theatre

[Laurence Horn]

At 11:11 AM -0400 10/17/00, David Bergdahl wrote:
>On Long Island there's "Rockville Centre, NY" which I suppose is meant
>to sound tonier with the -re, at least that's what we kids in Valley
>Stream thought ... [which I've been told was "Rum Junctioion" before the
>real estate guys got a hold of it]
>
Exactly; that was one on the tip of my tongue or keyboard finger; I
went to high school in Long Beach, Long Island, just a bit south of
there, and we did suspect Rockville Centre of putting on airs.
Doug's examples of various city centre hotels and malls and centre
city thises and thats were exactly what I had in mind.  New Haven has
its own Centre Street, but at least some of these Centre Streets may
antedate the point at which (courtesy of Noah Webster, perhaps?)
"centre" became marked as [-U.S.] and/or [+pretentious].

larry