mysteries of Boston

[calimac]

1. Taxis at the train station
On arriving, we headed to the taxi rank, where the only two cabs present were leaving with other passengers. Then a windowless, black minivan pulled up and a nattily dressed driver hopped out and addressed me with "Taxi?"
I looked at his van, which was entirely unmarked. Then I looked back at him and said, "You're not a taxi."
Interestingly, he didn't try to argue the point, he just accosted the next person in line. I didn't see what happened next, as just then what actually looked like, and indeed was, a taxi pulled up.

2. The restrooms at the Boston Public Library
No toilet paper. No paper towels. No dispensers.

3. Boston's reputation as hard to navigate
I've done London. I've done Rome. Boston, not so tough.
After 3 days in town, I finally rented a car to get out to the suburbs. OK, on the way out, unexpected one way streets did send me on a slightly exciting twisty tour of Beacon Hill. But despite my suburban host's horror that I was planning to drive back downtown, in the dark, without a GPS, I guessed at the right routes and exits and pulled up directly to the hotel's front door with no delays. Navigation-fu at its mightiest.

4. Using "wicked" as an adverb
When did this become a thing? I never heard it until about a decade ago, and then from just one Bostonian I had not previously known. Now it's all over subway hoardings, t-shirts and other tourist kitsch, even the name of the municipal wifi network.
Surely such a heavily commercialized usage ought never to be heard on the lips of any self-respecting local again.

Comments

[thnidu.livejournal.com]

I lived in eastern Mass. for 20 years, up till just after the turn of the millennium. That idiom was already as well established there as "Noo Joisey" is in Noo Yawk, and as much a shibboleth of local speech. If da advatizehs wants to make money off of it, let 'em go ahead, what's it got to do wid us?

I well remember a conversation at lunch in the company cafeteria at Honeywell Bull in Billerica, Mass. A co-worker was peeving about the ungrammaticality and contradictoriness of "wicked good": "Wicked is the opposite of good! How can anyone possibly be expected to make sense of that?" I thought a moment, then said, "Oh, I don't know. I think it's pretty good. In fact, I think it's awful nice." After a moment she froze, forkful of spaghetti in midair, head bent toward it, and mouth wide open, as the implications hit her. Our other dining com(-)pan(-)ion laughed, "He's got you there!"

Respectfully submitted,
Dr. Whom: Consulting Linguist, Grammarian, Orthoëpist, and Philological Busybody

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

You should have said to your cow-orker, "I could care less," and watched her head explode. Or should I say, "literally explode"?

[whswhs.livejournal.com]

Are Americans saying "wicked" now? I think of it as British usage.

[cmcmck.livejournal.com]

I believe it is, but I'd thought it was originally imported from that side of the pond?

A wiki search suggests that it is, indeed Boston slang and not new and is also to be found in New England.

Ah, the delights of google-fu! :o)

[nellorat.livejournal.com]

Several decades ago, Supergee's sister was chagrined that her Maine-raised daughters had picked up "wicked" as an intensifier. No worse than "way." Though I like the origin of "very" & would like to see a comeback for it.

[vgqn.livejournal.com]

Right, I think of wicked as a Maine-ism from way back, from the early 19th century according to some sources.

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

I independently invented "yes way" as the opposite of "no way" (to use on little brothers) and felt a little like Darwin encountering Wallace when "way" showed up some time later.

[(Anonymous)]

"You're wicked gross." --Faith to the Mayor in "Choices" (Buffy Season 3, 1999) was the first time I heard it.

Don Keller

[n6tqs.livejournal.com]

I'm on a boat MYSTIC, in front of the Federal Courthouse, until late tomorrow.

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

Now we're down in Southwestern Massachusetts, far inland, but we were at the NE Aquarium on Thursday.