Like most childhood indignities, this one was suffered on the playground.
I was 8 years old and we’d just moved from the city to the suburbs. I was playing a game of pickup baseball (Nintendo had not yet wrought havoc on outdoor activities) and at some point during an argument about an out call, I let fly a “yinz.” An older kid chided me — “You said yinz! What are you, STUPID??” before shoving me to the ground.
This is the only bullying I endured in my charmed upbringing. But it stuck with me. For years and years, I’d bristle when people poked fun at our Picksburgh patois, our Mon lexicon.
Perhaps because I was a child of the ’80s and came of age in the ’90s — during decades of decline for my hometown — I would become defensive, especially while away at college. Yeah, we talk funny. So does your mom.
But long before The New York Times called us the Galapagos Island of dialects and Gawker said we have the ugliest accent in America (have they never heard a Bostonian speak?), I was appreciating our variances — the accents within an accent.
There is classic city and immediate suburb Pittsburghese — its cadence that of a tight mumbling and melding of syllables. There is a looser, twangier country version that emerges beyond the Allegheny County line. African-American Pittsburghers can have their own twists on the dialect (“core” instead of “car,” for instance), with Charlie Batch being a favorite in this category. There’s also the erudite yinzer, such as Rick Sebak, and don’t forget the great Yiddish Yinzer (RIP, Myron Cope). And there are the mustachioed ex-coach TV analysts (lookin’ at yinz guys, Cahr & Wanny).
Speaking of yinz (the word, not you reading this), it’s a bumper sticker. It’s a T-shirt. It’s a coffee mug.
Derived from the working-class Scottish word “yin” meaning “one,” it has become a brand. It is used both ironically and without pretense. Its derivative, “yinzer,” is like the “aloha” of Pittsburghese, a pliable term of endearment or derision depending on the context.
To wit: Some fire-breathing nut on talk radio demanding Mike Tomlin’s firing, despite him never having a losing season, is a dumb yinzer, but that same guy slapping you on the back at Heinz Field after a big win is your yinzer brethren.
Some of my favorite Pittsburghese:
Gumbans — First week of freshman year of college in Baltimore, I had run off a few hundred pages of text and copies of notes for some class that I’d probably barely pass and needed some means of keeping them together. I went to the help desk and asked for gumbans. A few minutes and a circular discussion reminiscent of the Abbott & Costello “Who’s on first?” routine later, the helper realized I was asking for rubber bands. This always will be my favorite Pittsburgh word simply for this memory.
Mahnawlver — This local speak for Mount Oliver, the little borough wedged betwixt several south city hilltop neighborhoods, might be the most perfect of Pittsburgh words. It combines a monophthongization unique to the region (in its pronunciation of Mount) plus the great Pittsburgh tradition of not only eliminating a syllable in geographic terms, but also making two words into one (see also: Liberty, East).
Redd up — Per Wikipedia, it’s “almost certainly of Scandinavian/Viking origin; the Danish ‘rydde op’ means to clean up. ‘Redd up’ and its associated variants probably entered the English language during the Danish occupation of Britain, roughly a thousand years ago.” A thousand-year-old phrase that your “mum” breaks out when company’s coming. That’s just awesome.
Needs done, needs fixed, etc. — I don’t care if this participle construction is not grammatically correct, it makes perfect sense, and dumping the superfluous “to be” is pure linguistic efficiency.
Gutchies — Your knickers or drawers. As in, don’t get ’em in a bunch over the way we talk.
As Pittsburgh has thrived over the last decade-plus, rebounding from the ’80s and ’90s of my youth, we’ve developed a new appreciation and affection for our affectations.
So, go ahead, celebrate your Scots-Irish-descended dialect, because as the industrial past fades into the mind’s eye and museums, and we welcome more non-natives to our modern yet historic city, we need to hang onto that which makes us unique. N’at.
Dan Gigler is a staff writer for the Post-Gazette (dgigler@post-gazette.com, 412-263-1884).
First Published: April 16, 2016, 4:00 a.m.