Maine is _down_ east of Massachusetts.

[Joel S. Berson]

At 8/18/2011 02:53 PM, Laurence Horn wrote:
>On Aug 18, 2011, at 2:46 PM, Wilson Gray wrote:
>
> > Everyone's familiar with that one. I've just heard a Bostonian say
> > that he doesn't like to go to Rhode Island, even to see his
> > girlfriend, because
> >
> > "There's nothing to do, _up_ there."
> >
>I haven't heard that one.  Besides heading "down east" (northward)
>in Maine, there's also the lower Cape (Cape Cod, e.g. Provincetown
>at the very northernmost tip) vs. the upper Cape, the latter to the
>south of the former.  But I hadn't come across references to RI as
>"up" from Boston.

I haven't heard it either.  But Wilson's speaker is logical -- if
Maine is down (east) from Massachusetts, then Rhode Island surely is up.

As for the lower vs. upper Cape, that has always seemed logical to
me.  The lower Cape is further out from the main body of
Massachusetts than the upper Cape, just as the lower arm is further
out from the body than the upper arm.  I don't try to correlate
north-south with upper-lower.

Joel

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