East Coast Slang?

The one that I always get flak for is calling a subway sandwhich a "grinder".

Another thing that I had no idea was only an east coast thing is DEVIL DOGS- they are junk food chocolate cakes with creamy filling, they are shaped like a hot dog bun.

Does everyone say "wicked good"?

:) Jen

we all say wicked good

Generally, if your from the boston/ new england area we don't pronounce our Rs

a pail is really a bucket

As a teenager that used to live up there, everything is "legit" and "super sketchy". And everything is "wicked" something... even if it's not "wicked good".

Like ImmortalMusic said, "legit," "sketchy," and "wicked."

And also "sick" like if something is really cool, it's "sick"

Keep in mind that Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania has its own slang, and so much of it that it could be considered a dialect in itself.

Unfortunately, most of it is only native to Pittsburgh, and won't be heard/used through much of the East Coast, unless that character was a Pittsburgh resident for many years.

Google "Pittsburghese" and you're sure to find an interesting list of vocabulary and usage.

One thing that probably won't be mentioned in the Pittsburghese lists is the average Pittsburgher's tendency to drop the verb "to be". For example, they wouldn't say that "the lawn needs to be mowed", but rather "the lawn needs mowed."

"Yienz" and "Yunz" are the same word, sort of the Pittsburgh version of "Y'all", but depend on what part of the city or area outside the city you come from. I tend to find "yienz" used more in the southern areas of Pittsburgh and its counties, and "yunz" used more in northern Pittsburgh (but I could be totally wrong on this). Either one is fine to use, but "yienz" is more common overall.

Also, for the most part, only those who live in city itself use the all slang all the time. There is somewhat of a Pittsburgh accent, in which you pronounce "ee"'s like "i"'s (ex. "high heels" pronounced "high hills" or the football team the Steelers pronounced like "Stillers"). Another thing I have noticed is the tendency to prnounce the word "colors" like "kellers".

Those are the basics, as far as vocabulary, I again suggest googling Pittsburghese.

Please keep in mind that these words are very Pittsburgh-specific!!

Sketch! Chill. And wicked, of course. We eat grinders, not...whatever else you call them. The Sox refer to the Boston team, not the one in Chicago. Clam chowder is white (unless you're from Manhattan, where it's red, or Rhode Island, where you can get it clear).

Other random things..."the city" is usually New York. If the Yankees are playing the Red Sox, people will care. "The Cape" is Cape Cod. Um. No one likes New Jersey (for no real reason).

Also--and, please, take this from a girl who went to boarding school in New England--there's an awful lot of slang-mixing in boarding schools. I picked up y'all, eh, dude, and hella--and then we had our own slang, which was totally incomprehensible to most people outside of the school.

Animus Wyrmis

i grew up in boston and i just want to say to all of you.. MEEEEMOOORIIIIIIESS!!!

man that was a fun time.. and i said all of the above words! CONSTANTLY !

Ha, this really makes me think about how differently us New Englanders really talk. Course there's the whole dropping of 'R's". And if your goin into Boston, your goin 'in town'. WI agree with everythin else thats been said, but thought I might as well give you a basic run down too

all set - your good to go

bang - a very sharp turn. ie, you bang a left up here. alternative is hang and for less sharp turns

barrel - its a barrel, not a trash can

book it - get the hell outta there, or to run real fast. he booked it outta here when the cops came.

hiv lane - really the hov lane, but most people who work in town call it the hiv lane

bubbler - not a water fountain

bull, bullshit, bs - complete and utter crap. he told me he got a raise, bullshit. or as a verb meaning wicked angry. i was bullshit when i found out i got a ticket

the b's - the bruins

can't get - lovely example of the negative positive we use. ex. lets see if we cant get your car fixed

the cape - cape cod. but nobody who actually lives round here calls it that. its just 'im gin to the cape this weekend'

carriage - grocery cart

celler - basement of a house

regular coffee - coffee with cream and two sugars

cumbie's - cumberland farms a convientant store

decked - dress nicely ex. he looks pretty good all decked out for prom

diesel - wicked wicked good. ex thats some diesel bud

digga - to fall ex he took a digga in front of everybody

directional - the blinkin arrow in the car

dunkies - best coffee shop in the entire world. youll find at least 2 in every town

elastics - rubba bands

frappe - a milkshake or malt or whatever you call it. its ice cream, milk, and flavored syrup mixed together

frickin - the f-bomb when your not in company that you can actually say it

here ya go - what the waitress says when she gives you your food

hoodsie - small cup of ice cream origianlly half chocoate and half vanilla but now comes in otha flavors

hook - anotha word for a sharp turn ex you hook a right up here

hosie - to call dibs ex i hosie the front seat

hot box - a stolen car, or a car with stolen things inside of it

jimmies - chocolate sprinkles. sprinkles are the multicolored ones

kegga - beer party

killa - cool or funny ex did yah see that new movie? it was killa!

milkshake - milk with flavored syrup but no ice cream

na-ah - pronounced nuh-ah, means no way (usually followed by a yeah-huh by whoever your talking to)

nah - no

p-town - the town at the end of the cape. fun place to visit. but stay open minded when yah do.

the packie - package store, booze store ex hold on, i gotta go to the packie for some more coors.

packie run - having to o to the packie. ex be right back, gotta go for a packie run

queer - stupid. also retarded or gay. ex that is so fuckin queer/gay/retarded

raw out - means very cold ex its very raw out today, must be in the teens

the fridge - refrigerator

rotary - a traffic circle. roundabouts are smalls rotaries. the people inside are the ones with the right of way

scoop- to pick someone up ex hey, when the hell you gunna scoop me? ive been waitin for fifteen minutes. or hey, wanna come scoop me, im boored.

so dont i - notha exmple of a negative positive. ex. i love teh sox! so dont i!

suppa - dinner

uey - teh favotire turn of most new englanders, a u turn

wanna go? - askin someone if they wanna fight ex well if thats how it is, wanna go? cmon, lets settle it and take it outside

thats bout it really

a new one thats been poppin up is grime

it means well i dont know how to exaplain it really, but if somebody ahd been all cool with you and then started sayin shit to people behind your back, he'd be grime ex man, you see that kid? he's mad grime. or thats grimee

mad has also been gettin popula. used instead of wicked ex im mad tired

ill is being used as wicked or cool. ex that show last night as ill

okay im really done this time

If you want to write in vernacular, the heavy Boston accent removes all Rs - so Harvard Square would be pronouned "Hahvahd Squayah." Try listening to some CarTalk if you want more accent stuff!

As for slang, Boston is "Beantown", Cape Cod is always "The Cape." And we do say "wicked" a lot. If you are in Boston, insult the NY Yankees a lot. :)

Also, if you're going for Maine, they have a slightly softer accent, but it still removes most of the Rs... and older people use the term "a-yuh" a lot - it's a sort of local way of dragging out the word "yes" or "yup."

Well I'm from the East Coast and at my school we have suddenly picked acronyms and abbreviated words and turned them into words.

Like "obv" means "obviously."
Also, "B T Dubs" which is abbreviated from "B T W" which means "by the way."
As a joke we often say "ROFLed on the floor." which actually means "Rolled On the Floor Laughing on the floor."

Also, here on Long Island, we pronounce all of our Rs. Although most people say "oh my gawd" instead of oh my god. And it's usually one long word. Omigawd.

NaNoWriMo07: The Ether - Won!
NaNoWriMo08: Pre-Production

I'm about more southern than you'd like; I'm from the Baltimore/Washington D.C./Annapolis suburban area. I'd like to second "sketchy," (though it's sometimes "sketch," as in, "I had to edit that article to make the chick sound less sketchy, when really that whole exchange was the most sketch thing ever.") as well as "obvi."

Yes, drop the Rs, ALL THE TIME. In Rhode Island, you get "bubbla" (bubbler, which sometimes refers to a water fountain, but we teens nowadays use "water fountain"), we have "mad" instead of "wicked" or "very", and people say "OMG" instead of "Oh my god". To describe someone as being good at something, some people say, "He's a beast!", or if someone's doing something well, "He's beasting!" (It can also be used for a girl, of course). Those are mostly from the rougher crowd at my school, though. There's also, "I'm souped" which is psyched, ready, excited, but I haven't heard it often.

Screnzy '08:
No ideas, no outlines, no time. Let's see how well I do.
76/100 pages.

Thanks Michelle! With your list especially, I can now have one of my secondary characters relocate from "The Cape" area. He can complain about the south for not having "hoodsies" and cumbies and dunkies and he can really say we don't use our directionals (car blinkers) down here. He will be so surprised to find out we can't have cellars because they will fill with water! I needed these words for my character!

jade

A real writer...... writes.

haha I'm from NJ and we use a lot of those words like OMG, beast, souped, madd--i used that a lot
theres a couple of others that are really common, too

Is all that we see or seem but a dream within a dream?
- E.A.P. -

My Writing Blog:
http://anywherebutup.blogspot.com/

Some eastern Philadelphia / Mostly New Jersey - isms:

Dude
Freakin' (all-purpose adjective)
sweet (awesome, great)
skanky (lewd, immoral, and otherwise nasty)
shafted (ostracized or deliberately given the short stick)
busted (ugly)
butt (ugly, as in "whoa, that chick is butt!")
'Dem English (Pennsylvania motorists whose attention is elsewhere - actually an allusion to supposed Amish xenophobia)

A new age of peace is dawning for Middle-Earth. At least, that is what Sauron, the charming, abusive, insane Dark Lord would have us believe. Can the Ringwraiths find salvation before it's too late?

"Nine Mortal Men: The Ban of the Valar"

I've lived in Connecticut all my life, and I definitely have to second the people above who mention abbreviations. My best friend always says "totes" instead of "totally" and "B T dubs" instead of "by the way." It's actually pretty obnoxious, but that's just the grammar-freak in me coming out.
I think most New Englanders who aren't from a place with a very distinct accent (like Boston) have a habit of adopting words that are very stereotypically linked to places pretty far away, like California or the deep South. Personally, I say "dude" much too frequently, and I always use the word "y'all" (which somehow often develops into a few minutes of using a slight Southern accent. I have yet to figure out why, since I cannot control it for the life of me). Many of my friends use slang they claim is from England or Ireland as well.
I'm pretty sure those of us who live in Connecticut just get our slang by stealing it from everyone else around us...

I don't know about anywhere else, but from where I grew up we used "y'all" a LOT. We also dropped our "are"s. ex. where y'all going? what you doing?

It's not as though you don't have a choice, because you do – you can either write or kill yourself.

You can't forget that they call it "soda" and not "pop."

in Maine, every thing is "wicked good" instead of "cool"

Maine slang is in some ways similar to other NE slang, but it more closely matches Canadian slang. Also, use of French words, in place of English words (even by English only speakers) is not uncommon, due to the fact that Maine is a predominantly French community. Mainers tend to have a more Canadian and less American accent when they talk, and use grammar pronunciations like the French language rather than the English language, accenting syllables and phrases the way a French Canadian would rather than the way an American would.

Also, you need to understand, that in Maine, it's not just a case of slang. In Maine you are dealing with people who do not like being forced to become Americans simply because America decided to chop off a piece of Quebec and call it the state of Maine.

If you choose to write a Maine character, you'll need a lot more than slang to pull off the "Maine feel". This is referring to Native Mainers (one who was born in Maine, to parents born in Maine, to parents born in Maine.) You must be a third generation Mainer to be considered a Native Mainer, with fifth generation being preferred. Any one born in Maine, with less than a third generation pedigree is considered an "outsider" and is referred to as one who lives in Maine, but not a Native Mainer.

Note too, that Mainers have a bad attitude towards outsiders who come in from other US states. Other countries is one thing, but other US states are not greeted with welcome arms. The Native Maine view of American invaders is very low. Note too, that most "old timers" do not consider themselves to be American and will correct you and say that they are a Mainer not an American. Read on and I'll explain while making note of some of the more common Maine "slang".

Mainers will point , laugh and say you are "a tourist from Mass of 2 Shits" if you use the phrase "You know what I mean?"

multi generation Mainers tend to hate EVERYone whose great grand daddy wasn't born in Maine... and if you left Maine even for the summer you'll get pegged as an "outsider"

lobsta wars between fishing towns get wild and bloody.

note we say lobsta not lobster; everything that ends in -er or -or is pronounced with an -a instead. Stephen King lives in Banga not Bangor.

'r', -'er', and 'h' tend to be dropped.

All sentences end with an "eh?" wither we was asking a question or not: "Nice day we 'a having. eh?"

the become tha

everything is "a getting"

blueberries are bluebear-ras "Looks like tha bluebear-ras 'a getting ripe, eh?"

big stores are always new, even if they've been there for 20 years. In 75% of the towns in Maine it is illegal to build a "big store", so WalMarts and the like a pretty rare outside of York and Cumberlain counties.

"She's 'a getting a new dress down at tha new WalMart"

we never use street names, so no one ever bothers to fix road signs when they fall over or get stolen, cause one one used them anyways.

"Ya take a left at Turn'as Pond, and drive till ya get to tha red house that my grand daddy painted blue five years back, an ya turn down tha dirt road... ya all see the stump where the squirral used ta sit every day? Ya wanna go abouts five miles after that, but tha squiraal got run over by one of thems Mass of 2 Shits tourist drivers so ya won't see him, just tha stump..."

It's said ya not you

we use folk instead of people.

note that if your MC is from out of state and going to school in Maine, she'll get labeled the "new folk" and likely well find no one willing to talk with her, sit with her, or include her.... the rift between native Mainers and "new folks" "tourists" and most esp "folks from Mass of 2 Shits" is big... very very big... and feuding can become bad in the more remote Northern regions shoot-outs with hunting rifles and burning down folks houses is alarmingly common in places like Hansville Woods, Milo, Palmira... my uncle who was from Maine, but moved to Utah for 10 years, and than moved back to Maine, is considered a traitor to his home state and has had his house burned to the ground twice in 4 years). Police are no help and very likely to have been involved. It's not uncommon for the police to respond to such events with comments like "well that's what happens."

In big cities of Southern Maine, like Biddeford, Saco, or Portland, you don't see this kind of thing too much anymore, but in most smaller towns it's still pretty bad. Keep in mind too that most smaller towns have less than 1,000 people living in them, and there can be over a mile between house... Maine is one of the biggest states, but has one of the lower populations. When we say our neighbor down the road, we could mean 5 or 10 miles away.

There is a lot of still unexplored old growth forest in Maine. Mountain people do exist. Many families go for years without contact with non-family members. Uniques family lingo's and weird "twinlige" slang results. This is only seen in the very far North, however, and is not as common as it was 20 years ago.

The only "outsiders" that Maine folk like and welcome are the French Canadians. Every year Maine and Quebec get together and vote to leave the unions and join forces. Every year US gov and Canada gov over throws the votes. Native Mainers hate being part of the US and Quebec hates being part of Canada....

reason: Maine was originally part of Quebec. Quebec being it's own country separate from Canada. In the 1880's Canada and the US ripped Quebec in half and each took a part of it. The lower part became the state of Maine. That happened barely 100 years ago, so there are still a lot of folks alive who remember that Maine was not always a US state, and they feel that the US is a greedy gov and hate being a part of it. THIS is why whenever folks come to Maine from out of state, they get the cold shoulder. As a general rule if you come to Maine from any place in the US outside of Maine, you are going to be treated like an invader, because that's the view Mainers have of outsiders.

Maine is like another country, because 100 years ago, it was another country and most Native Mainers feel that they were not given a choice in the matter when they were suddenly forced to become part of the US.

Never try to write a Mainer character unless you can pull off the anti-non-Mainer attitude, cause it won't be believable

This info comes to you from one who lives on land that was settled by my family in 1657 (who married into the Native tribe, whom lived here thousands of years before that), and we are one of the few families in all of the US that still lives on their original land. My family is very strong in the pro-Maine, anti-outsider movement.

----------
Publishing Methods
How to Start a Publishing Company
Creating Character Profiles
How To Make a Lord Sesshomaru Costume