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Talk Like a Texan: How Texans Use “Down,” “Out,” “Over,” and “Up”

texasmonthly.com

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Re: Talk Like a Texan: How Texans Use “Down,” “Out,” “Over,” and “Up”

#51

Post by jessriedel »

username223 wrote: post #37
__david__ wrote: post #26

As a native Californian I definitely use "up" and "down". Up to L.A., down to San Diego. I might make a trip up the coast to Oregon or Washington. I also might go back east (meaning the east coast). Never used "out" though, probably because I'm already about as west as you can go on this continent! "Over", however is just used without regard to direction, though it generally signifies a close distance. I'd head over…

As a native of... nowhere in particular, I think "up" and "down" are pretty universal among Americans for "north" and "south." I wouldn't be surprised if they're near-universal to inhabitants of the northern hemisphere, since that's the way maps are drawn. A possible exception would be inhabitants of mountainous regions saying e.g. "up to Leadville" or "down to Denver." Having lived in Houston, I didn't notice "over"…

Up/down = north/south in my experience near DC as well, although they sometimes are follow the highway directions rather than geographic ones. People say they go "up" to NYC even though NYC is slightly more east of DC than north -- the point is that you take 95N to get there. This was even more extreme in Santa Barbara, CA, where the coastline turns east-west, and people talked about taking 101S "down" to Ventura or LA, even though those were 90% east.

Re: Talk Like a Texan: How Texans Use “Down,” “Out,” “Over,” and “Up”

#52

Post by nograpes »

In North Ontario, Canada, and in some parts of the East coast, many speakers use the words "up" and "down" to refer to elevation rather than direction. So you would say "I'm going up to the store" only if the store was higher in elevation than where you were currently standing, even slightly.

I grew up in North Ontario, but my parents were not native English speakers, and it was only in my late teens that most of my friends (who had native English speaker parents) were using the terms this way. I used "up" and "down" interchangeably.

What amazed me is that this implied an intrinsic awareness of elevation, which I didn't have; everybody else always knew if your house was higher than their house.

In some cases, the up/down distinction was used in place of left and right. In fact, I learned about this distinction sitting in a car at an intersection and getting the directions "just go up the road", as if that was totally unambiguous.

Re: Talk Like a Texan: How Texans Use “Down,” “Out,” “Over,” and “Up”

#53

Post by weinzierl »

hibbelig wrote: post #48
username223 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a native of... nowhere in particular, I think "up" and "down" are pretty universal among Americans for "north" and "south." I wouldn't be surprised if they're near-universal to inhabitants of the northern hemisphere, since that's the way maps are drawn. A possible exception would be inhabitants of mountainous regions saying e.g. "up to Leadville" or "down to Denver." Having lived in Houston, I didn't notice "over"…

German here. Up and down are not related to north and south for me. Maybe it's because streets are not neatly arranged like that?

Southern German here and up and down are related to elevation where I live. We drive up to Garmisch (700 m) but down to Munich (500 m) for example. Garmisch is south of Munich.

In dialect we also have different words depending on the the location of the speaker. "I drive up to Garmisch" vs "I drive up from Munich" would be different words for "up".

Re: Talk Like a Texan: How Texans Use “Down,” “Out,” “Over,” and “Up”

#54

Post by rconti »

markcerqueira wrote: post #42
__david__ wrote: post #26

As a native Californian I definitely use "up" and "down". Up to L.A., down to San Diego. I might make a trip up the coast to Oregon or Washington. I also might go back east (meaning the east coast). Never used "out" though, probably because I'm already about as west as you can go on this continent! "Over", however is just used without regard to direction, though it generally signifies a close distance. I'd head over…

I'm surprised to hear a native Californian would say "back east." I thought only people from the East Coast (or I guessed who lived there at one point) would go "back."

As a native west coaster I would not say "I'm going back east" but I might say "she lives back east".

Re: Talk Like a Texan: How Texans Use “Down,” “Out,” “Over,” and “Up”

#55

Post by bshimmin »

In England, if you're fairly traditional, you would always say up to London, Oxford, or Cambridge (and, from the latter two, if you are a student and temporarily expelled, you are "sent down" - or "rusticated", to use a lovely word), whether you're starting from the north or the south.

Re: Talk Like a Texan: How Texans Use “Down,” “Out,” “Over,” and “Up”

#56

Post by rconti »

I once tried to explain to my French host family when I would use 'oh' versus 'zero' when describing numbers, but I couldn't come up with a rule. My phone number has a 0 in the middle of the area code ('four oh eight') but elsewhere in my phone number, I use 'zero'. I couldn't correlate zero-versus-oh to position in the string nor what came before or after it. Yet it's totally natural to me to use each in the 'correct' place. I think others do, too, but I don't know if we have the same 'correct' place.

Re: Talk Like a Texan: How Texans Use “Down,” “Out,” “Over,” and “Up”

#57

Post by Sniffnoy »

Sir_Cmpwn wrote: post #30

Was talking with a Japanese friend the other day and had a great conversation trying to nail down the meanings of over by, out near, up there, down by, etc, using local landmarks. The Japanese equivalents are ここ、そこ、あこ, meaning respectively "here", "there (nearer)", and "there (further)". There's also これ、それ、あれ, meaning "this", "that (nearer)", and "that (further)". These distances can be both spatial, temporal, and me…

I think the archaic English equivalent is "here", "there", "yonder"?

Re: Talk Like a Texan: How Texans Use “Down,” “Out,” “Over,” and “Up”

#58

Post by blunte »

gowld wrote: post #40
blunte wrote: post #15

Honestly, I never thought about the "rules" of how these words were used... that's just how we talk in much of Texas (and probably other places). I can guess that "out" meaning west is because in early American times, going west was dangerous. You were going "out" of safety and into the wild. Going "over" just meant going horizontally on the map but within an established (safe) area. Up and down are kind of obvious,…

> so we don't often hear about the quirks of Iowans. It's highlighted in one of the most famous Broadway shows of all time. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xV7ZcVFSWWU&t=1m50s

I clearly picked exactly the wrong example!

Re: Talk Like a Texan: How Texans Use “Down,” “Out,” “Over,” and “Up”

#59

Post by philsnow »

rconti wrote: post #56

I once tried to explain to my French host family when I would use 'oh' versus 'zero' when describing numbers, but I couldn't come up with a rule. My phone number has a 0 in the middle of the area code ('four oh eight') but elsewhere in my phone number, I use 'zero'. I couldn't correlate zero-versus-oh to position in the string nor what came before or after it. Yet it's totally natural to me to use each in the 'correc…

for me I seem to say zero after numbers ending in vowel sounds:

  one oh
  two zero
  three zero
  four oh
  five oh
  six oh
  seven oh
  eight oh
  nine oh

Re: Talk Like a Texan: How Texans Use “Down,” “Out,” “Over,” and “Up”

#60

Post by philsnow »

Sir_Cmpwn wrote: post #30

Was talking with a Japanese friend the other day and had a great conversation trying to nail down the meanings of over by, out near, up there, down by, etc, using local landmarks. The Japanese equivalents are ここ、そこ、あこ, meaning respectively "here", "there (nearer)", and "there (further)". There's also これ、それ、あれ, meaning "this", "that (nearer)", and "that (further)". These distances can be both spatial, temporal, and me…

I always thought the close one is used for things that are closer to the speaker than the listener, the middle one is used for things that are more or less in between the speaker and the listener, and the 'far' one is used for things that are far away from both the speaker and the listener. can any native speakers say whether there is any sense of that, or does it not have anything to do with the listener?
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