How do you tell a DC native from a transplant?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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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?

If you know, you know.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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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

My parents and grandparents would say “in the District “. I grew up saying “DC”.

-Another 3rd generation DC native.
PP: I’m squelching the urge to ask you what high school you went to — and where (hospital) you were born. Lol

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Transplants say how transient the area is.

Natives say that too.

Not really.

Yeah, I don’t think so either.

[Anonymous]

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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?

No. Lol: Now that’s REALLY specific!

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DC is too generic, so there aren’t any real characteristics that distinguish DC people from others.

and that's how I know you're a transplant.

What is there? Mumbo sauce, which was invented in Chicago BTW?

DP: Half-Smokes and life experience, babe.

[Anonymous]

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

Providence. And I’m old enough to remember when Providence gave a birthday party on the Mall — complete with cake — for all the people who were born there.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:A native will watch and is a fan of the Washington football team.

Yes! My DH and FIL are proof. For better or (usually) worse, they will not give up on the Redskins. FIL still considers himself a Senators fan!

[Anonymous]

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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.

Oh, honey.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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

Providence Hospital here

[Anonymous]

They are nice. It's really that simple.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

Oh, honey.

Hahaha. That was my phone's autocorrect!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Transplants say how transient the area is.

Natives say that too.

Not really.

I remember sitting at a dinner with a bunch of transplants who were marveling that the Redskins had such a rabid fan base (the good old days - RFK, the Hogs - you know). They said it didn't make sense because Washington was such a transient city. I corrected them.

[Anonymous]

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 .

Aww I watched movies at Union Station. But Mazza Gallerienis where we took our kids to see Santa for all their formative years

[Anonymous]

It was wild listening to the older generation talk about growing up in DC. How they hung out at a roller skating rink in the 60's and before that (during segregation) there were clubs that had no names and were basically downstairs of someone's home.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Transplants say how transient the area is.

Natives say that too.

Not really.

I remember sitting at a dinner with a bunch of transplants who were marveling that the Redskins had such a rabid fan base (the good old days - RFK, the Hogs - you know). They said it didn't make sense because Washington was such a transient city. I corrected them.

My neighbor across the street was a huge Redskins fan with the bumper stickers on her car. Back then they didn't make flags for sports teams but in the early 2000's she started put up a Redskins flag. She passed away 6 years ago. That generation of fans is dying out.