bodega

[Grant Barrett]

On Thursday, March 30, 2000, Mark_Mandel at DRAGONSYS.COM wrote:
>Grant, does a small neighborhood grocery store have to be
>Spanish-speaking for you to call it a bodega, or doesn't it? I suppose I could
>speak of a "Korean bodega", but that would be clearly an extension, which I
>could gloss roughly as 'a bodega, except that it's Korean instead of Spanish':
>"instead of" marks the extension beyond the normal sense.

In my experience, a small grocery/store does not have to be Spanish-speaking for it
to be called a bodega, although I believe if it is Spanish-speaking it is more likely
to be called one. When I lived in Greek Astoria our little stores were still
bodegas, as are the couple of Pakistani-run shops in my current neighborhood.

A Korean grocery, that is, owned and operated by Koreans, is generally the same kind
of establishment. It's specific type is Korean grocery but in generic terms a
bodega. Either will work. I doubt people say "I'm going down to the Korean grocery." Korean
grocery is kind of a newspaper thing (likely used in crime stories in the paper: "He
was shot outside of Korean grocery"). There's no such thing as a Korean bodega. At
least not in my peer group.

Also, people often say they're going "down to the corner." It means the bodega, on
the corner or not.

These statements, are, of course, hard to generalize in a city of millions, but they
conform to my experience.


--
Grant Barrett
gbarrett at americandialect.org