My husband said, “Damn right. If you travel 20 miles outside of town, you’re in Alabama.”
His lived in SoCal for 44 years, but will always identify as Philadelphian.
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Rhode Islander? What’s that? Oh, you mean a Vro Dilendeh?
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Because Hawaiian refers to the indigenous people of Hawaii.
[edited for clarity]
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To this day, I lose the ability to breathe any time I remember Jim’s driving test at the DMV.
Jim: What does a yellow light mean?
Wheeler: Slow down.
Jim: What. Does. A. Yellow. Light. Mean?
Wheeler: SLOW DOWN
JIM: What
Does
A
Yellow
Light
Mean?
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Born in Maine, I always thought that “Mainiac” was the best name for us. “Mainer” is quite lame, and since the name of the state offers us this wonderful opportunity to become “Maniacs,” it would be a sin not to take it.
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Yep. If you’re not from NYC, you have to say NY State, or upstate NY, or Finger Lakes, or Albany or whatever. Saying New Yorker is considered intentionally misleading.
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Usonian was a fad/cult of nationalists around 100 years ago. Frank Lloyd wright was a fan. He designed a cheap house he called Usonian, then later an entire community called Usonia.
Those $5000 houses now cost a million each, but you have to promise to keep it as is, like a museum.
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Interesting thing about this list is that it’s a good example of language not following any real rule other that whatever people say the most becomes accepted. Like, if you were gonna follow some sort of pattern, you’d say Michiganer. There’s no reason for the d to be there other than it seems to roll off the tongue better that way. But really that’s how language always evolves, and it’s kinda fruitless to try to control it.
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I can attest to this about the American comment, I discovered that quite quickly when I lived in Argentina that they took exception to us referring to ourselves as Americans. They were cool about it and not confrontational and explained it to me and I thought, why had I never considered that? But the way they see it is they are Americans too, and they most definitely are, so why do we have the primary claim on that designation?
I also noticed when I would be watching a movie on tv and was subtitled, when a character would say they were “American” the translation would say “Estadounidense” which I always just translated out to “United Statesan” in my head. And when they would say America, the subtitles would say EE. UU. which is the Spanish abbreviation for Estados Unidos, or, the United States. So there is certainly some animosity on the rest of the American continents about our appropriation of the title of American.
I wonder how many of the people who get so enraged about people speaking Spanish know who Cristobal Colon was…
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Pretty sure if we were listing what other states called each other, it would just all be a list labeled “assholes”.
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You mean Cristoffa Corombo?
Wikipedia lists “Massachusite” as the “traditional” demonym. I’d even take “Massachusettser”, but Massachusettsan? Never.
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Especially in Cabot Cove.
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Honestly, probably the most common one we use outside MA is “From Boston”.
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Hey! Don’t mess with our bubbler and coffee milk!
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As a Hawaii resident, I’m kind of tired of correcting people about referring to me as Hawaiian. That being said most the native Hawaiians use the term Kanaka Maoli now. So maybe it’s time to acknowledge not all Hawaiians are native Hawaiians? But still just use the term Hawaiian to refer to all residents? And retire Kama Aina? The English language is malleable like that. Or possibly Kanaka Maoli means something more specific and I’m missing info.
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Whenever I’ve been asked, “Do you prefer Michigander or Michiganian?” I reply, "Michigan Resident!"
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Which always makes me wonder what the heck a Michigoose would be.
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It might have to do with the emphasized syllable changing.
A-LAS-ka --> A-LAS-kan
FLO-ri-da --> Flo-RI-di-an
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