Who taught: Jackie and Alex

Pittsburgh Downtown

Ever since I came to the U.S. to study at Carnegie Mellon University, I have been living in the same city, Pittsburgh. My first impression of the city was not really good. It is a small city and I was not able to find many exciting things, you know, things you can find in New York city or Chicago. I remember the first Christmas in Pittsburgh. Jessy and  I, at that time, did not have many American friends and many of our Korean friends went back to Korea during the winter break. So, we decided to go to downtown to spend some time there. You know what we saw? Nothing!  There were dark buildings and almost nobody on the streets. We had to come back to our apartment, so shocked. Later, we found that it is not a good idea to go to downtown at night due to the security reason.

Carnegie Mellon University

But, the more we live, we became to like it. I really like fall in PGH. Leaves are so colorful and temperature is perfect. In addition, Pittsburgh has Steelers (football) and Penguins (ice hockey). There is also Pirates (baseball). Well, frankly they suck but I still like them because I like going to PNC Park to see games, hanging out with friends. You know what? Pittsburgh has been chose by Forbes.com as the most livable cities in the U.S.

Speaking of Pittsburgh, I had also learned a few dialects that only Pittsburghers are using. For example, they have very special pronunciation for “downtown.” They, even me, say like “dahntahn.” So, if you get on a bus in PGH to go to downtown and try to find out whether it goes to downtown or not. Try to say, “Is this going to dahntahn?”, to the bus driver!

Last Friday, Jackie, my company’s office manager, sent an email to everybody, asking to clean eveybody’s desk up. In her email, she said, “The office needs red-up!” and “Thank you in advance for redding up!” From the context, I was able to understand what she was saying but I did not have any idea about “red up.” So, I looked it up in the urban dictionary.

Pittsburghese for “clean-up”

The other thing I learned from my friend, Alex, is “Coke.” In southern states, “Coke” means “soda” not just a Coke from Coca Cola. It even includes “Pepsi.” Isn’t it interesting?

I am pretty sure there are a lot more expressions only Pittsburgh people use. Also, there must be so many different expressions in different part of the U.S. or in other English-speaking countries. I would like to learn those too. It would be fun to compare all these different ones. Hey! My friends out there staying in other parts of the U.S. or other English-speaking countries! Could you share some of the expressions yinz guyz only use?