Worcester Talk

I just saw this article in the Telegram & Gazette.
Simply hysterical and true.
Very, very true.
Working with mostly older Worcesterites, I had to figure out a lot of these on my own. I'd be lying to you if I told you I still didn't have to ask people to translate things for me at times.

Welcome to Wuss-tah

WORCESTERU:A LOOK AT THE COLLEGE WORLD

By Paul Jarvey

pjarvey@telegram.com

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Sure we talk funny. People from Mississippi talk funny. So do Minnesotans, Oregonians and New Yorkers. Especially New Yorkers. The bigger question is why does Worcester have a lake, a village, college and an avenue named Quinsigamond (shortened to Quinsig by all locals), but they're scattered around the city like leaves in the fall?

No, it doesn't make sense unless you know that the community was called Quinsigamond long before it was called Worcester. It's a Native American word that means: “boy, do these folks talk strange.”

So, if you've wandered onto campus from New Jersey, Ohio or some other place where “R” doesn't rhyme with “ah,” and you want the lowdown on the local lingo, you've come to the right place. We've assembled a handy guide to the odd and sometimes confusing Worcester dialect.

Before we get to that, though, you need to know how to properly pronounce Worcester. Don't make it three syllables. Just forget that first E is even there. And never, never, never put an H in the middle of Worcester. People will make fun of you. So, how do you correctly pronounce Worcester?

You've dropped the first E and boiled it down to two syllables. Now eliminate both R's. While you're at it, better get that C out of there. Make the remaining E sort of an AH and turn the O into a U. Wuss-tah. It doesn't rhyme with sister or rooster. The first syllable rhymes with puss. Go ahead and say it. Wuss-tah.

Now you're almost ready to walk into a spa in the village and order a regular coffee and maybe a couple of tonics and a grinder or club sandwich. One more thing. Always include your state as part of your hometown, as in:

“I'm from Wusstahmass.”

Confused?

The following guide to the peculiarities of the Central Mass. dialect should help:

Boys Trade — Worcester Technical High School (It's also known as Voke, but if you call it Worcester Tech you'll only confuse long-time Worcesterites. See Tech entry below)
Bubbler — Water fountain
Candlepin Bowling — Invented in Worcester in 1880 by Justin P. White, this game is also called “little balls.” Find a candlepin alley and you'll discover it's a far superior game to Ten Pin, which is known locally as “big balls.”
Cellar — Basement. (Those who went through the city's public school system in the 1960s or earlier sometimes use basement as a synonym for bathroom.)
Club sandwich — Italian sub
Diner — Good food cheap, but it's only considered a diner if it was made by Worcester Lunch Car Co. The Boulevard (also known as the Bouly) and the Miss Worcester are two examples.
Dinner — Lunch
Dungarees — Blue jeans
East Side — Working-class neighborhoods east of Main Street
Elastic — Rubber band
The Expressway — Interstate 290
Frappe — Ice cream, milk and flavored syrup. (A milkshake leaves out the ice cream.)
Full Worcester — Candlepin bowling term (also Half Worcester and Quarter Worcester)
Grinder — Submarine sandwich
The Hill — Belmont, Vernon or Grafton
Jimmies — Chocolate sprinkles
The Lake — Quinsigamond
Package Store — Place to buy beer and liquor
Packy — Shorthand for package store (also the nickname of the popular bartender at Suney's)
Parlor — Living room
Piazza — Porch
Picker, Picker Bush, Pricker Bush — A burr or other vegetation that grows on a bush and sticks to your clothing. Some use the same word for any bush with thorns.
The Pike — The Massachusetts Turnpike
The Project — Great Brook Valley
Regular coffee — Fully-caffeinated with cream and sugar
Spa — A corner store with soda fountain
Square — All rotaries are squares, but not all squares are rotaries
Tech — WPI (Worcester Polytechnic Institute).
Three-decker — Not a sandwich, but a house with three floors, huge apartments, hundreds of stairs and nowhere close to enough parking
Tonic — Soda pop (of any flavor or brand)
The Village — Quinsigamond (sort of near Holy Cross)
West Side — Neighborhoods west of Park Avenue, desirable digs unless you have to get to Boston in a hurry.
Wicked — Very as in “the veal is wicked good.”
Wormtown, the Worm — Slang for Worcester (City fathers hate the word)
The Woo — Slang for Worcester as well as for the Miss Worcester Diner

•

How to say it:
Auburn — AW-bin
Aunt — AHnt (never Ant)
Berlin — BURL-in
Clinton — Klint'n
Hapast — 30 minutes after the hour, as in “we're gonna eat dinner at hapast 12.”
Lake Chargoggagoggmanchaugagoggchaubunagungamaugg - Wep-stah Lake
Leicester — Less-tah
Leominster — Lemon-stah
Millbury — Mill-bree
New York — Noo Yawk (Rhymes with talk)
Northboro — Nohth-bro (also, West-bro, South-bro and Marl-bro)
Petersham — Peters-am
Pillows — Pill-iz
Pizza — Peetz-er
Route — Same as root (never rhymes with bout)
Shrewsbury — SHOES-bree
Southbridge — Sowt-bridge
Tatnuck — Tatnick
Webster — Wep-stah
Westminster — West-minister
Windows — Wind-iz
With — Witch, as in “Who ya got witch yer”, or “I'll be witch yer in a minute.” (Alternate pronunciation: Wit. “I'll be right wit ya.”)