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

[Laurence Horn]

>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.
>
Sort of like calling or referring to someone by their first name when
anyone in the know uses some sort of hypocoristic based on last name
or whatever.  (Calling Robert Lowell "Bob" instead of "Cal", or
Calvin Trillin "Cal" instead of "Bud".)

My idea was essentially that the use of "Frisco" is a sort of
negative shibboleth, like the pronunciation of "Shibboleth" as
"Sibboleth" was, although the consequences of flunking aren't quite
as dire.

L