(Adj) City

Arnold M. Zwicky zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU
Mon Feb 19 14:03:39 UTC 2007


On Feb 19, 2007, at 4:59 AM, Dennis R. Preston wrote:

> 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."

to clarify a bit:  i've been suposing that the original was of the
form "N City", for some N still to be determined.  (at some point we
get "Sin City", and then "Spin City" as a take-off on that.)  all of
dInIs's examples are of this form.

more recently, we get "Adj City", as in cole paulson's examples
("random city", "awkward city").  and the use has been extended from
place/region names to predicatives applicable to all sorts of things
(or people).  this could be an extension from "N City" or it could
have developed from "Adj City" names like (cue barry popik) "the
Windy City" (with the common-noun construction, having a definite
article, turned into an anarthrous proper name), or of course both.

(i *think* the early uses of "Fat City" were for places: "Los Angeles
is Fat City", meaning it's a place of opportunity or success, or the
metaphorical "I'm in Fat City now" -- note the preposition -- meaning
i've achieved success.  there are now freshly literal uses, in "X is
fat city", meaning X is a place with lots of fat people.)

then there are "V City" examples, like "suck city" ("Bullshit Nights
in Suck City", a genuine book title), "barf city" (referring to
places that make you want to vomit, or, in "be in barf city", to
vomiting), "fuck city" (with a deprecating use, and with a use
referring to places where you can get laid, or, in "be in fuck city",
to getting laid.

*surely* someone has studied these things.  onomasiologists?
slangologists?

arnold

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