(Adj) City

[Dennis R. Preston]

My oldest of these is "Fat City" (of a person who experiences a
wealth of opportunities and/or status, perhaps particularly
monetary). Is that the Ur-form?

For what it's worth, this "(Adj) City" showed up very frequently in
the perceptual dialectology work I did in the 1980's. Areas of the
country that were outlined (in the "draw-a-dialect-map" task, in
which nonlinguists were asked to outline and label the parts of the
US where people "spoke differently" on a blank map) were often so
labeled, e.g. "Rebel City" (the South), "Eskimo City" (Alaska),
"Cowboy City, etc.... The meaning was pretty obviously something like
"Area typical of or supporting the attribute assigned."

dInIs

>---------------------- Information from the mail header
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>Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>Poster:       Cole Paulson <cpaulson at STANFORD.EDU>
>Subject:      (Adj) City
>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>Hi,
>
>Does anyone know the origin of the (Adj) City expression, as in "That show
>was really random city," or "My friend is awkward city"? Is it related to
>the expression "Sin City"?
>
>Thanks,
>Cole
>
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--
Dennis R. Preston
University Distinguished Professor
Department of English
15C Morrill Hall
Michigan State University
East Lansing, MI 48824
517-353-4736
preston at msu.edu

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