2000) and never noticed any serious opposition to "San Fran." I probably used it myself, but not regularly. "Frisco" was definitely avoided, except ironically/humorously.

These were (roughly) the same years I was there as well (Castro), and similar. I did get hell for calling it "Frisco" by an expat in Portland once a few years earlier.

I was sitting next to lady on a plane once flying to SFO. She said she was from San Francisco. I said oh! whereabouts? She said, Walnut Creek.

Which is why I clarified the above. ;-)

Living adjacent to San Francisco for 20+ years, in my observation "The City" is just a simple, unpretentious geographic direction.

I spent a lot of time going to the East Bay and San Jose and Santa Cruz for singing gigs. It was just convenient; hell, it seemed LESS pretentious than constantly saying "San FranCISco" or whatever.

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