How do you tell a DC native from a transplant?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:They know what you mean when you say which hospital?

Columbia Hospital for women for me

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Natives aren’t obsessed with being perceived as being in a big city, don’t refer to Virginia and Maryland as the “bridge and tunnel crowd”, don’t get all hot and bothered when someone from the MD side of Takoma says they’re from DC and insist they’re actually from Maryland and have nothing to do with DC, don’t care about your brush with some famous politician, doesn’t think “no one is from DC”, doesn’t think all cowboys fans are from Texas and knows why, and definitely doesn’t say DMV unless they mean the department of motor vehicles

Yeah, we’ve had way too many New Yawk- UHs move here in the last 20 years!

[Anonymous]

Transplants say how transient the area is.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Transplants say how transient the area is.

Natives say that too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
1. Everyone not from the DMV thinks you mumble when you talk, but you and your friends understand each other perfectly

2. you don't understand when people say they can buy a nice house for 250k

3. "5 miles" can mean a place is 20 min away or 1 hour and 20 minutes, depending on time of day

4. You remember when parking on the Mall was free

5. It is likely that you are a first generation DMV person, growing up in the area with parents from outside the area. However, you consider yourself a heritage Midwesterner. Although when you go back to Illinois for Thanksgiving, you don't quite understand how people can live in that winter, every winter.

6. What, the kids at your K-12 school didn't speak 43 languages at home?

7. At least 50% of your friends parents are lawyers, or were lawyers. They are universally miserable, and yet 50% of your friends are now lawyers, too. So much for all those high GPAs and test scores, some people never learn.

8. Snow is a beautiful thing that shuts down the whole world. No one should ever been expected to function when snow is falling, or could be reasonably expected to fall within the next 24 to 48 hours.

9. As an adult, the chance of running into friends from HS at the supermarket or whatever is infinitesimal, because everyone moves away (the Heritage Midwesterner often returns to the nest).

It should not be such a surprise, because you don't live there anymore, either.

10. It will always be National Airport

Totally with you on 7-10. I do have some high school friends here but most of my HS classmates (Sidwell) are elsewhere.

I'd add: When you meet someone local, the first question is about where you each went to high school. (I met someone last week, we are both over 50, and the first question he asked me was about where I went to high school).

Yup. And that alone would answer a lot of questions on the private school forum!

How so?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My old friends and I often call it "Washington" which I never hear anymore except on the news.

Anyone who says "the city" arrived 5 mins ago and lives outside the Beltway. If they indeed do live in town and call it this, they need to be forcibly removed.

Also, people who refer to most of DC as "downtown" as opposed to actual "downtown" are new/outside the Beltway as well.

And yes, the newbies are ambitious social and career climber types who always are always basically reading you their resume. It's a dead giveaway.

What about those of us who trained our kids to say DC? As in, I live in Chevy Chase, MD, but go to school in DC.

My family would say “in the District.”

-3rd generation native

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Still Calls Reagan airport national

And will forevermore!

When I am traveling somewhere else, to avoid confusion when asked which airport is my home destination, I say DCA, because I’m certainly not going to say Reagan!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They know what you mean when you say which hospital?

Columbia Hospital for women for me

3rd generation GW for me

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Transplants say how transient the area is.

Natives say that too.

Not really.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ask if they remember the Bayou in Georgetown.

Not really though. Tons of out of state students from G'Town, GW, American, and UMD in the late 80's knew the Bayou. They just hung around the area after college and now call it home. That is not a native.

If you were a young professional then, are you considered a native now?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ask if they remember the Bayou in Georgetown.

Not really though. Tons of out of state students from G'Town, GW, American, and UMD in the late 80's knew the Bayou. They just hung around the area after college and now call it home. That is not a native.

If you were a young professional then, are you considered a native now?

Were you born here?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Natives aren’t obsessed with being perceived as being in a big city, don’t refer to Virginia and Maryland as the “bridge and tunnel crowd”, don’t get all hot and bothered when someone from the MD side of Takoma says they’re from DC and insist they’re actually from Maryland and have nothing to do with DC, don’t care about your brush with some famous politician, doesn’t think “no one is from DC”, doesn’t think all cowboys fans are from Texas and knows why, and definitely doesn’t say DMV unless they mean the department of motor vehicles

Let me guess, you live in MD?
I remember when the Bethesda Metro was being constructed.

This actually does bother me. Ha.

My DH (raised in MD) claims he's "from DC" since he was born in a DC hospital. But as someone actually raised here, I disagree.

But people are always pulling stuff like this. "Where are you from?" DC. "Oh which part?" Vienna.
NOPE. Not DC. Sorry.

True dat.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There is a DMV-Baltimore accent.

Another transplant alert. The accent are completely different. Baltimoreans in particular have one of the most distinct accents in the country (specifically the way they pronounce words ending in an “oo” sound)

DP: Baltimore has a few accents— with sharp differences between White Baltimore accents and Black Baltimore accents.

There is no DMV -Baltimore accent. I don’t even think that “DMV” is a meaningful entity.

A stranger once walked up to me in NYC and asked me if I was from “NW DC” because they thought I sounded like I was. I am. That really made me more attuned to the specificity of micro-accents.

Wow. Did you attend school on the Cathedral Close?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Twenty years from now, the answers will be, "You remember when
1) Jackson-Reed was called Wilson
2) Connecticut Ave used contra-flow during rush hour
3) CityLine was Fannie Mae
4) Georgetown Day and Sidwell had separated campuses
5) Rock Creek Park had car traffic north of Broad Branch
6) You used to watch movies as Mazza Gallerie

Real OGs watched movies at Union Station .

Those theaters opened in 1988.

OK? I can't be a DC native if I was only born in '86?

You corrected the Mazda Gallérie movie mention as if Union Station was something special. It wasn’t.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:National Airport
Cabin John Bridge
Mumbo sauce
Gogo music

We never say that DC is full of transplants, and we get used to having friends move away.

If someone doesn't say the federal agency where they work, chances are it's the CIA.

Spot on!

And if someone says Langley when referring to the CIA. Not from DC and definitely not employed there. Langley is a high school. That is all.

Langley and the CIA are in Virginia, not DC.

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