A favorite piece of mud season wisdom from the Yankee archives: “Mud season is God’s way of letting New Englanders know they haven’t gotten to heaven yet.” PackieĪ popular piece of Boston slang, “packie” - short for “package store” - describes a no-frills liquor store. In what is jokingly dubbed “the fifth New England season,” the victims include stuck cars and countless pairs of ruined white sneakers (not “tennis shoes”). Sometime after the last winter nor’easter but before the first warm days of late spring, we New Englanders have to grit our teeth and get through the soggy mud season. The official “vulgar slang” definition? “A contemptuous term for a native or inhabitant of the state of Massachusetts.” Mud Season We weren’t going to include this colorful derogatory term for certain residents of Massachusetts (almost always applied to careless drivers or tourists behaving badly), but since the word was added to the Oxford English Dictionary in 2015, it seemed only fair to give it a mention. Learn more in Yankee’s humorous “Guide to New England Leaf Peepers.” Ma**hole They also keep local inns, B&Bs, and restaurants humming, so we gladly welcome them back. Leaf peepers are the tourists who visit New England each year to eat their weight in cider doughnuts and gawk (often while driving well below the speed limit) at the beautiful autumn foliage. Not to be confused with Johnny Appleseed (he hailed from Leominster, Massachusetts) or Rhode Island cornmeal johnnycakes, a johnny is a hospital gown, especially in Boston. It’s believed the term came from the gown’s open back, designed to provide easy access to the toilet, aka the john. (Want to show your regional pride with every cone? Learn more about New England’s favorite ice cream flavors.) Johnny Some say there are chocolate jimmies and rainbow sprinkles, but I grew up saying “rainbow jimmies,” so I think this one is a matter of family preference. The colorful candies that are sprinkled over ice cream or a birthday cake are jimmies, not sprinkles. Jimmies | Guide to New England Slang Photo Credit : Aimee Tucker Jimmies This New England slang describes the long, boatlike sandwich that people outside the region typically refer to as a sub, which is short for “submarine sandwich.” The latter term was also coined in New England but has since spread to all corners of the country. Along with potholes, they make driving in New England even less fun than it already is. Think of them as spring’s infuriating natural speed bumps. Each year, after months of freezing and thawing, the back roads that crisscross our more rural areas are plagued with frost heaves. Winter takes a toll on New England roads. Thick, creamy, cold, and delicious, a frappe (especially a coffee malted frappe) is one of the few ways to make a humid New England summer slightly more bearable. Learn more about milkshakes, frappes, and cabinets (the Rhode Island version of a frappe) here.įrost Heave | Guide to New England Slang Photo Credit : Aimee Tucker Frost Heave A milkshake is just milk blended with flavored syrup. In the rest of the country, an elastic is something used to keep a ponytail in place, but here in New England, we use elastics (not “rubber bands”) for ponytails and more.įrappes & Tonic Floats | Guide to New England Slang Photo Credit : Aimee Seavey Frappe It’s often confusing for visitors “from away” because it does not apply to the lower portion of the state. The term itself is in reference to the direction ships sail. “Down East” refers to a section of the Maine coast that runs from Penobscot Bay to the Canadian border. This is a New Englander’s reference to a basement, especially when describing where something or someone is, or should be. Vermonters are especially fond of maple creemees. In Vermont, “creemee” is the unique term for the ice cream style that most of us refer to as soft-serve. You might know a clicker better as a remote, but the word “remote” doesn’t sound nearly as good with a Boston accent.Ĭreemee | Guide to New England Slang Photo Credit : Aimee Tucker Creemee Clickerĭon’t like what’s on TV? Grab the clicker and change the channel. When shopping at Shaw’s, Hannaford, or Market Basket, we do not put our Moxie, B&M Brown Bread in a Can, and Humpty Dumpty barbecue chips into a shopping cart. Bonus: The town at the tip of the Cape is called P-town, the universal New England shorthand for Provincetown.Ĭarriage | Guide to New England Slang Photo Credit : Wikimedia Commons Carriage If “the Cape” is dropped in casual conversation with a native New Englander, it’s in reference to Cape Cod, not Cape Ann (nor the red piece of material that Superman wears around his shoulders).
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