Written on the pavement
at First Street
along the Gowanus Canal.
Backing-up zone
or
Backing up-zone?
Thursday, February 26, 2009
Picture Of The Day: Gowanus Hyphen Challenge
Written on the pavement
at First Street
along the Gowanus Canal.
Backing-up zone
or
Backing up-zone?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
.JPG)
6 comments:
I think it says
'Backin' not Backing.
Haha - make that
BACKIN'
UP-ZONE
This is definitive Brooklyneeze
walked by a place on Chrystie st in chinatown near Hester yesterday...
sign says ' No Transpassing'
As long as they don't use any 'trans'-fats
"hey, backup", this is a uniquely original brooklyn slang developed way back when as the streets were very narrow on the place blocks so, when we were playing skelsie or Fozzying and someone wanted to park and the guy behind him was not paying attention tailgated, the goomba, i mean, gentleman would politely roll down his window and say "hey, backup", the driver behind him, realizing he made a mistake would put his auto in reverse and patiently wait and curse under his breath cause he was in a hurry., there was no eeny-meeny- miney-moe" ? about parking spaces around here,
"can i back in?", as mentioned previously, since the streets are narrow here, when the spot seemed a wee bit small, the operator of the vehicle would roll down his window and ask a passerby or the Shala-bubbala to size up the spot for him and give him a suggestion if he could fit or not,
so "back in" and "back up" are handed down thru the generations here as the kids played Oly-oly-oxen- free, these terms are native to the geograhical area here but, of course, as others moved away, they took the language with them to pass on, they can be used interchangeably and incorrectly but no spelling bee here
of course as the longshoremen came home from the docks after a day in the "hole", if there was a Weisenheimer behind him, the conversation was a little more graphic and colored, so to speak, with an ample supply of disgrunted looks and language not to mention a certain hand signal not neccessarily used or appropiate for a right or left turn but the driver behind usually just backed up quietly providing the driver looking to get home to his family more than enough space to parallel park his car and the corner man would sometimes hold spots for others till they got home,
not for nothing, but
a deviate of this, eventually evolverd to "back the something off", i don't remember much about that, and then, it may just be a error in grammar and will be changed soon
http://www.lampos.com/brooklyn.htm
or
http://www.care2.com/c2c/groups/disc.html?gpp=4330&pst=466505
k,
Whatsamattaferu, "brooklyn" on the t-shirt but it don't mean nuthin' if ya dunt speak the langrage
(lol)
Post a Comment