Date:  Wed, 4 Oct 1995 10:06:46 EDT

From:  Larry Horn <LHORN[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]YALEVM.CIS.YALE.EDU>

Subject: Re: icebox and upstate



Lynne writes,



>well, to my mind, the lower hudson valley is not upstate--anything

>south of albany (and not in the southern tier) is downstate. but

>nobody asked us western new yorkers.



Clearly, as we've been seeing, it's all relative--in fact we all seem to be

operating with maps in our heads corresponding to that famous Steinberg New

Yorker cover. But what I was particularly curious about was...



>Lynne, from newark, new york (NO! NOT NEW JERSEY!)



whether Lynne and her fellow-Newark(NY)ers disambiguate their home town the

way people in New-ARK, Delaware do. At least I assume the latter is one level

a conscious attempt to dissociate Newark, Del. from the "real" Newark, rather

than just a local practice on the level of CHAY-lie, NY (in Greece-Chili, the

suburb of Rochester), KAI-ro (Cairo) Illinois, BER-lin Conn., etc. (I suppose

the various BER-lins may be disambiguators too, especially if the pronunciation

shifted around 1914.)

  Does anyone happen to know if there's a treatment of this variety of taboo

avoidance?



Larry