Avy, your post in AnnaStophic thread "English as a global language"
http://wordsmith.org/board/showflat.pl?Cat=&Board=miscellany&Number=7527&page=0&view=collapsed&sb=5&part=all&vc=1
prevoked many comments, (and threads! wow!) and set me off on a different tangent. English as a Local Language. The thread is veering that way, now with your introductions of some favorite local words and idioms that haven't yet, (and might not ever) reach mainstream English.
Here in NY, we use the word "stoop" to describe the front stair (outside of the building) of a residence. The stairs in front of Metropolitan Museum of Art would never be called a stoop, but if the Mayor tripped at his residence, no one would think twice about calling the steps to Gracie Mansion a stoop (Mayor Trips on Front Stoop!).
It is a pretty local word, and traces back to the Dutch influence in NY, stoop being the Dutch word for steps. And by local, I mean to say NY Metropolitan area. Houses have front steps in Philadelphia (PA) and Baltimore (MD) to the south, and New Haven( CT) and Boston(MA) to the north.
I was wondering about other local words. I know there are some regional words in use in rural New England–I have heard words there that had meaning only in NE–(but can I think of any? NO!) Partly because they were words I heard, but never got in the habit of using. They never really entered my vocabulary.
Less well known in NY, but still used, is the word Kills for a (here is a party!) Fen, Marsh, Bog, Swamp, Salt-water Meadow, wetland, slough... Since most of the Kills have been drained, and paved over it has lost meaning. It too is from the Dutch, and still used as a place names in NY. (I tend to think of Fens, Bogs and Meadows, as being treeless, but Swamp's as being more forested.)
As we have traveled, either in time and space, or like Emily Dickenson, with a book as our frigate, what words have you found to be purely local?
(I would not consider Boot/trunk, Flat/apartment, lorry/truck to be local words, since they work over rather large geographic areas.)
An other example might be a hero (NY) which is a sub (NJ) or a hoggie (Phil.), or poor boy (New Orleans).
What do you call oversized sandwiches?
OP
