If you are from Pennsylvania...

noobie · February 2, 2006, 11:35pm

You refer to Pennsylvania as “Peeay”

You can use the phrase “fire hall wedding reception” and not even bat an eye.

You can’t go to a wedding without hearing the “Chicken Dance,” at least 1 Polka and either an Italian song (sung in Italian), or “Hava Nagila.”

You know what a “Hex sign” is.

You know what a “State Store” is.

You own only three condiments: salt, pepper and Heinz ketchup.

Words like “hoagie,” “crick,” “chipped ham,” “sticky buns,” “shoofly pie,” “pierogies” and “pocketbook” actually mean something to you.

You not only have heard of Birch Beer, but you know it comes in several colors: Red, White, Brown, Gold.

You know the difference between a cheese steak & a pizza steak sandwich and a Primanti’s, and know that you can’t get a really good one outside PA.

You live for summer, when street and county fairs signal the beginning of funnel cake season.

Customers ask the waitress for “dippy eggs” for breakfast.

You know that Blue Ball, Intercourse, Climax, Bird-in-Hand, Beaver, Moon, Virginville, Paradise, Mars, and Slippery Rock are PA towns.

You know what townships, boroughs, and commonwealths are.

A traffic jam is ten cars waiting to pass a horse-drawn carriage on the highway in Lancaster County.

You know several people who have hit deer more than once.

Driving is always better in winter because the potholes are filled with snow.

“You guys” and “Uze” is a perfectly acceptable reference to a group of men & women.

You know how to respond to the question “Djeetyet?”

You know how tp pronounce to pronounce Bryn Mawr, Wilkes-Barre, Schuylkill, Bala Cynwyd, Conshohocken, and Monongahela.

courtney1121 · February 3, 2006, 2:09am

What’s funny is that I live in Beaver and I’m 25 mins from Moon. :)

binx · February 3, 2006, 4:29am

I’m from PA. My reaction to most of these is, “Djamean others don’t know this?”

And one of my sisters is getting married in March. My Mom and another sister are fighting over who gets to sing the Chicken Dance. :)

m_amp_sdad · February 3, 2006, 7:19am

PA is more like two states: east and west of the mountains. I know how to pronounce the locations in the west, buy have no clue for those around Philly.

Plus there’s the whole Eagles vs. Steelers thing.

Yinz go Stillers, an 'aht!

garland · February 3, 2006, 7:55am

You guys have such an accent! Here in NJ, it’d be-

Jeet jet?"

“No. Jew?”

And would of course not be a conversation about planes or religion.

BassDad · February 3, 2006, 8:14am

You know you are in PA when you go into a restaurant and order scrapple for breakfast and don’t have to ask for the ketchup.

If you come from the eastern part of the state, the major vacation decision is going “up the Poke-a-nose” or “down the shore”.

And, speaking of Schuylkill, you know the unofficial name for the Schuylkill Expressway where the traffic jams are a bit worse than in Lancaster County.

lderochi · February 3, 2006, 8:25am

You know what the Wing Bowl is, and that it’s going on this morning.

fendergirl · February 3, 2006, 8:46am

I was down in West Palm Beach, FL a few years ago and someone asked me if I was from PA based on how i said see-saw.

I talked to an elderly man at work on the phone once and he asked me where I was from and i said PA and he said Well you don’t sound like a yankee. I thought that was pretty funny.

MacTech92 · February 3, 2006, 9:59am

Let’s see…

“Peeay” is a regular word in my vocabulary

While I’ve never been to a wedding reception at a fire hall, I’ve been to birthday parties and graduation parties at one.

Hava Nagila is considered a wedding song in my eyes. And the Steelers Polka is being played 24/7 right now around here.

Not too sure what a hex sign is but I’m sure if I saw one I’d know…

I think PA is the only place to have state stores…for those who don’t know it’s where you buy alcoholic beverages (they don’t sell them in regular grocery stores like other states).

Yes, Heinz ketchup, salt, and pepper are my three main condiments. We can’t forget Heinz mustard, though.

I eat hoagies with chipped ham and a side of pierogies all the time when I sit down by the crick! And then I go to Eat n Park to get my sticky buns!

Being that I’m not a beer person, I’ve never heard of Birch Beer. I have heard of Iron City Beer, and I know it’s pretty much a Pittsburgh tradition.

Primanti’s IS the place for cheese steak! And no, a good cheese steak does not exist outside PA unless you hit one of the Primanti’s in other states (I know Florida has one).

Mmmmmm…funnel cakes! Not only do the fairs have good ones, but so does Kennywood Park.

I hate drippy eggs, personally. But I’ve seen people order them at Bob Evans and yes, they know what it means.

“You know that Blue Ball, Intercourse, Climax, Bird-in-Hand, Beaver, Moon, Virginville, Paradise, Mars, and Slippery Rock are PA towns.”

Don’t forget Middlesex on that list!

Not only do I know what a township is, I live in one! And my grandparents live in a borough.

Ugh, Lancaster County traffic jams! Almost as bad as McKnightmare Road outside of Pittsburgh!

My dad has hit a deer more than once. I think he has paid more in auto body work than his first car cost him.

Potholes…probably my least favorite part of Pittsburgh. If we ever get an NBA team, I think the nickname should be “Pittsburgh Potholes”. Heck, they’re easier to drive in when there’s ice in there, let alone snow. And they get fixed a) during a manic March when they form due to hot and cold fluctuations or b) in October right before it gets bad again, leaving us to suffer in the summer. There is actually a guy in Pittsburgh who makes a living collecting hubcaps and reselling them as a result of all the potholes!

“You Guys” is what I always call people. I’ve even called a group of all girls that. But we can’t forget “yinz” either.

“Djeetyet?”
“Yes…I had a sammich with some pop.”

“You know how tp pronounce to pronounce Bryn Mawr, Wilkes-Barre, Schuylkill, Bala Cynwyd, Conshohocken, and Monongahela.”

Don’t forget Duquesne on that list either. And no, it’s not “du-ques-nee”. It’s “du-cane”.

I AM PROUD TO BE A PENNSYLVANIA GUY, ESPECIALLY BECAUSE I AM FROM PITTSBURGH, HOME OF THE STEELERS!!!

roshke · February 3, 2006, 10:23am

BassDad - The Schuykill Expressway ( pronounced SKOO - kul)?
Oh,you mean the Sure Kill Expressway!

You really don’t think there’s an accent until certain words come up in conversation. They say things like AmURRRican (for American).

dmd77 · February 3, 2006, 10:40am

Actually, they’re not “state stores”–they’re “staties,” as in “I’m going to the statie to get a bottle of scotch.” And let’s not forget that you can’t buy beer at the statie, you buy it from the beer distributor, which would be referred to as a “packy” in Boston.

It has now been 34 years since I lived in Pennsylvania, and I can still pronounce every single one of those towns.

And you can, in fact, get a decent cheese steak sub outside of PA. I spent a lot of time figuring out how to do it myself. The trick is finding a butcher who will shave the steak for you. That was the hardest part. But I sure do miss shoo-fly pie. Oh well, I’m probably better off.

However, I do not miss scrapple.

m_amp_sdad · February 3, 2006, 10:41am

Also around Pittsburgh:

It’s not rubber bands, it’s gum bands.

It’s not “Your fly is down”, it’s “Kennywood’s Open”

You don’t “clean up the house”, you “redd up da haus”

Towel and tail are pronounced the same.

It’s “PICKS-burgh” to the locals.

And even though it has gone back and forth historically, the city name does end in “H”.

coureur · February 3, 2006, 10:42am

Linguists say that, of the half dozen or so accents that developed up and down the east coast in colonial times, it was the Mid-Atlantic or Pennsylvania accent that spread westward to much of the midwest and west and thereby became recognized as the widespread “standard” American accent.

BassDad · February 3, 2006, 11:40am

Roshke,

we called it the Sure Kill Distressway when I lived in Philly.

roshke · February 3, 2006, 11:55am

BassDad - That makes it even funnier.

Bryn Mawr (BRIN - mahr)
Conshohocken (Con shuh HOCK en)
Bala Cynwyd ( Baa lah KIN wood) and
Monongahela ( Moh non gah HEE la)

noobie · February 3, 2006, 12:06pm

If the Stillers win, dahn-tahn will be hoppin’ with terrible tahls.

fundingfather · February 3, 2006, 12:08pm

The sickest sense of humor has to belong to the person who named a town out in the middle of PA “Jersey Shore”. When I made my very first trip to NJ as a recent college grad to start my new job at the Jersey shore, I was traveling late at night on I80. When I saw the sign for “Jersey Shore”, I got all excited, thinking that I was almost there. It was many miles of wilderness later before I finally crossed the Delaware into NJ.

driver · February 3, 2006, 12:18pm

I’ve always wondered what the origin of that name was.

lderochi · February 3, 2006, 12:44pm

Steeler central is the only city in America where Myron Cope sounds normal.

TaraMom · February 3, 2006, 2:18pm

I remember my jaw dropping when I learned Schuykill (as in “Expressway”) was pronounced to rhyme with Google.

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