Linguistic boundaries [was: A novel notion of "balance"]

[Paul Johnston]

What about sports loyalties in the far, far East of Long Island, among the real locals, not the incomers in the Hamptons?  My understanding was that there were a lot of Red Sox rooters out there, but my info is thirty years old, and Carl Yastrzemski, who was one of those "real locals", had just recently retired.  By the way, at about the same time, I was talking baseball with a lady from Fairfield, CT, and she was for the Red Sox, and was absolutely insulted that I would consider Fairfield and Bridgeport part of the Greater NY area.  She could have been an exception, though.



On Jan 12, 2014, at 10:56 PM, Alice Faber <faber at HASKINS.YALE.EDU> wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Alice Faber <faber at HASKINS.YALE.EDU>
> Organization: Haskins Laboratories
> Subject:      Re: Linguistic boundaries [was: A novel notion of "balance"]
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> On 1/12/14 9:54 PM, Laurence Horn wrote:
>> On Jan 12, 2014, at 8:07 PM, Alice Faber wrote:
>>
>>> On 1/12/14 2:35 PM, Joel S. Berson wrote:
>>>> At 1/12/2014 01:51 PM, Laurence Horn wrote:
>>>>> --LH (in Pats' country)
>>>>
>>>> I will assume LH was somewhere close to New Haven when he wrote the
>>>> above.  If not, the questions are still answerable but perhaps the
>>>> answers less interesting.)
>>>>
>>>> Where is the Patriots--Giants boundary?  Further west than the Red
>>>> Sox's--Yankees boundary?
>>>>
>>>> Joel (also in Pats' country as I write, but formerly from Yankees' country)
>>>>
>>>
>>> When the Giants faced the Patriots in the Superbowl a few years ago, the
>>> Trader Joes in Milford, CT
>>
>> Orange!
>
> Guilty!
>>
>>> had its door soaped with both logos. In my
>>> neighborhood, a wee bit north of Larry's, there's a fairly even mix of
>>> Patriots and Giants flags out on game days, with the balance shifting
>>> with the teams' relative fortunes.
>>>
>>> As for the Red Sox-Yankees boundary, I would say it's shifted east in
>>> the past decade. This isn't just due to the Red Sox' recent success
>>> (though that contributed); the addition of Red Sox broadcasts to cable
>>> systems in the New Haven area makes it much easier to follow the Sox
>>> these days.
>>>
>>> Alice
>>
>> Alice--you do mean the boundary has shifted west, right?  Or maybe New Haven County has shifted east?  Either way I agree, and I think both radio (especially for baseball) and football (especially for TV) has played a major role in establishing the relevant isofans.  (For football, there's always been the two networks for the two leagues/conferences including the Pats and Giants, so it's been easy to maintain one's Giants roots into even northern New England while--if you'll allow for the possibility--also being fans of the Pats, although those two recent Super Bowls between the two franchises did force one to choose one's primary allegiance.
>>
>
> Yep...the other east. Towards the Pacific.
>
>> The shops in Hamden (just north of New Haven, where I reside) do feature Pats, Giants, and Jets regalia indiscriminately (and always UConn stuff), the amounts varying with the fortunes of the teams.
>>
>
> Alice
>
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