"slang" and "informal" as dict labels [WAS: shirty?]

[Peter A. McGraw]

I don't know anything about sf/sci fi, but I don't think anyone has quite
hit the nail on the head about "Frisco" yet.  It's a shibboleth in that
it's a nickname used only by those who DON'T live there--similar to
"Jersey" for New Jersey, which is used by New Yorkers but not by people who
live in New Jersey.  So it's not so much that San Franciscans resent
"Frisco"--just that it marks the user as an outsider.  I do suspect it
would engender a mix of annoyance and embarassment to hear someone
ostentatiously using "Frisco" in the mistaken belief that he was thereby
marking himself as an insider, whereas in fact he would be marking himself
not only as an outsider, but as an ignorant outsider.

Peter Mc.

--On Monday, February 17, 2003 10:10 AM -0500 Laurence Horn
<laurence.horn at YALE.EDU> wrote:

>  Anyway, whatever the original factors really
> were, at this point we're talking shibboleths in both cases, so the
> reason for the respective aficionados to avoid "sci-fi" and "Frisco"
> is that others do; it's a nice coding device.  Evidently it hasn't
> stopped anyone from accepting Otis Redding's reference to "the Frisco
> Bay", but he had metrical considerations operating.



****************************************************************************
                               Peter A. McGraw
                   Linfield College   *   McMinnville, OR
                            pmcgraw at linfield.edu