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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”

#111

Post by Intermernet »

In Sydney, Australia we tend to use exactly the same nomenclature, but over (East) is never very far. You might go over to Bondi. Out (west) tends to include everything until the centre of Australia (going out to Bathurst, going way out to Alice Springs, or even just going out west).

Up and down tend to extend the entire north - south distance of the country. Up to eff-en-cue (FNQ = Far North Queensland) or down to Tassie (Tasmania).

I think the extended distances compared to Texas is probably due to the vast amount of nothing throughout most of Australia.

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

#112

Post by MandieD »

weinzierl wrote: post #53
hibbelig wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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".

I noticed the same thing as a native Texan living in northern Bavaria. It's caused me to seriously mix up east and west in Austria and Switzerland - in my mental map, Salzburg is to the left of Innsbruck, which is to the left of Switzerland. However, my mental map of northern Bavaria, along with the rest of Germany, is aligned east=right, west=left, north=up.

Result? Pretty much anywhere is somewhere I'm going "up" to, be it Salzburg or Hannover.

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

#113

Post by izuchukwu »

hmcdona1 wrote: post #104
technofiend wrote: post #62

I guess y'all are fixin to use our directional words. Honestly Houston (and I'm sure the other major cities too) has a bunch of weird pronunciation that marks natives versus folks just lucky enough to move here and I assumed the article was going to go into things like "fixing" or our weird town names. Here in Houston for example "Kuykendall" Street is pronounced with an R like the Dutch name from which it derives "K…

My favorite is if you're from Houston you call on/off ramps "feeder roads". I don't think people use that term anywhere else.

From Houston myself—I’ve mostly seen feeder roads refer to the roads with ramps alongside freeways, not the ramps themselves. Since moving, I’ve seen them called frontage roads elsewhere.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frontage_road#Texas

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

#114

Post by hnruss »

zwieback wrote: post #10

I thought that was universal, for me it's up to Portland, down to Eugene, out to Newport (coast), over (the mountains) to Bend. My kids, who are just starting to drive, don't know their compass directions that well (and maybe never will, thanks to GPS) so they say wrong things like "up to California".

Same in coastal Northern CA: Up the 101 to Portland, down the 101 to San Fran, over (the mountains) to Redding, or (a short drive) out to the coast. Sometimes we’d go “up into the hills” nearby.

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

#115

Post by midgetjones »

globuous wrote: post #87

Very 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…

Same in the UK, it's always "going up to London". Maybe it's a subconscious status thing?

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

#116

Post by mseebach »

laurieg wrote: post #102
globuous wrote: post #87

Very 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…

In Japan there is a similar phenomenon. Trains going to the capital (or other urban center) use the word 'going up' (上り) and trains going away from the capital use the 'going down' (下り). This is so well used that signs and station announcements use the words too. It's not just a colloquialism.

It's established early railway lingo in the UK. I'm not sure how common it is in casual non-railway usage, but apparently stations have up- and down platforms and staff might refer to the 7.50 'up' train.

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

#117

Post by jgtrosh »

globuous wrote: post #87

Very 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…

French here: I'd never learned formally about this rule, I was just used to hearing the expression with a vague sense of what it meant; I often say I go down to Paris from the countryside thinking about elevation (bassin parisien) and with a sense of “going down” on the town. But then again I also say « monter sur Paris » some of the time like everybody.

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

#118

Post by PuffinBlue »

midgetjones wrote: post #115
globuous wrote: post #87

Very 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…

Same in the UK, it's always "going up to London". Maybe it's a subconscious status thing?

Hmm, it's not always 'up to London'. I've lived in a lot of different places and the ups downs and across's are almost universally linked to geography.

Anywhere south of the M4 tends to say 'up to London'.

Anywhere within about 1 hour drive tends to use the geographic position interchangeably with 'into London', with increasing use of the latter the closer you get to the city. This is also affected by commuter popularity and transport links. Cambridge seems to use 'into' more than its location would suggest for instance.

Those in the West like Bristol or Wales tend to use 'across'.

Birmingham is kind of the middle ground but from about Sheffield up its almost universally 'down' in my experience.

Having lived in Scotland it mostly just 'to', nothing about up down or across. You really feel the distance up there.

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

#119

Post by mhandley »

globuous wrote: post #87

Very 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…

In the UK, up and down are terms used by the railways. The up line generally heads towards a big city (London for much of the UK), and down heads away. Seems like this is the case in some other countries too:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rail_directions

To some extent the terminology has crept into general use. I grew up just north of London, but we always went up to London.

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