Too many people sleep on or disparage Texas, it’s such a diverse/weird/surprising/sometimesDisapointing place. It’s definitely not some place that can be categorized or disparaged with only a few words. Disclosure: I grew up in Houston
Talk Like a Texan: How Texans Use “Down,” “Out,” “Over,” and “Up”
91–100 of 136 posts
Re: Talk Like a Texan: How Texans Use “Down,” “Out,” “Over,” and “Up”
#92In 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.
I've never heard 'up to London'; being from Manchester, London was definitely "down South".
Coming 'up' to Cambridge had a specific meaning, of matriculating at the University. For example: I came up to Cambridge in 2002. I assume that the University of Oxford uses it in the same way?
Re: Talk Like a Texan: How Texans Use “Down,” “Out,” “Over,” and “Up”
#93Re: Talk Like a Texan: How Texans Use “Down,” “Out,” “Over,” and “Up”
#94Re: Talk Like a Texan: How Texans Use “Down,” “Out,” “Over,” and “Up”
#95Earlier 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"…
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…
In Santa Barbara I’ve herd (geeky) people refer to grid-north and grid-south to refer to directions along the axis that US101 and State St follow.
Re: Talk Like a Texan: How Texans Use “Down,” “Out,” “Over,” and “Up”
#96As 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."
I would not say this as a native Californian.
Re: Talk Like a Texan: How Texans Use “Down,” “Out,” “Over,” and “Up”
#97Very interesting ! Funny thing, in France we do use "up" and "down" but with a different set of axis. They don't represent north and south. If you're in Lille (north of Paris), you'd say "I'm going up to Paris" although you'd be going south. If you're in Paris and you're going to Lille, you'd say "I'm going down to Lille" although you'd be going north. But if you're going to Lyon from Paris, you'd say "I'm going down…
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Re: Talk Like a Texan: How Texans Use “Down,” “Out,” “Over,” and “Up”
#98Very interesting ! Funny thing, in France we do use "up" and "down" but with a different set of axis. They don't represent north and south. If you're in Lille (north of Paris), you'd say "I'm going up to Paris" although you'd be going south. If you're in Paris and you're going to Lille, you'd say "I'm going down to Lille" although you'd be going north. But if you're going to Lyon from Paris, you'd say "I'm going down…
Native French speaker here. I can confirm. "Going up to" (monter sur) refers to somewhere central while "going down to" (descendre sur) refers to a peripheral location.
Re: Talk Like a Texan: How Texans Use “Down,” “Out,” “Over,” and “Up”
#99In 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.
I've never heard 'up to London'; being from Manchester, London was definitely "down South". Coming 'up' to Cambridge had a specific meaning, of matriculating at the University. For example: I came up to Cambridge in 2002. I assume that the University of Oxford uses it in the same way?
I came up to Cambridge in 2004 and was at Oxford before that. I can confirm that both places use it in this sense. :) That said, I've also noticed that many of my friends from those years still use "up" when simply visiting Oxford or Cambridge, and I do get the odd alumni e-mail inviting me to come "up" to Cambridge (not sure if this is unique to a secretary at Clare, or more widely used).
Re: Talk Like a Texan: How Texans Use “Down,” “Out,” “Over,” and “Up”
#100Honestly, 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,…
It's still kind of true within Texas that going to the West takes you away from civilization. The four biggest cities are all in the eastern part of the state, and the western part of the state is a whole lot of very empty desert punctuated with smaller cities and towns that are very far apart.
One could even consider it a smaller equivalent of the Australian Outback, another occurrence of the word "out".