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New York Times only hurts itself when it tries to speak Boston English

By adamg on Mon, 04/17/2017 - 5:24pm

The Gray Lady begins a profile of our Barbara Lynch:

BOSTON - Barbara Lynch never thought she would end up in South Boston.

The chef is a fierce Southie, a local term for this neighborhood and the people who built it.

As Luke O'Neil, who spotted the passage, notes:

That's... not a thing.

Neighborhoods: 
South Boston
Topics: 
Media
Free tagging: 
Boston English
New York Times


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Comments

By TommyJeff on Mon, 04/17/2017 - 5:27pm.

I'm gonna start calling people Southies.

By bosguy22 on Tue, 04/18/2017 - 9:05am.

Nothing worse than a 40+ hipster doofus trying to be witty on Twitter.

By Irma la Douce on Mon, 04/17/2017 - 5:53pm.

Later in the article: "she still curses like a Southie"...

By baustin on Tue, 04/18/2017 - 12:55pm.

That sounds like something a New Yorkie would say!

By anon on Mon, 04/17/2017 - 5:59pm.

That's a thing.

By anon on Mon, 04/17/2017 - 6:24pm.

Newbies here call people from Southie Southies and Townies.

By anon on Mon, 04/17/2017 - 7:58pm.

"Newbies" are not the New York Times, which prides itself on journalistic accuracy.

By Dante on Mon, 04/17/2017 - 10:18pm.

Say it again! I'm begging you

That is the funniest comment that I've ever read here.

By Arthur on Tue, 04/18/2017 - 10:45am.

I agree!

By BigBird on Tue, 04/18/2017 - 6:27am.

I guess you never read any of the stories by Judith Miller in the New Work Times about the WMD's Iraq had stockpiled. Then how said stories got us to invade Iraq.

By Michael Kerpan on Tue, 04/18/2017 - 12:05am.

Never ever heard this.....

By MC Slim JB on Tue, 04/18/2017 - 1:23am.

something that 99.999% of the human race doesn't give a damn about. Get over it.

By Suldog on Tue, 04/18/2017 - 9:02am.

Things that 99.999% of the human race doesn't give a damn about are the things that give a city its unique identity. In any case, at least 99.999% of the human race doesn't give a damn about your name or my name, but if one of those people makes an error when referring to us, we would probably prefer that it be corrected.

Suldog
http://jimsuldog.blogspot.com

By MC Slim JB on Tue, 04/18/2017 - 9:50am.

because someone referred to his tribe as small-t townies ("We're not from Chaaahlestown"), I just shake my head. Small-t townie has a well-understood meaning by most speakers of American English, and 99.999% of us don't give a jot what Charlestown townies and Southie townies prefer to call each other and themselves. Yes, I recognize the colloquial distinction between townie and Townie. No, you don't get to tell the rest of the world how to use small-t townie.

By mseskin on Tue, 04/18/2017 - 8:42am.

I have literally never (until now) heard anybody use "Southie" to refer to a person.

I have, of course, heard (and used) townie. It's a general term for anybody who grows up in and never leaves a given place.

By Metoo on Tue, 04/18/2017 - 1:03pm.

No not really. I have never called friends that grew up in Newton or Cambridge and still live there a townie and I have never heard of anyone else calling them a townie. Not Rozzy or Jamaica Plain either. Townie is for Charlestown.

By ecg nli on Mon, 04/17/2017 - 8:22pm.

My cab driver in Savannah, GA last week also though that. I wonder where the rumor got started.

By anonism on Mon, 04/17/2017 - 10:30pm.

I'm afraid it's all over, folks: It will be a thing very soon. #hollywoodnext

By anon on Mon, 04/17/2017 - 10:34pm.

It's creepy, almost stalkish creepy.

By MC Slim JB on Tue, 04/18/2017 - 1:24am.

endless portrayals by Hollywood, and a current vivid set of gentrification issues.

But you're right: a site devoted to covering Boston news stories should probably just ignore Southie, rather than risk being accused by random anonymous posters of having a freakish obsession with it.

Here in the South End, I'm pushing for the term "SoWannaBes". It could catch on!

By Snuggles on Tue, 04/18/2017 - 5:05am.

Can we get all Realtors to start using that term?

By Kinopio on Tue, 04/18/2017 - 10:53am.

Some people have a fetish for green sweatpants and terrible bars.

By Formerly-SoBo-Yuppie on Tue, 04/18/2017 - 7:01am.

....one of the greatest neighborhoods in the US.

- A South Boston Community member.

By anon on Tue, 04/18/2017 - 8:16am.

Arent locals called Southie Rats? is that just a Dot thing? Maybe just Southie punks? Junkies?

By adamg on Tue, 04/18/2017 - 9:04am.

So somebody please inform us, but, yes, there are Dot Rats (I even know somebody who has that tattooed on her back) and Rozzie rats.

By Miaow on Tue, 04/18/2017 - 12:48pm.

Have both an uncle and an ex boyfriend from Southie (both of whom lived there during 1970's) and neither have ever referred to themselves or any peers as Southie "rats". They would just say "he (or she) is from Southie".

By Formerly-SoBo-Yuppie on Tue, 04/18/2017 - 9:10am.

the punks and junkies live in places like weymouth now. so maybe SoSho Rats?

- A South Boston Community Member

By John Costello on Tue, 04/18/2017 - 8:52am.

To Southie Ratatouille?

By Arthur on Tue, 04/18/2017 - 10:43am.

NYT is a lying rag, dying a painful death. Good riddance.

By Arthur on Tue, 04/18/2017 - 10:47am.

Them Southie's better not mess with me....I'm a Grand Rapids!

By Mediacrity on Tue, 04/18/2017 - 12:34pm.

Looks like they updated it.

"BOSTON — Barbara Lynch never thought she would end up in South Boston.

The chef is a fierce daughter of Southie, a local nickname for this neighborhood and, she explained, an old term for the people who built it that is rarely, if ever, used today. Generations of Irish-Americans forged iron and steel, built ports and ships, and hauled sugar and molasses in the area’s now-decrepit industrial buildings."

By Old Zee on Tue, 04/18/2017 - 1:18pm.

an old term for the people who built it that is rarely, if ever, used today

Southie is still portrayed as an old term for the PEOPLE? Great editors over at the Almost Dead Gray Lady

By MC Slim JB on Tue, 04/18/2017 - 2:48pm.

You want me to believe Barbara Lynch offered the statement that people from Southie were once referred to as "Southies"? That doesn't make any damned sense.

A person from Southie: a Southian? A Southie-ite? A South Bostonian? Maybe. A Southie? To quote the inimitable Dean, "I *doubt* it!"

By MC Slim JB on Tue, 04/18/2017 - 4:50pm.

pulling another "Grunge Speak" style hoax on the NY Times.

By Irma la Douce on Tue, 04/18/2017 - 5:36pm.

I don't know that someone with a just-published memoir would want to deliberately piss off the Times?

By Scauma on Tue, 04/18/2017 - 2:08pm.

Nobody outside South Boston cares about what people from South Boston call themselves.